This week two people contacted me, both adult daughters of sociopaths. In one case her father and in the other case her mother has psychopathic personality traits. Interestingly, both disordered parents claim to be “Christian” and the theme of our discussions was the disparity between what the parent says and what they do. Both women shared the belief that this disconnect between words and action is particularly damaging to children. I agree with this assertion because I have also seen it in other cases.
Why would the disconnect between words and actions be so damaging to children?
Consciousness develops gradually during childhood. Consciousness means connecting words, thoughts and feelings to what is happening in reality. Many children naturally idealize their parents and so are inclined to believe the version of reality their parents present in words. But what if the words and reality don’t in fact match? Consider the following example a father wrote to his daughter from prison. Keep in mind this father is a repeat offender who has defrauded and ruined many including family members:
I have a lot of time to sit here and ponder the course of my life. I know I have wronged the family, and for that I am truly sorry. I have been so selfish and stubborn… I haven’t seen or talked to you in well over a year and I can’t help but wonder the rippling effect that sends into the demonic realm. I hope all is well. I love you with the perfect love of the Father.
This is a perfect example of the way a sociopath communicates. His agenda isn’t apparent until the third to the last sentence. His agenda is to manipulate her into having contact with him. But unless you are aware of how a person with psychopathic personality traits operates, you wouldn’t necessarily get that. He starts out stating a fact, he has unlimited time in prison to think. Then it’s progressively out of reality from there. He also connects her failure to contact him with something demonic, suggesting that things might not “be well.” He concludes by proclaiming he has “perfect love.”
I have been chatting with the recipient of this letter for some time and can tell you the father, in addition to ruining her mother’s life was extremely verbally abusive. A parent who abuses while saying, “I love you with the perfect love of the Father,” inflicts wounds that are hard to heal. How can a child make any sense of this experience?
Dissociation- dealing with the disconnect
The different parts of our brains that perform different functions are functionally connected. Experiences we have during childhood but also throughout our lives, determine the functional connectivity of our brains. When reality doesn’t make sense our brains automatically compensate to create a coherent whole. So for example, a child whose parent abuses and says “I love you” may deny the abuse or blame it on themselves. Children whose parents, and adults whose partners continually do one thing while speaking the opposite experience a form of hypnosis. In this hypnotic state they only focus attention on the parts of reality that support the version of reality given to them by the sociopath. (If you have a lot of time read my story and see how this happened to me with disastrous consequences.) But what are the consequences of a childhood or adulthood habit of self-hypnosis? We don’t really know the full answer to that question.
How to heal
The first step in healing is realizing what happened to you and understanding that self-hypnosis or dissociation doesn’t mean you are crazy. It is a functional response to differing inputs. The next step is to fight the hypnosis. Stop having contact with the sociopath. If you do have to have communication, do not listen to the words, try to keep present in your mind the real actions of the sociopath. Tell yourself, “actions speak louder than words.”
Lingering questions
If you have experienced the disconnect between words and actions, I discuss here, you are undoubtedly asking yourself, “Do they do this on purpose?” or “Do they know what they are doing?” The answer is some do and some don’t. The ones that know what they are doing are perhaps more evil and the ones who don’t know what they are doing are perhaps more affected with psychopathy. No matter what, the sociopath makes a choice about what he/she does.
Hens.. i wouldn’t go there. You know what you know. The what ifs will eat you alive if you give ’em the energy. So don’t. You don’t know all the ins and outs, the circumstances, the strings attached to that letter- it’s just another scrap of paper ( like a marriage certificate ) he wanted you to have so your “relationshit” “seemed authentic” ( when you know what it really was, and is. A stinkin’ pile of cow manure, that’s what. And with even that I’m being generous, cause hey- at least cow manure has its purposes! ) You are human so you’re trying to fill in the gaps again with your empathy. You are filling in the gaps of a monster, whom this flimsy piece of paper will NOT IN ANY WAY ABSOLVE OR MAKE WHAT HE DID ANY MORE PALATABLE. You know, deep inside, behind where this letter kicked you in the gut today- that he is a P to the bone. So don’t let doubt get the best of ya. hugs
Thanks Dancingnancies – I exhaled real big after reading your comment – your right – thanxs so much…hug back at ya…
Safeguard:
Thanks darlen!!!!
Cliff notes version of my ‘story’. It’s been 5 years.
28 year relationshit to spath. Kids.
Found out he was a drug dealer and slept with men and found letters from young girls.
Booted him.
Had 2 strokes and a disected carotid artery….didn’t want spath to know and come back and hijack my life.
Mother told him agianst my wishes…spath flew back, came to hospital….wreaked the havoc I expected and was kicked out from hospital.
Spath moved back in……and I was in no physical shape to do a thing about it.
Police called….by kids due to physical abuse.
Police called again…..told spath to leave.
I was then diagnosed with the cancer……
Spath kidnapped kids- duped my parents into believing I was faking being sick and I was mentally ill…….parents refused to speak to me…..allowed spath all the control.
Spath was alienating me from any support.
Kids were gone, parents hid them….for 3.5 months.
Spath threated he was going to kill me……At that point I was so looow…..all I could say was GAME ON!
I picked myself up……and researched, found LF, found a good attorney who got sociiopaths from a legal standpoint and went for HIS jugular.
I documented, documented and documented more……I played PI, secretary, legal asst……and found my ‘inner sociopath’ and played it right back at him.
I was awarded all assets and full legal custody of kids. A restraining order for 5 years and a stalking order for 3 years.
He stalked us himself and through others…….I built a case….followed through and (hopefully) ran him out of my life. Kids want nothing to do with him.
