Editor’s note: Lovefraud has been contacted by a 27-year-old woman who has been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and depression. Reading some of your questions about female sociopaths, this woman offered to share her experience so that you may gain insight and protect yourselves. She will not be posting comments.
This woman says her mother is narcissistic and there is a history of psychopathy on her father’s side, although she doesn’t know her father’s family because her parents divorced when she was young.
Personally, I do feel sorry for this young woman—which would probably annoy her. The cards were stacked against her from the day she was born. She is in therapy and on medication—I hope she can make some changes in her life.
Mom’s psychological abuse
From my experience my mother used psychological abuse rather than physical. Psychological abuse is more damaging, and she uses this, specifically, against women because women use logic and rationality rather than anger and rage (when it comes to solving a problem). Men are usually more prone to react angrily when something doesn’t go their way. Women tend to think things thorough with patience, and handle pain (or anything negative) better, though physical abuse may, and has been, the case before.
My mother, as well as I, know that to hit a woman where it hurts, we have to deteriorate her mind. My mother used this on my sister and I growing up. To get us to do something that she wanted, without making it look like she was demanding, she would make psychological suggestions, and leave it up to us on choosing the right decision. We weren’t aware at the time that whatever answer we came up with would be wrong, but that was what she was counting on.
The first step is to make this person (her target) question themselves on anything and everything. Only then can she weaken this person’s thought process, leaving them open for suggestion (translation: control). This is only the testing stage.
Observation
When I want to figure someone out, I talk to them, I watch how they act around me, body language, what her hands are doing, her feet, the way she is standing, the gentle contortions of her face, a smile, the way she blinks. I pay attention to everything. Just the way a person moves lets me know how to get inside. My mother’s tactics are only subtly different from mine. But in the end we both do this in order to get something we want.
People tend to say more to us when they aren’t speaking, hence the saying that predators go after the insecure weaker, heads down, kind of person. This is definitely true. If I am, dare I say, “People watching,” I take notice of the ones that walk looking down, the ones that always seem to be in a rush to get somewhere, the ones that shyly look away when eye contact can be made, the ones that walk with far too much confidence that only screams they have something to hide. My mother would look for these people to get them to worship her, give them something to live for, which is to serve her. When I look for these people, I look for someone to exploit, someone to expose all their weaknesses to themselves, and leave them broken, hating themselves more than most of them already do. I enjoy causing people to realize the nasty truths of themselves (which is usually that they are pathetic lying individuals) even if I have to be hypocritical and lie myself in order to get my point across.
Growing up
When growing up with my narcissistic mother I noticed her lies, and why she would use them. Narcissists will only suffer if there aren’t enablers to encourage their behavior, but because they are so charming, someone, especially to a woman, always will. She fed off of this, but was never aware that she was wrong. She was able to do some mental gymnastics to convince herself that she was always right. If you questioned her, there was never a chance in hell that you would win, she was already convinced, and should you attempt at proving her wrong, you had better make sure you at least have your facts straight. There have been many people that questioned her integrity, and she went out of her way with well-executed plots to bring them down. She was successful every time.
Read more: Guidelines for dealing with a female sociopath
She treated my sister and me like objects when we were younger. She had roles for us from the beginning of our existence, and because she made us, we were to listen to her, and be what she wanted us to be. A narcissistic mother doesn’t care about her children in the natural maternal sense, because children are only there to further expand a part of herself. If my mother had angels, perfect model citizens with power, good looks and money, this all reflected on how wonderful of a person she is. Should my mother have ended up with druggies for children who never kept a job and were in constant trouble with the law, this made her look unfavorable, and she would want to neglect them, or destroy them, as soon as possible. My mother, lucky for her, had an example of both: the child that makes her look really good, and the child, she feels, that makes her look bad. My little sister, the golden child, and then me, the black sheep.
Growing up with my mother was never a boring adventure. She was very tiresome, but she always managed to keep life interesting, even if it was negative. She made it obvious after her divorce that I was not her favorite. I exhumed too much of my father’s personality (the one man that weakened her) and she despised me for it. She never hit me. Other than the typical spankings, she was not a violent mother. She had no choice but to stop her attempts because for some reason I never reacted from them.
My sister, on the other hand, did, and this is what led to her becoming my mother’s plaything. She disliked me for being an extension of my father, but instead of verbally abusing me on how much I was like him, and how much she hated him, she would spoil my sister, and showered her with affection for being, well, not like me. I was often criticized, a rather pathetic attempt at breaking down my character. I won’t lie and say that there were times that it didn’t work, it must have. I ended up becoming violent, and hyperactive for some kind of reaction from people.
