By Ox Drover
After reading Steve Becker’s article yesterday, I commented that most of the articles here on Lovefraud that could be entitled “1001 Things I Did Wrong in Dealing with a Psychopath” were the ones that applied most to my own dealings with them.
That was meant as a joke, but after I left that comment for Steve, I got to thinking about how right-on it was, joke or not, because I have done so much wrong in dealing with these people. I got my self deeper and deeper into trouble, doing the wrong things in interacting with them. Not that I was intentionally doing something mean or “wrong” per se, but I didn’t make choices that led to positive outcomes in dealing with the psychopaths in my life.
One of the reasons I did 1001 things wrong was that I didn’t know what I was dealing with. I thought I was dealing with people who had good intentions toward me, just as I had good intentions toward them. Boy, was that a wrong thing to assume. But because I assumed this error in fact about their intentions, I tried to “be reasonable” with them. That sure didn’t work. They broke their word to me time and time again. It took me a long time “to get it through my thick skull,” as MaryJo Buttafuoco said in her book, and then, when I did get it through my thick head that “Person A” couldn’t be trusted, I didn’t “generalize” that knowledge to other people who also broke their words to me over and over and over again.
Learning to generalize
Even animals can learn to generalize. A friend and I trained steer, getting them used to “something that rattled.” It didn’t matter what rattled; we would use plastic milk jugs with rocks in them, and tie those jugs to their tails so that every time they took a step, this “rattling monster” attached to them would make noise and follow them. For a little while they were scared and ran from it, but eventually they got the idea that the “rattling monster” wasn’t going to be outrun by them (it always kept up), and it wasn’t actually going to hurt them. Eventually they decided anything that rattled and made noise was harmless.
With one set of young steers my friend trained though, if you got them used to a white jug with rocks in it, and they weren’t afraid of it any more, if you used a yellow jug, they would go back to SQUARE ONE PANIC AGAIN, with each tiny change in the “monster.” They didn’t “generalize” very well and were always hyper-alert and on guard. He eventually got them so they were “dynamite proof,” so he could take them out in public without being afraid they would panic at the first sound they weren’t used to, or the first loud retort from a fire cracker, but he and I both thought for a long time they might not ever generalize enough to be safe from panicking and running away out in public.
Abusive behavior
I think in a way I also didn’t “generalize” the abusive behaviors of the various psychopaths I encountered. When a boss would be dishonest and verbally abusive to me, I was upset and “panicked” at the unexpected behavior, trying to figure out how to not get hurt, but when a relative would do this same kind of behavior I, again, panicked and didn’t realize that the “rattle” was just the same kind of “monster” that I had encountered with the other psychopath. Of course I didn’t realize then that the psychopathic “monsters” had a name or that their lack of empathy and their damage was definitely destructive, unlike a milk jug with a few rocks in it.
I not only tried to be “reasonable” with the psychopaths, but I also tried to placate them, to make them see, by being extra nice to them and not “bowing up and fighting back,” that I wasn’t trying to hurt them. I wanted to be “friends” and get along.
Of course, when a prey animal tries to get along with a predator animal we know what happens, don’t we? The prey animal gets the worst end of the deal. Yep, I did get the worst end of the deal trying to “make nice” with the psychopaths, but again, I didn’t learn that a psychopath is a psychopath is a psychopath is a predator! Rather than generalize this hurtful behavior to a class of people, I saw each one as an individual person with “reasons” and “excuses” and the “potential to change” and “see the light” when there was no chance that they were going to have any empathy, much less sympathy, for the pain they caused me or anyone else. They didn’t give a hoot how badly they hurt me as long as they got what they wanted.
Wanted to get along
I also didn’t really see what it was that they actually wanted. I didn’t want to cause anyone any pain, I wanted to love people and get along with them and share good things and help folks out. This is what I thought that everyone wanted. What they actually did want, however, was to control me, humiliate me, and to get me to provide them with their own twisted idea of a relationship—all take on their part and all give on mine.
Just like the hyper-alert steers, I didn’t feel comfortable, and was always jumpy, expecting something to hit me, but I wasn’t sure where it would come from, so each time a psychopath lied to me, stole from me, took advantage of me, I was totally surprised again and again.