My grace was it wasn’t me trying to convince my kids he was bad……HE exposed them to ‘who’ he was himself. (actually a blessing in the end!).
He knows i’ll nail his ass with any wrong move.
He knows the cops in my town are aware of him.
He knows he can’t come back here without judgement…..legal.
He was arrested a year after final divorce…..with drugs in another state. Trafficking, intent to sell yeadayada…..took case to supreme ct …..last month got off on a technicality.
I reported him to 5 states DEA, provided 11 pages of info……they KNOW who he is.
He continues to play the victim…..and typical spath behaviors…..BUT…..he has stayed away for about 8 months now…..so I don’t care what the hell he does.
His family now knows who he is……and he is well on his way to exposing himself to the ‘new’ people in his life.
So……Bottom line….I was alienated freely by my parents during my time of need…..and they were NOT there and not just that but they freely jumped ship to support a person (spath) they claimed to not like for 28 years.
There are issues…..to say the least! But boundaries I do not want to step over (my own) to appease my mothers need to pretend ‘all is fine’…..without appeasing my need to have my reality met.
Thanks Safeguard and I won’t let her milk it……but for now….I need to process and reverse my ‘guilt’ programming!!!!
Hens…..DON’T GO THERE!!!!!!
It looks good for HIM to have that policy…….and i’ll tell ya…..it also is VERY easy to change beneficiary’s WITHOUT YOU KNOWING!
I’ts a hook, a bait……Don’t take it!
He could’t write son, he couldn’t write husband, cousin or anything else…..He was your boyfriend……was there a blank for that?
Domestic partner was that blank.
It wasn’t about YOU……and besides….who paid for that policy?
It wasn’t about taking care of you after his death……if he died…..he knew he wasn’t going to be around to care.
Don’t read into that.
My spath filled out legal docs which said he was my husband.
He also listed me as beneficiary on his retirement accounts.
He was tooo stoopid to know how to change it……or care about me or kids welfare after his death!
Head up darlin!
Erin – there is a new tool, besides oxy’s skillet – i have a little kitchen whisk to sweep away crumbs of guilt we have from setting boundaries with the crumbs in our lives. whisk, whisk, whisk. (really it’s just a small witch’s broom 😉 )
Hens, CAMom went through hell when her ex died. All sorts of things she was supposedly to benefit from – he had signed her on to this and that – and you know what she got? Nada! I wouldn’t be surprised if your spath doesn’t have a whole slew of those forms out there in the world – siting other beneficiaries.
EB – i second skylar’s opinion – you are wrestling with this because you are human; and i would add, empathetic. You’ve been there, so of course you would care.
I think finding new ways when the hook goes deep – not just because of our training, but because of our humanity – may be like struggling to be born (either that or i am sigourney weaver and something is gonna come out of my chest.) being born is a fairly violent experience – and yet we cannot stop it. we get squished through a tiny corridor and out into a completely diff environment – we have to breath, we have to eat, we have to deal with air….being outside our mothers.
I would think that knowing that your mom will go through a hard time would touch your empathy – regardless of what she has done. Oxy and i have been talking about our ’empathy switches’ lately. how we can turn them off and on, and how we sometimes feel guilt when we turn them off, and how we are learning to turn them off in more often (when we recognize relationships and situations as toxic).
Would i feel empathy for my sib or the n sire if they were sick? yup. would i do anything about it? don’t know. doubt it. I would go to my mom and support her if n sire was sick. If my dad were actually dying i think i might go have a few not pleasant words with him. the sib, don’t know. probably not.
there is a lot of loss that we all have to process – it piles up and gets mixed up. sometimes close walls look like mothers and sometimes mother’s look like close walls.
so taking care of Eb – i’d revisit the concern and empathy you have for yourself, and what you went through. how about a letter to yourself about the cancer and all that happened with it? it might help you let go of some of the emo charge with your mom, and make it easier emotionally to sustain NC. xxx
Hens,
my spath did something similar. He said, “you know, I used to belong to a welder’s union and they put some money into a policy for me. I should find it and make sure you’re the beneficiary.” Then later, “You know, I’m worried about dying without a will. I would want to make sure you got whatever I own, if something happened to me.”
These were hooks and I fell for it. I said, “oh, honey, you’re right. We should both have wills. Lets get this done right away.” And I made our wills up and we went to get them notarized.
That was the first step towards killing me. He wanted to make sure he’d get everything I owned. sicko.
It’s possible Hens, that your spath was doing that in the hopes that you would reciprocate….and if you didn’t he might have started to put a guilt trip on you to push the issue.
EB ~ so long ago you were so supportive of me and my troubles. I wish I could say something wise to you right now. Do you think the emotions that you are feeling are you mourning the illusion of a mother. You may be trying to rationalize how you feel versus how you would have responded to hearing this news about a loving mother, the kind you deserved but did not get. I am sorry.
Hens ~ Sky just said what first came to my mind. Maybe next it would have been him asking you to make him beneficiary of your life insurance policy – WOW
While I am sitting here, just something completely off topic to share.
Sometimes I find myself wondering if all the time, energy and life savings we have put into the custody battle to save our grandson was the right decision. His genetic makeup, after all, looks like something that comes out of a broken sewer pipe. His ADHD, RAD, Autism diagnosis would scare the crap out of most normal people. His behavior is often “off the charts”. With that said, I just watched him go down the drive in a pony cart, with his little amish friend sitting next to him. Ten year old Grand was wearing his friend’s amish straw hat and the other little boy was wearing Grand’s baseball cap (backwards of course). Grand waved and hollered “I love you, see you later.” My doubts are gone for now. I wish I would have had my camera.