Getting attention
I wasn’t getting attention at home, I might well get it everywhere else. Only when I gained this attention, usually negative, it made me curious to why people reacted the way they did. Her neglect, and emphasis on my little sister, made me do whatever I could to get a reaction.
I watched her more often than not. I always snuck around the house, and hid in places like under her bed, or in the closet, just to see how she acted. My mother was very promiscuous, and she had many the gentleman caller. She was (still is) beautiful, and she knew it because she worked hard to gain it. Men let her know as well, which catered to her over-inflated ego. These enablers only gave her more power, and as I watched, I grew more infatuated with this power she seemed to have. I would watch her touch them delicately on the arm, or laugh innocently at an un-amusing joke. Her eyes were always lusting, and her body language was loose, but still classy.
I learned real quick how to get what I wanted from men, and soon started to use it myself on the sons of my mother’s many “boyfriends.” My sister was completely clueless to all of this. I never told her, and she never knew about my mother. I sheltered her from it for the most part, lied to “protect” her.
Violence
When I got older, around the age of 10, 11, I voiced my opinions more often. Ages six to nine I was violent, collecting road kill to keep the bones after allowing them to rot in hand-made coffins, and beating up on other children due to my fascination with their reactions and how they made me “feel.” I coerced my sister every time to watch, to make an example of what should happen should anyone test me.
I wasn’t a bully because I didn’t target only one or two children to consistently harass. It was more like impulse and opportunity. If there was a chance to do it, and I felt a sudden need to, I did without thinking of consequences. And sadly, for others, I never received any. I was the black sheep, I made my mother look bad, so instead of punishment I went ignored. One occasion I did beat up some children who I heard were messing with a family friend, and without evidence I beat two of the three with a brick in the street, forcing my sister to watch, and beat one of the two (after I got them down) with a branch I gave her, the third getting away. After the deed was done, we went home. Days later she (my mother) congratulated me, and went on with her life. She was my enabler. My acting out never got me in trouble, so I saw no harm in it.
Enabling is the theme for today. Keep it in your minds.
Prepubescence was the time my mother’s insecurities flourished. I began to form breasts, and get “cute,” and this threatened my mother’s youth. Her new obsession was to tell me I would get fat if I kept eating the way I did (she didn’t cook for us, I had to cook due to her usually going out for parties). On another of many occasions when she was heading out to town with her date, she saw a plate of nachos I made for myself, and decided to take a picture while I was trying to eat it. While I was holding up a chip about to eat it, she snapped a shot, and told me while waving the Polaroid that it was to be a reminder of how I used to look when I became a fat cow. They left, and I felt shame for wanting to eat. I did anyway, then grew furious.
Anger is the main emotion I feel when it comes to anything. This was around the time I started o rebel, and go out of my way to piss her off. Her reaction would bring me “joy,” and it always did. Our psychological battle began when I was that age, and to this day, it hasn’t ended.
My sister
I would like to get back to my little sister. She is an angel in my eyes, even though I would replace her in a heartbeat should she go against me. I do love her, though it is not the typical definition of love. It’s selfish, obsessive and controlling, and if I get nothing out of it, then I don’t bother.
As younger children I had molested her, mentally abused her into things I wanted her to do for me, and ridiculed her when she displayed her emotional side. Nothing infuriated me more than when she cried, and when she did, whether she was in pain calling for me to help, or needed someone to hold her when a Disney character died, I stared in disgust, and wanted nothing to do with her. Once I picked up a pattern of what made her cry, and what made her fear, I went “to infinity and beyond” to get those reactions from her. I liked to make her cry; I liked to make her scared.
It brought a faint feeling in me that I was losing more sight of as I got older, and it only made me want to do it more, just to feel like I wasn’t some hollow creature. When I was developing more into a woman, my mother took notice in this leech-like attachment I had to my sister; the hold she used to have on her had weakened. I had successfully taken the “golden child” from underneath my mothers nose, and now had an accomplice on my side who would question my mother’s antics the way I did.
We both ended up abusing my sister simultaneously for her heart and mind. It was a power struggle for a person we viewed as an object. During high school my hold on my sister was concrete, and my mother started to back off, as did I once my win was made obvious.
I got a little cocky, and decided to test my ways with people that had relatable personalities (mentally anyway). I took what I have been subconsciously and purposely learning from my mother, and used it on them. My sister ended up more like an object at this point and was my backup should the people I had in school serve no purpose. Right now, I have no clue where she is. I’m sure I will find out when she contacts my mother, but for now, she’s a face that escapes me. I do love her though. I do need her to survive. She’s one of the reasons I even stick to therapy.
