We know only too well that by far the majority of psychopaths are men. Or at least we think we know that. Could it be that the criteria used to identify psychopaths are biased towards men? After all Hare began his work in male prison.
Think about it. While behaving and being the way the PCL-R without doubt earns one the label psychopath, this is simply a list of symptoms. It says nothing about the underlying dynamics. If psychopathy is life centered on the principle of power (as opposed to love) and if it is therefore characterised by what Liane Leedom nicely calls ‘warped empathy‘, then wouldn’t you expect there to be more or less the same number of woman as men psychopaths? And wouldn’t you expect them to come across differently?
I am beginning to wonder whether there may be two broad types of psychopathy – a ‘male’-type and a ‘female’-type. I place these in quotes because, when I think about it, men with might be thought of as ‘female’ psychopathy come to mind and we all know about women with ‘male’ psychopathy. And yet, at the risk of being un-PC, I want to maintain these descriptors for now so that the difference I think I see doesn’t disappear.
A ‘female’ psychopath would not necessarily commit crimianl/antisocial acts like her male counterpart, but she woud be as power-driven, as toxically narcissistic as a ‘male’ psychopath. The control, the manipulation, the dishonesty, the selfishness, the callousness – all these would be present, but we might not recognise them for what they are because of 1. media portrayal and 2. medical diagnosis of psychopaths. The difference would come in the gendered style of their behaviour.
In my clinical work I have come across this phenomenon. For example, a woman I now consider to be of the ‘female’-type of psychopath didn’t come close to committing a crime and yet the way she mothered her daughter, my patient, came close to destroying the child’s mind. This seems to me to be a perversion of motherhood eqivalent to the perversion of fatherhood we read about on this website.
Do readers have any comments? I’m particularly interested in any examples you might have of how ‘female’ psychopathy – if such a thing does exist – manifests itself?
After I got rid of a demonic sociopath man, within a week I met a new girlfriend who is my neighbour who I believe is a sociopath. Its fascinating to me to watch her at work. It may have been a gift from god that she came into my life because she helped make sense of my ex.without an emotional attachment.
She came from a terrible up bringing with a terrible mother who drank and was absent a lot when she was young. She is a full blown alcoholic, has 3 kids with her husband and had multiple affairs. He is DEVASTATED and desperately trying to save his marriage….even after the affairs…just like my male ex did. I can empathize with her husband because I was EXACTLY like him!! He is doing crazy desperate things and she calls him crazy…yet she leads him on enough to keep him at arms length. But then goes out almost every night to bars to pick up men.
Her husband will text things over and over saying things like “How could you do this to our family” (I remember sending those texts to my spath) and she LAUGHS at him and sends a smart ass comment back.
Man, even just writing this is bringing up a lot more qualities that I notice are so similar to my ex male. She is narcissistic, compares herself to all women and picks out a flaw in each one and will actually say out loud that she is prettier. She is VERY promiscuous, only wants to date men that have money, she still sleeps with her ex hubby, she uses drugs and alcohol, can barely take care of her 3 children, and she projects and blames her ex husband and calls him crazy.
Just some thoughts. Again, its interesting to see a sociopath in action and not be in love with them so I just sit back and watch. There’s no helping her either.
I believe I am a female psychopath. I have never committed any crime and I am sure people I know would describe me as someone who follows rules and is a ‘nice’ person. On the contrary, I have been an extremely manipulative person throughout my life. However, I get thoughts about committing crimes and murders sometimes. I know I am attractive as most psychopaths are, and find men around me a lot of times. I profile men from the moment they start showing interest and start finding their weaknesses. I then start preying on them, manipulating them, and I feel high when I can see I am controlling them. I enjoy the rush I get by making them ‘do’ what I want, by making them ‘feel’ what I want. I do not feel remorse of any kind at the end. I can easily walk away when I know they have hit rock bottom and leave them wailing. I hardly think about them again and if I do, it never gives me qualms.