Eventually that young pair of steers got to where they were not surprised by anything in the way of a loud noise and they calmed down and became a reliable pair of working steers (oxen). But it was only because they learned to move from the individual to the general concepts of what would or would not hurt them. They learned that a little yappy dog running at their feet was not a danger, but that a large aggressive dog was something that they should kick at or hook at with their horns. They learned that the sound of a fire cracker or a car back firing, or a cannon shooting at a historical reenactment, wasn’t going to hurt them and they didn’t need to pay it any attention. They learned to distinguish between harmless noises like people yelling or laughing and their drover saying “get up” and meaning it!
I’m not sure why these particular steers were so difficult to train. Perhaps it was because the breed was the wilder Spanish cattle from Mexico whose ancestors that had not jumped every time there was a noise in the brush had been taken out of the gene pool by the wolves, coyotes and mountain lions, so only the “jumpy” ones were left.
Changed my response
I’m also not sure why I didn’t generalize from the abusive behavior I endured over and over, or change the failed attempts to get it to stop by doing repeatedly something that had not worked. Someone once said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” I sure did enough of that for two lifetimes. Now I have changed the way I respond to abusive behavior. I am learning to distinguish the difference between “harmless rattles” and “real threats” from predators.
I have made some general “rules” to guide me in my differentiation of what is “harmless” and what is “threatening.” First off, it depends on how close to me the threat is. A rattle snake at 10 yards from me is no threat at all. I know he could hurt me if he was closer, but I will not let him get close enough to strike me, so I don’t have to fear him. If that same rattle snake is 3 feet from me, I take a different view of the potential for harm from the same snake, and react in a different way than I do to the one who is 30 feet away.
If a person who is not “close to me” lies to me, it probably isn’t going to be much of a danger to me, unless it is a big business deal. I don’t fear that lie from someone I don’t really have any connection with, I just notice (like with the rattle snake at a distance) that the person is dishonest, I don’t want him to get closer to me.
If a person who is “close to me” lies, that has a much bigger potential for harm to me, both emotionally and otherwise. Therefore I will move away from that dishonest person, put some distance between me and them so that if they do strike, they won’t be close enough to hit me or do any significant damage.
Threat or benign
Once I have determined that a person, animal, or object is a potential threat rather than a benign creature, I will keep a wary eye on it. I won’t make excuses for the potential damage, and once it has tried to hurt me, it won’t have another chance. I no longer trust anything or anyone without assessing the potential damage that could be done.
Cynical? No, I don’t think so, just cautious. I don’t venture into the world like there are no dangers out there, no evil people. I do know now that there are some evil creatures in the world, some potential threats to my life, sanity and health. But I no longer walk in terror, because I have realized what the evil creatures are. I am no longer terrified of the “rattling milk jugs,” but I give a wide berth to the “poison snakes.”
I’ve finally personally learned from the “1001e things I did wrong in dealing with psychopaths.”
Why thank you dancingnancies! I DO try to please 🙂
Dear Babydoll,
You sound like a “mini-me” LOL The inability to take care of my needs…to buy something for myself, even basics like food and medications without feeling guilty…to buy something JUST FOR FUN for me???? Not a chance of not feeling guilty. I could spend tens of thousands on toys for someone else, but not for myself—EVEN IF IT WASN’T A QUESTION AT ALL OF “HAVING ENOUGH RESOURCES”
Part of it I know was the “depression era mentality” of my grandparents of “save, save, for tomorrow we may starve” and they had REASON to feel like that….they had trouble putting food on the table in the depression and paying their land taxes so they didn’t lose their farm and home.
I’ve been aware of my “guilty” feelings over spending money on myself vs on others, but since I finally started to actually HEAL and truly ACT ON taking care of me, I have started to take care of me in many other ways as well, not only financial, spending money on things for me that —sure I COULD live without—but make life nicer, like hearing aids, etc. I haven’t gone ape cheet spending, I am still careful with what I spend and think about it, don’t spend wildly—my reasonable spending in the past is WHY I have money to live on now, though I am far from rich, and do have to spend wisely, but I am doing that. Just I think, MORE wisely.
I was fortunate that my step father was a genuinely Christian man and loved me very much…until the last 18 months before his death when I was privileged to be his caregiver, I didn’t totally appreciate just HOW MUCH HE DID LOVE ME. We had some wonderful times together during that last 18 months he lived. His love and example was what kept me from totally losing my faith because of the egg donor’s “angry god.”