Moving on
Narcissists, as most predators, male or woman, tend to move on when things aren’t going their way. If they were caught for being the “snakes” that they always were, they can’t face reality, and the people they hurt, and they have to move. If they don’t move due to shame, then they move due to a lack of stimulation. They need a fresh start, a new character, some new subjects.
My mother was the same way. Ages 2 to 9 she had managed to move my sister and me to four different states, and even if we were fortunate enough to live anywhere longer than a year (because her pattern was every two years we moved to a different state) she would still move us to a different city within the same state. This further aided my being antisocial, and only further aided my sister’s pathetic need to cling to people. Through her search of needed stimulation and affection from a man that didn’t bore her, my mother created two broken people, damaged goods, and couldn’t care less. After all, “It wasn’t her fault we turned out this way.”
Step dad
When I reached high school she moved, leaving my sister and I behind with a man she dated for about two months. We remained with him for three-and-a-half years, and he took care of what my mother should have. He actually helped calm my erratic behavior down a bit, and he allowed me to explore my sexual sadism by accepting the drawings and comics I used to indulge in. I found out he had a collection of erotic comics that were sexually violent, and I had already been drawing this sort of thing, so I shared my drawings with him. So yes, I gave him my pictures. We never fornicated. My mother wanted to send me away at one point when she found some of them, but he talked her into letting me express myself. He has done a lot for me.
I, myself, was not promiscuous, though sexually active. It stopped once I was old enough to understand what it was that my mother was doing. She loved sex too much, so naturally I had to hate it. I didn’t want to be a thing like this sad excuse for a person, so whatever she was, I was the opposite. So I thought. We both are narcissistic, but I am highly aware of my faults, and I know I am not perfect. I just don’t care about what others think. She cares entirely too much.
She came back to live with (I now call him) my stepdad after I graduated. She was having him pay for her condo while she was away, even though he was already using his own money to take care of two teenaged girls that weren’t his. He was, and still is, the biggest enabler we both have in our lives.
He was this way because he ended up befriending a sociopath who had such an obsession with him that he became psychotically irrational whenever my stepdad questioned him. The “sociopath” my stepfather befriended is his best friend of 20 (+) years. They met each other, as well as with my mother, where they work in Federal Corrections. This guy knew me since I was a child, so he’s a family friend. He has done irrational things when my stepfather unintentionally pisses him off. It can be something as simple as not wanting to share a hotel room, and his friend will spend the whole night trying to break in the room to fuck him up. My stepdad and his friend admit as much. I have witnessed some instances of his irrational behavior.
Parasite
My stepfather is a sweet man too. He’s the second reason I stay in therapy. A parasite needs the host body to survive, so rather than cause bodily harm, I’d rather work with them. I keep them alive so that I can stay alive. Again, self-serving, as everything I do is.
The parasite I speak of is myself. The host is my stepfather, and my sister.
The literal parasite attaches itself to a host, and eats away at them, using them as a basis of living, and survival. Most parasites eventually kill the host body they have attached themselves to, and they die, mainly because they are causing so much damage. When I say “keep them alive,” I am simply meaning that instead of breaking them down the way I have others (whether it was on purpose or not), I want to become more aware of the damage I could be causing, and try to down the dosage a bit. I don’t want to have to constantly keep “leeching” to make it, and if I find a good host, I have to meet them halfway to make it better for myself.
I won’t ever change, but if I can hide it a little better, then I will. I’m not always wanting to “play” with people, and I don’t always catch what I may be doing. I struggle to respect them all the time, and have become better at catching myself. I do this because I love them. They are worthy enough because they serve a really good purpose for me.
I do return the favor by being considerate to feelings I am not in touch with, and by being the person they want me to be. Maturity has a lot to do with it. When younger I tortured my sister, and didn’t care about her feelings. I still don’t care about her feelings, but I am old enough to realize that if I don’t at least pretend to care, I will lose her. I don’t want to lose her. I don’t enjoy isolation. As for my stepfather, he ain’t going nowhere. Not even if he wanted to would he leave. I am sure of that.
Military
After graduation I joined the military. My mother was bitching, and I needed to get away, so I joined. This was a foolish idea because I generally don’t like people, but it was something to do, and I had no plans anyway. I figured it could help me with my sadism, and allow me to explore other depths of myself that the civilian world would not accept.
Boy did it. In the military I realized my full potential in seduction, and getting anything I wanted at everyone else’s expense, and for that reason alone, it was glorious. I never made it up in rank, but I had everything those who were in rank had. I never slept with any of the men; I didn’t need too. I got what I wanted by being the “emotional” support they longed for. I had many emotional affairs with men, more than I realized. I was playing oblivious to the damage it did to their relationships, but knew deep down inside this is what I wanted. I preferred women when it came to sex. Men were just there to give me things.