The Moral Molecule is a book about oxytocin and its role in making us decent human beings. Elevated testosterone levels seems to offset oxytocin and therefore, may be a factor in why we ascribe “psychopathy” to more males than females.
Interestingly, the type of Cluster B behavior that typically shows its ugly head in females is Narcissism. I had the interesting experience of dealing with a female narcissist this past summer. She had managed to get herself elected as President of the neighborhood garden club. Within a matter of weeks, she’d had someone arrested by cooking up a terrible story because the woman had laughed when she told her to call her “Madam President.”
When anyone objected to her high handed controlling edicts, she’d claim they were “disruptive” and threatened to call the private security force in our neighborhood to have them arrested. By the time two months went by, she’d threatened about 30% of the membership and there was an all-out effort mounted to oust her.
Turns out that she’d lost custody of her children and been found to cyber-stalk her ex husband. She’d remarried a wealthy man several years older than she was. She was a pretty woman, and always spoke in a very deliberate, quiet manner. In fact, when people around her lost their tempers at her, you could hear her lower her voice still, to appear to be calm and reasonable.
By-the-way, “gold-digger” is one of the descriptive terms that is frequently used to define the behavior of female narcissists.
It was quite humorous to see how she tried to defend herself against the actions that finally got her expelled from the organization. She even got a NY Times reporter to give her a front page story about her poor, beleaguered attempts to “straighten out” our organization, claiming it was fraught with drug abusers, alcoholics and wild orgies. She was fighting the good fight and all of us tending our roses were nefarious, ungodly creatures.
Maybe her claims of wild orgies referred to the exploits of the frogs that spawned millions of tadpoles in my fish pond, but I sure did miss all that excitement! Shucks!
Joyce
Jm short, she behaves like my sister. It is so helpful to read others’ experiences and see your sociopath echoed in their stories. Your experience sounds likes good plot line for Desperate Housewives and the irony is that it’s real. Worse still is that the only people who would believe it are those who’ve tangled with sociopaths…..
It is HARD to convince people that the female in our life is in fact a sociopath. As I describe to people her behavior, they will entertain narcissist, borderline personality disorder, and reactive attachment disorder; but stop short at sociopath. For most, once they meet her, somehow, we become the disordered ones. Her ability to disarm people with her charm is alarming.
Maybe it is because she is so adept at using her own physical disability to manipulate the empathy of others. How could an obviously handicapped person also have such a darkness to her personality? In person she appears so bright and bubbly, so fun and lighthearted, so genuinely Christian- filled with compassion for others… Why would she lie? How could she be disingenuous? We appear heartless for holding her accountable for her actions.
It is frustrating beyond frustrating to have to deal with the destruction she leaves in her path. It is exhausting to constantly have to “check in” with each other to maintain our reality.
She manipulates entire church memberships and families with her twisted myth-making into supporting her with money, goods, and services with her seemingly never ending abuse tales when in fact; we are the ones being abused. Our life has been altered by the realization of whom we are dealing with. Our entire family has been systematically torn apart.
Her “crimes” are not overt. They a subtle and nuanced. Every myth uses bits of truth twisted into her version of reality. An example, she gives her children kittens which they become attached to, then when the children are not available to her, the kittens disappear and we are left to help two little boys understand what happened. When asked about it… it was because of us that the kittens are gone… not that she got tired of cleaning the litter box or occasionally allergic to them. She keeps her people circles separate. None of the circles communicate between them. When we attempt to inform a circle of a truth, we are cruel and attempting to destroy her – the devil trying to clip her Christian wings. I have been called by her “UN-Godly” and “a horrific liar”, for truthfully answering questions and providing photographic evidence of her own behavior in court.
I maintain a diary to keep up with her manipulations and evolutions of manipulations in order to keep my reality in check. The digital file has grown huge over time. By now, my diary could be a novel. I couldn’t publish is because no one would believe it!
I believe that the main difference between the power and control used by a male sociopath as opposed to a female sociopath is in how it is perceived. Our gender roles are hard to overcome. Society is more willing to assign the term evil to a man than it is to a woman. A woman described as evil is shocking to sensibilities. She might be a B-tch or crazy, but to be truly evil requires more substantiation. Power used by a man is expected. Women using the same level of power and control are more likely to be written off or explained in different terms.