I like your analogy of the football game and teams—I’ll check onto the NLP and read about it. I haven’t read much about it though I have heard about it.
I remember a dream I had when I was 4-5-6 somewhere in there, and I actually had this dream several times, so it stuck with me. In the dream I was in a prison and was to be executed, the inside of the prison cell looked like a painting from a Bible story book where Joseph was in this rock-walled prison with a big high window with bars so I imagine that is where my child’s mind got the “picture” of what a prison cell would be like, and in the dream I was going to be killed in the morning, and though I never saw her, I knew my egg donor was outside the wide plank door and though I knew she COULD rescue me, I knew she WOULD not even try to rescue me. I thought about how sad she was that I was going to die, but she thought I deserved to die so she would not rescue me. (Those are “adult” words that I now ascribe to the FEELINGS I had in that dream but I can still vividly recall the FEELINGS I had attached to the dream)
It was only a few months or a year ago that I realized the meaning of the dream—it was that even as a young child, I realized that she would NOT PROTECT ME no matter how grave my danger was. I don’t think the dream was some supernatural prediction that my son would go to jail and I would try to keep him there, or anything else, just a representation of my own child’s knowledge that my egg donor would not protect me.
In many dreams I’ve had that were “repetitive” dreams the THEME of the dream was that I would take care of others who I deemed “helpless” while I allowed my own life to crash and burn around me. Can we say ENABLING!??? Once I “caught on” to what the theme of these repeating dreams were, I haven’t had one since.
I do think our subconscious “talks” to us at night when we are asleep trying to work these things out or to get the idea through to our conscious minds.
It wasn’t so difficult for me to accept that my P sperm donor that I really didn’t get to know until I was a teenager was a monster, because he ENJOYED being feared. The egg donor enjoyed appearing “holy” and “righteous” and “caring” and “Christian.” She was CAREFUL though that I am probably the only one who EVER saw the FANGS and the VENOM and the MALICE hidden behind the mask–if there was anyone else who saw, I don’t know who they are. I only know of one time when my step father saw her coming down on me (she was actually beating me until the blood ran because I challenged her as a teenager) and he finally pulled her off of me with literally the foam flying off her lips! The rest of the time, if there was a witness present, she was “Mrs. Goody-two-shoes.”
I am glad that you are moving away, Babydoll, and I am glad that your husband and you are protecting your children from the contamination of the association with these people. It is not unusual for two VERY dysfunctional people, one or both, psychopaths, to hook up together in a “gasoline and fire” relationship where they alternately abuse/use and enable each other to use/abuse others.
I don’t know if you have sibs or whether they are aware of what is going on with your DNA donors, but each of those relationships will also have to be inspected and assessed as to their level of “safety” with that person, who may have contact with the “other team.”
This would include aunts and uncles, cousins, and other extended family and friends. I have essentially had to limit all but the most superficial contact with my only first cousins, and having no sibs that is not a problem, but even more extended family and community contact is very superficial and limited now, which is not very comforting, but it keeps critical information from flowing to the “enemy” which might be used to hurt me.
Oxy,
in those ways, I’m also a mini-you.
I just don’t like to do things for me. It seems like a waste of resources because it doesn’t make someone happy. Get it?
In my mind I’m not “someone”. Sick, sick, sick.
I’m working on this bad attitude of mine. As a teenager, I also rebelled and I was “someone” during that period in my life. It felt great. But the evil predator and the insidious presence of my early programming, slowly crept up on me and I became NO ONE again.
Actually, I can see how this is considered an inverse narcissist. Because a narcissist doesn’t exist in his own mind unless he is being admired. But the inverse narcissist doesn’t exist unless he is serving others, making them happy. That’s what makes us great N-SUPPLY. Is this what they are seeing/reading on our faces when they pick us out as prey?
Dear Sky, I think you are right there, we don’t “exist” unless we are serving someone else, unless they are praising our SELF ABUSE our SELF NEGLECT and our giving to others at the EXPENSE of ourselves.
It is one thing if you have plenty of food, to share that food with someone who has none. It is another thing to GIVE ALL your food to someone who has plenty of food but wants to save their own food for later.
The Bible tells the story about King David seeing Bathsheba (another man’s wife) and coveting her, taking her, getting her preg, trying to trick her husband into thinking the baby was his own, and when that failed, David had the man put into a dangerous position in battle and then left to be killed by the enemy.