I want to interrupt for a moment this already tedious story and point out another thing one could take note of when dealing with a female predator: The capture. Male predators single out there target from the get go, and women predators do the same thing. Both sexes share this, but where they differ is the execution. When I watched my mother, she often watched everyone in the whole room, and based her target on the one everyone else was targeting. If she was hosting a party, and took note of a man getting the other women’s attention, she wanted him. Not specifically because of his looks and character, but because she wanted to take something from others to display her power. I call it the “cat syndrome,” when a woman shows her dominance by degrading another woman.
I practiced this all the time while in the military. I was never interested in a man or a woman until I noticed they had someone, and had a lot to offer. If they had a significant other that didn’t like their taste in music, I made sure I liked and knew everything about it. I would listen to their problems, playing the friend, just to pick up notes on how to be better than their significant other, and it always worked. Once the relationships fell to pieces, I moved on. I had the reputation of home wrecker to the women who did have the intuition to notice, but was an angel to the men who never saw me coming.
The sexual games I played with women were in the civilian world, where I had a girlfriend. That’s another story.
My arrogance was my downfall inevitably. My games were starting to become noticeable, and after another game I did not think thoroughly through (not a sexual one) I was discharged. After being diagnosed with a personality disorder, the commander saw me as not stable enough to keep me in. After my discharge, I had to move back in with my now single mother. During my time in the military, she and my stepdad remodeled the house. He asked her to marry him, she said yes, then called it off after the remodeling was complete. She kicked him out, and had another man in within a week.
Enabling
To this day my stepfather remains single, and my mother makes sure to keep it that way by interfering any time she hears he may be moving on. She leeches off of him the way I do, but I make sure, now, to do it less often. He’s highly aware he’s being abused, but at this point he just deals. He’s not a fighter, a main reason we all (his sociopath best friend, my narcissist mother, and then me) use him. He enables the treatment; he must get off on it in some way. We can only abuse those that allow it.
Enabling will always keeps predators powerful, especially the female ones. Our society treats women a specific way, and female predators like myself and my mother, capitalize on this—one reason female predators are hard to spot. We know what society looks for in women, and we become that. We act our hearts out, and only destroy behind closed doors. Only those who have dealt with this on a personal level can truly spot the female predator.
There are too many enablers to let the discipline that should be taking place, take place. Lizzie Borden used her gender to get away with ax murder, just as many women have in the past, and even now. Civilization is getting better at giving women the punishment they “deserve,” but compared to men, female predators definitely get away with more. I don’t think there ever will be a day that women can protect themselves from their predator friends, family member, or mothers. Society is still in denial that “cold-hearted” women exist, when in public they display the common nurturing mother, or loving sister, or caring nurse. There isn’t a list of traits too look for specifically, because women are chameleons, even when they aren’t predators. It’s all about survival.
To defeat any female predator (narcissist, sociopath, etc.), you have to let them go. You have to become everything they hate, but you can’t give them too much satisfaction in reacting to them (I know, easier said than done). Sometimes you will have to deal until you can safely get away, and until then be boring, if possible, and don’t react to anything they may try to do to you. The narcissist will need attention, and the sociopath will need stimulation. Both run like pansies if their requests aren’t met. Being hostile, and emotional in a negative way, only keeps them interested.
If raised by one, you’re shit out of luck. Because she made you, you are her object, and you always will be, should you obey her. The instant you don’t, she will want to destroy you. On an emotional level I am not sure how to aid a child of a narcissist. The abuse, logically, I know is damaging, but I can only speak from my point of view, and since I was emotionally detached, her abuse did little to nothing.
From watching my sister struggle as an adult, the damage we both caused her made her an emotionally distraught individual. She wants to remain emotionally detached due to not wanting to appear weak (my fault), but she has abandonment issues due to our mother. Now she thinks if she doesn’t give in at some point, she will be alone.
Epilogue
I am undergoing psychotherapy, but this is only to concentrate on my impulse issues and sexual sadism. The therapy for the “disorder” isn’t taking place because I see nothing wrong with my personality. To attempt at aiding my lack of concentration I am on Ritalin, and I am also supposed to be taking Wellbrutin (Budeprion is the generic version) which is an antidepressant. They often use antidepressants when dealing with hyperactivity, or impulses. I haven’t exactly been taking both as often as I should. I don’t like the way it makes me feel (numb, zombie-like). Still working on the sadism thing.
Learn more: Understanding and recognizing narcissistic abuse
Lovefraud originally posted this story on Jan. 20, 2011.
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