I believe that there are just as many female sociopaths in our society. It may be our empathy or willingness to blame outside forces because of societal gender perceptions which keeps us from assigning the term more broadly to the female sociopath.
If you want examples of female sociopath behavior… I’ve pages and pages along with actual documentation to debunk the myths and counteract the chaos the sociopath in our family has subjected us to. We are back in court again next week. For us, this is our neverending story…
Bets-
Many folks discount the term “sociopath” simply because they incorrectly believe that their behavior would need to be ghoulish in order to rise to that term.
In an oversimplification, a narcissist is motivated to harm others in order to achieve self aggrandizement, whereas a sociopath would take delight in the harm they cause others for any and all reasons.
So if you think the motivation of the woman you mentioned is to raise people’s opinions of her at all costs, she’s a narcissist. If you think she simply delights in being evil, sociopath/psychopath would apply. And if you think she keeps justifying and manipulating because she’s fearful of being abandoned, also, if she’s consistently creating rifts with folks for a myriad of reasons and misconceptions, she’s likely to be a Borderline (BPD).
There is so little difference in the affect of the disorder on the people who are harmed, that it hardly warrants the distinction. If you get hit by a Ford truck, you are just as injured as if you get run over by a Chevy. Being on the receiving end of the manipulation and harm of anyone who is character disordered is crushing.
At the core of character disorders is lack of affective empathy and, therefore, lack of conscience. Lack of empathy stems from impaired oxytocin receptors, a condition which could be both genetic and/or social development. Excess testosterone is thought to upset the balance of oxytocin, therefore, more males than females seem to have the disorder.
When we’re harmed by a disordered person, we will react with “adaptive” behavior, in other words, we will defend ourselves or otherwise try to end it. Our efforts to do so are what often pull us into a cycle of crazy-making. Once we react, they can put a magnifying glass over our reaction and try to make it appear that we’re the offender. Their sense of “cause” and “effect” is totally bogus. And it’s this spiraling cycle that makes going to court with a morally disordered person so overwhelming.
It is extraordinarily difficult to get people to change their mind about a character disordered person. Unless you’re at immediate risk or your family or a loved one is at risk by their behavior, the best thing you can do is to disengage and simply not expect everyone to understand why you did so.
Joyce
Thank you Joyce and all who have continued my education! I love the analogy of the Ford vs the Chevy.
We believe ours in an actual sociopath. We would love to disengage, but the safety and well being of three little boys is at stake here. We are trying to stand between her chaos and the children’s sanity.
She goes on social media “crying” about the trauma her children are suffering because actions we haven’t taken – even before SHE commits the actions that we are forced to respond to. We marvel at her actions and struggle with the WTF where the children are involved.
We go to court this week – AGAIN – to attend a hearing that we have not officially been informed exists. We found out about this one by happenstance, but that is another reoccurring theme. She has officially announced her intention to not return the children at the end of her custody weekend while seeking court guidance in defining her time of custody while announcing on social media that she is winning custody and asking well meaning Christians for their continued prayers. Aside from preparing the heck out of ourselves and brainstorming every possible variation of arguments we are about to face we remain hopeful that THIS TIME the judge will finally see through the facade and deal with the serpent! Overwhelming? Absolutely! It’s hard to decide which I need more after contact with her… counseling or a shower!!!
I will continue to seek support from those who understand the difficulty maintaining one’s sanity while mired in insanity. Thank you all!!
Hi Joyce, I just love your post. Thank you. I am printing and keeping this with me constantly to read, re-read, and read again. My mother was definitely narcissistic, probably bpd, and could have potentially been a low-level psycopath /sociopath. I read somewhere that there are different levels of p/s/paths.
As I get more involved in reading about these people, it is so hard for me to tell what she was as I had always wondered until about age 45, when I was finally able to describe her actions to a therapist. I knew she was sick since about 6 years old. I tried to back away and was then labeled as “the bad one” only to have the rest of the entire family look at me with the very same eyes.