The prophet came to David and told David a “story” and asked David what should be done to the man in the story.
The story was that a RICH MAN who had lots of flocks of sheep had a traveler come by (he was required by custom to entertain that traveler, feed him etc.) but instead of taking one of his own MANY SHEEP to slaughter to feed the traveler, he went next door and took the ONLY sheep, a PET EWE LAMB that had been hand raised by his poor neighbor, and slaughtered that lamb to feed the traveler. The prophet asked what should be done to such a man.
Well, DAVID was livid at such a man who would steal the pet lamb of his poor neighbor and said the man should be severely punished.
The prophet then told DAVID that YOU are the rich man who had many “lambs” (women) and you went and took the ONE PET EWE LAMB belonging to the poor man…..David, who was not a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination, none the less SAW that he had done something that was horrible, dishonorable and a violation of not only Man’s laws but God’s. David REPENTED. Truly repented.
I think the stories of David who was called “a man after God’s own heart” shows that it wasn’t because david was so “good” or “sinless” but that he DID sin, he DID do things that were reprehensible but when he saw he had done wrong,, he was WILLING TO REPENT. To try to do better, to make amends. The psychopath will resist repentance, will deny blame or fault, will project blame and fault to others, and will NOT MAKE AMENDS.
Watching the ACTIONS of a person who has done wrong is the thing that we can distinguish between true repentance and changing ones life and the fake, “words only,” apologies of the psychopaths.
Sky, I am learning that I AM someone important, and I deserve to have me take care of myself and I am taking care of myself. I am nurturing myself with kindness, compassion, caring, and focusing on doing the good things (even the tough things) that I need to do for my health and well being as well as happiness.
You’ve made some great strides in the last few days/weeks, keep on going in that direction. Not listening to the “command voices” of “you SHOULD do this, and you SHOULD do that” or the FALSE “truths” of things like “there is good in everyone” or “all people can be healed” or “your mother/father (or fill in the blank relationship) would not deliberately hurt you” because if you believe these LIES and base your assessments of someone’s behavior on them, you will always make a mistaken judgment of people and their intentions.
LOOK AT HOW PEOPLE ACT, AND WHAT THEY DO…turn off the volume of their lies and excuses….LOOK BEHIND THE MASKS.
Edit your own internal bad programing and remember, “garbage in, garbage out.” We have to track down these contaminated “memory chips” or “garbage programs” that have been implanted that still contaminate the operating systems of our minds and hearts. It is tough work, but finding out that they are there, and what they are,, then eliminating them, or pushing MUTE on these “command voices” tapes at least frees us to live our lives as our adult minds and hearts are learning are more positive and productive….and without the GUILT which is an internal sadistic dictator who beats us when we rebel against the “command voice” tapes our P-DNA donors implanted when we were too young to know they were not actually god himself.
Wow– Oxy— Wow.
In part of my moving I have made the decision to NOT speak to anybody in my mother’s family again. I have had many of them attempting to “connect” with me on facebook and I absolutely know that she is behind it, trying to get more information from them about me than I am willing for her to know, and so I have blocked them all!! Even my grandma! Forget it, I didn’t get along with them in a genuine way at any point, why should I sweat the loss when I have ACTUAL friends and an intentional family, people who I have chosen and who have chosen me because we like each-other and share similar goals and desires.
The only two members of my family I trust are my brother and sister. My brother does not speak to TB anymore, and my sister only speaks to her for me, to make sure that she’s not in my area and that my family has a heads up when she is around here. The incident with her attempting to attain our inheritance was a MAJOR MIRACLE incident where both my siblings woke up from their deep slumber (Stockholm syndrome) and have been cured from her spell. I am so grateful for this last move on her part.. .she also threatened to murder her current husband, and that was like the cherry on the top, especially now that she’s armed. Yeah.
I don’t speak to my dad about details in my life regarding her or where I will be. We have a cell phone number etc.
I told my husband about your LLC idea and the p.o.box in another town and he thinks you’re brilliant! 🙂 Thank you for sharing your wisdom. I know it was hard earned. . . as I have seen in your articles and different posts around here. . . but thank you for being generous with it. AND I love all your Bible analogies.