I am thankful I am doing ok still at age 56, although it continues to be a struggle. Sites like these help so much. I’ve had girl friends, boyfriends, husbands, etc. all with disorders. I have trouble recognizing what is normal and so the whackos find a home with me. Not any more. I know that I am not normal so what can I expect to do but keep on searching and trying and maintaining stability.
Pieces of memory come up as I read along here. That helps. When you are raised in that atmosphere from day one, it stiffles your growth and your ability to grow tremendously. AT least it does me. Feeling lucky to have made it, I see my siblings struggling now after mother passed away several years ago and asking me how I was able to do so well in life.
Maybe I should sit down and write out all the bad memories I can remember – adding as they come up. She was very sick and twisted and it was always about her. She scared me from the get go. I couldn’t even look at her – I had nightmares about the look in her eyes. Father said eh was scared to come home to see what she had done to us kids that day. I don’t think she ever reached her top capability however. I think the narcissism won out over the psychopath in the end. She just didn’t have the energy left.
I could probably write quite a book on my life – that might help someone.
Maybe talk again sometime, V
Interesting to read your comment,V. My mother, unfortunately, shares a lot of the same traits as you describe. It tok me until Easter this year to finally and totally comprehend what she is. My mother has brainwashed me. She told me that I lied when I, at the age of about 5, told her abort my fathers sexually abusiveness of me. She told the whole family that I was a liar. I supressed the whole ting until i was an adult and away from her. I really felt that I was a liar and not to be trusted. It was not until many years later, when some of my fathers young students came forward and told their stories about sexual abuse from my father, that I finally started to believe myself a little.
The final opening of my eyes came a while later when I told her that it had been scary with all her moodswings while growing up at her house. I was saying this while I was having a phoneconversation with her. The positive effect was that I could keep the phone away from my ear while she was screaming at me, as usual. The scarefactor lessened somewhat through a phone. After her yelling at me for about 30 min, I told her that I was certain that her mood swings partly were due to her love of pills. I also told her that I was really ashamed of her two years ago when we visited the US and my hostmother from my exchange-student year. My hostmother proudly brought all her Norwegian visitors to her church. She introduced us to her many friends. One was a nurse. My mother (not hostmother) promptly asked the nurse if she could help her with some sleepingpills. My youngest daughter and I witnessed her asking this and we also saw the surprised look on the nurse’s face. My mother immediately tried to play this of as a joke….. but we saw it for what it was. When I during the phoneconversation this Easter reminded her of this episode and the shame I felt by her trying to use the nurse that way, she immediately attacked. With a very sincere voice she stated that this incident never had taken place. I, again, started to doubt myself and my take on what had happened. This has been her modus operandi all my life. The turning point was when I directly after the phone conversation with my mother was over, asked my youngest daughter if she remembered the incident in the church with the nurse and my mother. My youngest daughter said that my mother had asked the nurse if she could give my mother sleeping pills, and that she, my daughter, had been embarrased that my mother would put the nurse in such a position.
I felt free for the first time in my life. I felt that my daughter just had given me the greatest gift, to believe in myself and my self-perception of life. Today, I have no more contact with my mother. As usual, my sisters and their families, her husband and his family and her friends, have gone against me and see me as a riotmaker. I can’t go back into her fold again. I will loose myself, such is her strong hold on my after her grooming me all my life.
We are dealing with such an individual. I can say that she is capable of anything. She has become a great actress when it serves her. She has managed to destroy others quite efficiently and then cry victim. I have sat with those she has destroyed. I can see how she has gotten away with some things and her accusations. She picks her victims quite carefully. Each time when she is done using her victim,she works to turn them into what appears to be the predator. Her promiscuous behavior is hidden by her facade. She judges others for small issues and weaves stories that put the Lifetime movies to shame. She is poisoning the minds of her children just as her mother did with her. The only reason we deal with this person is to try to provide hope for the children. When she could no longer captivate her audience and got away with crimes where children services failed to remove the children, she remarried and moved to another state. Now she has a new audience where she can continue to use her victimization to further her power with her new audience including her new husband. He was given a chance to see the truth from past victims and declined because he like all the other men, chose to believe her. He will be her next victim. It will be a miracle if those children turn out in the spectrum of normal. I do believe that she is more than just sociopathic. There are those of us that believe she is responsible for some things I shall not discuss here. Our main frustration is that the guardian and judge seem to be too naive or just too busy to balance justice. The courts need to stop favoring the mother and see that a female sociopath and psychopaths are just as damaging and they should be held accountable.
Here is my advice to those in a similar situation. Do not show fear. They feed on it. Do not respond in defense. They use it as feedback to plan your emotional demise. Silence is your best response. Also, Do not talk negatively about this person to the children no matter how evil they are. You may be the only example of normal they have. Keep asking them what they think about life so they are encouraged to think for themselves. Children are pawns of power to them. The parasite will carefully choose when to destroy.As long as they serve a purpose, they will be maintained. When you no longer serve a purpose or are a source that can be used against others then you need to watch your back. They think they are justified in all actions. Do not try to figure them out using rational means. They will be two steps ahead. Be prepared to use massive amounts of energy to protect all interactions with this person. They are masters of twisting reality for others. If it was not for the children we would avoid them like the plague. They are evil and delight in it. Life is a game and people and things are pawns. They will spend their dying breath beating everyone else at their game.
A female psychopath? There is no doubt in my mind that plenty of them exist! I have three sisters whom I am sure are sociopathic. I, being the youngest (and humbly, “the best looking and smartest”, according to our older brothers, who have since passed away- & left me in “hot water” with them), was placed in the (despised) role of “Cinderella” in the family. Throughout my entire life, I have had to ward off my sisters’ constant jealous/evil attacks on me. Today, I am on the other side of the US and stay as far away from them as possible!
However cruel my sisters were (and still are)to me, they are not the worst of it in my life. I was also married to a borderline-alcoholic- sociopath, who was morbidly jealous/possessive of me, and stalked me everywhere I went during my 14 years of (hellish) marriage to him.
Since the divorce, he has had an affair with two of my sisters (who enjoyed the thrill of stabbing me in the back); along with two of my closest friends, who were “charmed” by his obsessive attention on them when I left and moved out of state (they are no longer “friends”). None of these women understood that he “used” them to get back at me, and manipulated them to “his side” of the divorce (of course, he was “innocent” of all of my charges).
After the divorce, I also made a Big Mistake in allowing my two children to stay with him during summer vacations (they were 9 & 15 at the time). My ex manipulated them and twisted them so severely against me that they, too, became morbidly jealous of anyone I dated, and of course, they blamed me for the divorce and believed his lies.
Now that they are in their early 40s, they have completely shut me out of their lives, because I (finally) remarried a wonderful man five years ago! They are just like dear old dad, and have smugly enjoyed the sadistic pleasure of watching me suffer in loneliness without them, and without my grandchildren, whom they have forbidden me to see! This has broken my heart & plunged me into tremendous sadness that has been so difficult to cope with these years” but they could care less! And appears that they enjoy it more as time goes by, as if it gives them “power” over watching Mom suffer (they learned this so well from their sociopath father).
Yet, they talk to him daily (he has never remarried, and could easily win an academy award for playing the “deserted, lonely victim”). They have gullibly bought his sickening story! My son is now as alcoholic as his father is and treats me just as horribly. His drinking may have turned on his sociopathic/adddictive genes (epigenetics?), because he was once a sweet son when he left for college, and I hardly recognize him today.
As for my daughter, I believe she has been sociopathic since she was 15 (the age when sociopathy seems to turn on, and it happened during the divorce). She has steadily become colder and crueler to me through the years, and is now completely lacking any remorse or guilt for hurting me (although she has been very dependent on me emotionally, and severely jealous of anyone I dated-behavior just like her father’s).