Those dreams are so incredible huh? They really help to understand what was really going on when our minds were too young to grasp it. My first dream was of being ruled by a ventriloquist dummy. I was a very young girl when I had it, maybe 5 years old. . and for years it haunted me, but now I get it. She was not only trying to rule me, but she was also being ruled. Sociopaths are filled with EVIL.
Thank you. You are helping me feel less and less crazy all the time. . .
Dear Babydoll,
That makes me feel really good to know that my experiences are helping someone else grasp the evil that these people can do!~ It is indeed an ill wind that blows no one good!
Google stalking and books about it, and there is an article I wrote here about how to hide from stalkers and cut the PAPER TRAIL between you and them (the internet makes tracking someone easy) but there are WAYS to hide property ownership—remember you are NOT hiding from the FBI but from someone who might try to track you in the Internet or through public records.
My P son MIGHT if he had the money hire a private investigator so I will have to be a BIT more careful probably than you would in hiding from your TurboB1atch who probably wouldn’t think of hiring a PI—but I hired a PI for consultant and asked him how to hide (not expensive at all) and the books by Gavin DeBecker are great in learning how to avoid a stalker, so do your home work on how to hide from them, what eggs them on, and so on.
You CAN leave these people behind if you just take a bit of effort to do so….how much effort depends on how lethal and determined they are, and how much in the way of resources they have, but it can be done.
I found out THE HARD WAY that we have to keep our head, and NOT GIVE THEM WARNING OF OUR INTENTIONS….I popped off verbally and warned them in the form of “threatening” them what I was up to—BAD POLICY. The threats won’t make them back down like it would a NORMAL PERSON. It only pre-warns and alerts them to what your intentions are so they are forewarned and forearmed.
PLAY YOUR CARDS CLOSE TO YOUR CHEST.
I am so glad that your sibs have also gotten on to what your parents are, and I am sure you are as well. That gives you not only some validation (which IS nice) but also some support inmany ways. I don’t have any full sibs, and only have some half sibs through the P-sperm donor. One is just like him, a P I think, and the other two went NC with their younger brother and with Sperm donor, but they have no interest in a relationship with me, either. I am sorry about that, but I do respect their wishes and keep my distance. I am sure that they are afraid to even get to know me (I haven’t seen them since they were very young kids 40+ years ago) but considering how they were raised by the P sperm donor, I do understand why they would fear me. He hated me so rabidly I am sure they think I have fangs and venom sacks on the end of each of my fingers. LOL It is disappointing to me that we can’t have a relationship, but I DO understand why they would fear any kind of contact from me.
That is the thing with the psychopaths too, is they poison the entire AREA around us, not only us but those associated with us, and with other relationships that COULD be very warm and caring, but because of the poison the Ps spew around, those relationships are ruined forever. Collateral damage, just like a land mine or a grenade exploding. Gets everything in the vacinity.
@skylar Keep in mind there is no such THING as an inverted narcissist. Some QUACK made that term up, just like they made up “codependent personality/personality disorder”… wtf ( also not real ) . And it was the self-professed S/N/P S-am Vak ( i don’t want to say his whole name in case he finds this site ) I will spell it out Sam V-ak n#i#3234n … yes i’m speaking correctly, the PSYCHOPATH who coined the term). So don’t give any validation to it as a correct terminology, it’s not real, it does not exist. He writes, “To “qualify” as an inverted narcissist, you must CRAVE to be in a relationship with a narcissist, regardless of any abuse inflicted on you by him/her. ” THIS IS WRONG! No one, no NORMAL person craves a relationshit with a Psychopath or Narcissist, on any planet! This is a P acting as if he knows what goes on in the minds of normal people. For whats going on within himself ( the predatory mindset ) he might be more or less correct ( although still should be taken with a grain of salt ) but when it comes to describing HUMAN BEINGS ( which he is not ) … forget it. He might as well be describing aliens from outer space. It’s like a P telling you what you are, in respect to him.
Moral of the story : Be mindful of sources when you’re reading on the internet for material on the S/N/P ( sociopaths, narcissists, psychopaths ). There is a helluva lot of gobbledygook out there. Nonsense.
Oxy– seriously you are a treasure trove of wisdom!!!
That’s why I’m leaving this state. My family members live close by and don’t visit me anyway. . . .so when they start “reaching out” online, I know that it’s TB’s doing. Especially when my grandma, who didn’t even come to my wedding, sends me a long email in FB. . . .AND TB’s planning to move in with her. .and thankfully that’s the other side of the country after-all. I imagine when TB’s gotten fed up with grandma she’ll be back up here looking for a new host. I’m just happy that there’s some time for us to get out of here.
The other good thing is that TB is really not much of a hard worker. She’s just a leech. So if I don’t have anything she wants AND feels she can get relatively easily from me, then I don’t have to worry about her. BUT the problem with me being pregnant is that she may want the credit of a cute little baby, just like she did with our toddler. She showed up here during my pregnancy and begged my forgiveness. That’s when I informed her that she had a very short rope with me and that she had 1 and that’s 1 more chance to be in my life and that if she blew it, it’s over. She more than blew it.
Showing my cards. . . well I did show my cards to ONE single relative of hers. That’s because she IS the one who always tells TB everything because of her “religious” conviction about what mothers should be. .and since mothers should love their children, she gives her information like she’s got one single button on her control system– repeat! SO– as soon as we decided to move I found this religious woman and informed her that I am moving and that I am asking her in the name of God to not speak to TB about it. Her religious convictions are even more important to her than her family connections and I seemed to be speaking her language in my gag order of her. I made it VERY CLEAR that it is NOT TB’s business or hers what I do with my life and that for the sake of my family I asked her not to say anything to TB or anyone else for that matter. I also stopped going to church because it’s the same church that she and all her friends go to, and I couldn’t not emotionally handle seeing them in this difficult time.
I spoke with her about a month after that and also told her I am pregnant. It was only a matter of time before somebody in my small town found out AND that’s what got me into trouble last time is RCA (Religious Compulsive Aunt) told TB immediately that I was pregnant and so TB did the whole ashes and sackcloth thing. . . .This is also when I followed up on the last conversation and discovered that she in fact had kept her fat lips closed. She’s the worst leak of them all, and in fact had her kids spy on us growing up. We rode the same school bus and it wasn’t uncommon to receive a phone call at home from TB saying, “Who’s blue car is in your driveway?” . . .when TB lived 3-6 hours away at all times! RCA’s greatest sin is choosing to deny that evil exists and she’s aided and abetted it to injure her small relatives. Just seeing school buses puts a shiver down my spine. . .it was my “prison” in so many ways.
Yes about not telling TB about my life and intentions. WHATEVER. She only uses it against me when it’s to her advantage later. We are trying to erase ourselves from the situation and start over free and clear. Thanks to your advice about LLC’s and stalking safety procedures, I think we’ll be a lot more successful and I’ll be able to sleep even more peacefully at night.
@hushabybabydoll Oh I must have fudged up your names, and read hers as yours. But yeah, whenever I see anyone using one of Vakshit’s made up terms I feel a moral obligation to correct them 🙂 That’s all ( As his terms in themselves are abusive in nature IMHO )
Sorry for the confusion ! Fixed my last post 😀 thanks for pointing it out
I agree about Sam Vaknshits’s “definitions” and words he makes up to sell his book and his “information”—-he is the pot calling the kettle black! LOL
There IS a LOT of trash out there on the internet masking as “scientific” information and anything written by Sam V is some of that TRASH. I know that because he has gotten himself so up the chain on google for “narcissist” that his sites are some of the FIRST ones that people see and they see the “doctor” Vankershit and think it must be REAL—his PhD is as real as my Dog’s PhD! Only the dog has a soul and a heart and Sam V has neither!
For those that have not seen “I, Psychopath” you need to see it, it is a documentary about Sam V and will let you know exactly what one looks and sounds like when they think they have the world by the tail. I couldn’t watch it again, he makes my skin crawl worse than stepping on a slug barefooted.
Babydoll, I’m glad that you set some good boundaries with your egg donor, and I quit going to the small country church where my egg donor holds court as well. I do not let her come between me and my God, however, and I never will. She came close to dampening out my complete belief In God, but fortunately she didn’t. In fact, now that I see her for the WOLF in a lambskin that she is, I am even closer to God than ever. I realize that His wisdom saved me from her wiles.
Bring that new baby up P-FREE and love it and your toddler as much as you can, teach them to love and have empathy and what real moral values are so that they will grow up free from the taint of your egg donor’s DNA! God bless you all! Keep us posted on how you are doing!