She also has enjoyed getting closer to my (evil) sisters now that I am out of the picture! I have no doubt that they thoroughly (without mercy) enjoy “ganging up” on me behind my back! My daughter has sadly become more like a jealous/competitive “sister” to me than my once-loving little girl.
In addition to all the sociopaths in my life listed above, my children’s’ “spouses” are also delusional, grandiose, charming (but equally cruel) sociopaths to me, who have happily joined in on keeping me out of their lives. My two have lived with overt, patriarchal sociopathic behavior all of their lives, so their partners’ behavior is not out of the norm for them! They continue to live in their father’s image!
I now live in a nightmare world that never seems to end! I am being “punished” for my happiness with my (new) husband in the most horrific of ways! My children (like their father), & their spouses, have zero empathy for my loss, and gloat with sadistic satisfaction for the pain they have caused me.
Sadly, I also understand now how these “sociopathic genes” can be inherited (they are carried on the male gene). I have much more sympathy today for mothers who did their best while raising their children (as I did), but could not prevent these “killer genes” from being passed on.
I tried consciously to counter (and compensate) with my ex-sociopath’s alcoholism and bad behavior, but obviously, I was not successful in doing so. I was dealing with a biological/emotional madness that was beyond my control.
My message to young women or men out there: learn all you can about sociopathic genes and their behavior! Then run like hell if you see any signs of these in your current partner. So much more information is available today than it was when I was your age. I found out too late, and now I am in my 60s with no children or grandchildren in my “golden years”.
At least I have found a great husband, but it took me years to understand what “healthy” was! Don’t wait as long as I did. Learn before you say “I do” & destroy your children!
Bets, I only have a minute but I had to say hello and that you’ve got it. Spot on. There are no words that I could use to make most believe what I know to be true. I have even realized that the only reason that I have the friends that I have is that they don’t hang out with her. If they did I’m sure most of them would succumb to her charm and lies and I would be done. The good thing about sociopaths is – they keep me humble. Lol
I now realize that I had a friend who is a sociopath. (Please, excuse my English, it’s not my mother tongue).
We met in high school. She was intelligent, smart, joyful, VERY polite, good-mannered, she could talk about books, music, theatre, anything. So we became friends, but she was lying all the time, mostly about small things that I don’t remember anymore (it was more than 10 years ago). She would borrow some money and never give it back. She didn’t feel bad about lying, the opposite – she always made it look like it wasn’t a big deal, like she had forgotten, or misunderstand.
She felt superior to other people and she often had conflicts with classmates, teachers, friends, but it was never her fault. Ever. Now that I think about it, she never had any close friends, it was always some random people that stuck around for a while and then left.
She made up stories about herself, that sounded pretty much unbelievable, but if I was to express any doubt, she would go crazy with anger. After a while she would pretend she had never said anything like that, because, of course, “how that would have been possible?!”
I remember that I once was mad at her and behaved indifferently. Next thing I know, she comes extremely upset to me, because her parents had a huge fight last night and were getting a divorce. No divorce ever happened, but the “pity plot” worked.
Every other week she was deeply in love with a different boy, then he was forgotten and the next one came. I remember asking her how she got over them so quickly and she said: “It’s very easy, I just stop thinking about them.” Now I know, of course, that she wasn’t “in” in the first place, so she had nothing to get “over”.
Then she had a longer relationship with one guy. It ended with her lying to him and to me that she was pregnant and had an abortion. Some facts in her story just didn’t add up, and I caught her. I told her that our friendship was over. She cried hysterically (what a good actress), she hugged me, she begged etc., but I cut her off. A couple of months later she phoned me to tell me that her grandfather had died – another “pity plot”, her grandfather was old and very ill, so it wasn’t surprising or anything, and I hadn’t even seen him. I just said I was sorry and I hung up.
Had I known what I know now about psychopaths and sociopaths, I would have never, ever invited her back in my life. But unfortunately, I didn’t, so about 5 years later I thought: “What the heck, people make dumb mistakes when they’re young, we used to have such nice conversations, we had so much in common (something she made me believe), I should forgive her and maybe we could start over.”
So I contacted her, she was more than happy to hear from me and we met again. She told me how sorry she was about the abortion thing, that she was very desperate because of the guy and how sad she was that she had lost me as a friend. We got close again, I met her boyfriend and invited them to my wedding. She was excited about the wedding to a point where I started to feel uncomfortable. Actually she was jealous about it and I knew it, but decided to ignore it.
A year later I got pregnant. She was even more excited. She kept talking how happy she is about me, how much she wanted children herself, how she would help me with the baby, again, to a point where it got creepy. She had many theories about how children should be raised. Actually, she got theories about EVERYTHING. And she was always right. She HAD to be right. So if tried to object, or argue, or express a different opinion, she wouldn’t let go, until I gave up and pretended to agree with her. Just as long as I agreed, everything was great between us. She really knew how to give me the impression that we were close and very alike.
So when the baby was born, she started skyping me about how I should feed him, how I should put him to sleep, how I should take care of him. I had an emergency c-section, PPD and a very colicky baby, I felt beaten up and she made me feel even worse, while pretending that she cared for me and that she meant only well. She accused me of hiding the baby from her because I didn’t want to send her personally photos (although there were some on my facebook account and they weren’t hidden from her). It was actually true that I was reluctant to send her pictures, I don’t know, maybe some mother instinct kicked in. When my baby was about 3 weeks old it was the second time I cut her off. It’s been almost 3 years since and she only tried to contact me once, like nothing ever happened. I am glad that she never met my children in person.
There is something very, very creepy about her, underneath the friendly, smiling surface, and now that I read descriptions of sociopaths, she fits very well.
Hi Disana
The spath of my acquaintance is also a woman, and would display fury when challenged. Your description of the anger they exhibit when they are challenged is very good. I was thinking about that fury just recently – how venomous it was (my apologies to our poster Star, who loves snakes): it came fast and furious, and was keenly toxic. It was such a shock the first few times I experienced it as she had always been very, very sweet. (I did not experience it very many times as I ended the relationship)
In fact, your entire post resonates for me – my experience of the spath was very similar in tone, if not in detail.
Dad divorced us and left us with the crazy woman – he knew she was a bad egg … I was about 12 by then – it only got worse for me.
Oh childhood – I was fat, ugly, stupid, embarrassing to her, she killed animals and then lied about it, she was twisted, created a pity party for herself – always the victim – oh the attempts at manipulations – she wanted to be taken care of but then omg if you didn’t do it just right the exact way she wanted, you were crushed like a grape. She couldn’t hold a job but it was everyone else’s fault. Don’t ever ask her for anything – it was just too much. We walked on glass floors. I struggled with constipation as a child from stress, along with headaches and self worth of course. I have a psychological breathing problem from being so scared I think I was holding my breath. I used to cry when she told me she loved me because I didn’t believe it – she was so mean otherwise and I felt she was lying to me – her eyes deceived her. I had so many nightmares. My sister asked me if I remember the night mother was choking my little brother in the middle of the night. He had told her he hated her and wanted to go live with Dad that day. I think she told my sister never to tell anyone. I somehow blocked that out although I do remember the incident – I guess it just didn’t stand out knowing her potential / capabilities. He didn’t fare much better with Dad but at least he was out of the nuthouse – lucky dog.
I feel luckier than most. I am still here to share; not that I like remembering but it does give you perspective.
Take care everyone, V
This discussion has just given me a “light bulb” moment. My experiences with my male psychopath (I prefer that term to the more “civilized” sounding “sociopath”) were pretty devastating, so I had not looked at my female contacts.
One woman I have known for thirty plus years, I am now convinced, is a psychopath. She has had many many relationships with men; two failed marriages; has been estranged from her daughter for probably 40 years; has never seen the daughter’s children; has had (recently) a long and expensive court case with her son and his de-facto; is estranged from them and their children; has sued her (four lots of) lawyers; and often has strained relationships with other family, employers, friends and aquaintances.
The only good thing I can really say about her, is that it was through her that I met my wonderful late husband (who’s older brother was married to one of her older sisters).
She always comes across convincingly that she has “the facts”. She insists on being the centre of attention, and gets upset when it is pointed out that she was/is wrong – or that her proofs are based on pseudo science or have not been researched at all. She wants to believe that she is a superior being – different to the rest of us. Any failures are due to other people making mistakes or having it in for her.
She will bring along extra people to social events organised by others – either without any warning, or with a last minute request made within earshot of the people she wants to bring. She is notoriously late for social appointments, and will often arrive with the extra person and herself being innapropriatly dressed/groomed for the venue or event.
She is willing to take advantage of friends when they are thinking of selling their home or vehicle i.e. she will buy at a “good price” and then boast that she sold it on at a profit shortly after.
She approves of a notorious landlord who provides sub-standard accomodation and who has been through the courts repeatedly for breaches of safety and other requirements. She says he is a clever man, and the tenants deserve whatever they get into.
She hates the English and Americans, blaming them for WWII and everything which is wrong with our current world. She hates anyone in the Armed Services because “they are all rapists and murderers just wanting to go overseas to be violent toward women and foreigners”. When it is pointed out that without British and American service people, she and her family would probably not have survived the war AND would not have had a wonderful country like Australia to come to, she ignores this and just regurgitates her venom and litany of untruths and half-truths. Suggestions that if she is so unhappy and critical of Australia, she should go back to Russia, are ignored.
I excused a lot of her behaviour because she had bad experiences as a child refugee during and after WWII – plus the cultural/ethnic differences (I am a third generation Australian from an Anglo Saxon background, whilst she is Russian/Polish).
Recently, her attacks have become more personal toward me – until I realised that I was just fuelling her diatribes by trying to carry on a factual and calm dialogue. Now that my husband and his brother have passed away, I feel no obligation to be “nice” to her, or to waste my time and energy on her.
I know that she is becoming more bitter, lonely and aggressive in her old age, and will not be remembered well by anyone who has had close dealings with her. I do not wish her dead, but as someone else said, I will not mind reading her obituary (if anyone bothers).
Bobbie – I think your analysis is correct. Yes, don’t waste any more time or energy on her.
I may be dealing with a psychopathic daughter. May I explain! She was engaged and living with her boyfriend for 8 years. The wedding date was set. The shower invitations were delivered. Two weeks before the shower, she called me up. Hal and I are not getting married. We called it off. Fine, I said. At thirty one you know your own mind. Recently, she called to tell me she met someone new. The description was much like “love bombing”, and so I warned my daughter to be careful. Apparently, she was offended by my concern. She went on to explain that she had been seeing other men all along. That she and Hal had an “open relationship”. She admitted that several times a week she goes on line and has sex at her or his place. Consensual, but, with strangers she hooks up with. I was deeply disturbed, to say the least. This means, all along, planning the wedding, believing she was monogamous, was a sheer manipulation. Sociopaths are known to lie and manipulate. She wants to become an actress but has no “real” talent or experience. She is cold and patronizing to me. Tries to convince me that somehow I am to blame for her insecurities. I know what sexual addiction is, and I believe she is untrustworthy and immoral. I have told her that I cannot accept her behavior and will not continue our relationship. My daughter lacks the ability to understand that I have the right to respond according to my values. She has the right to her own decisions. To my understanding, my daughter does not have to be a serial killer or a thief to qualify as a seriously disordered woman. She is college educated with a BA in psychology. Her formal education was definitely moral based, as she went to private school. She has many friends and makes friends easily. She basically supports herself although her Dad and I have helped her out many times to insure that she is current on her bills. I would say, from a financial standpoint, she is responsible. I am not a young woman, although my healt is great. I do not need to analyze “why” but to find validation for my position of “no contact”. Thank you. Kalina
kalina
Your post makes me feel like crying and crying and crying.
Am I wrong to think that you are only asking for approval for no contact?
Surely there must be more to this story?