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.
Stargazer
I really like your wording “it seems easier staying with the devil”, how true. It takes a lot of courage and strength to break free from evilness. And yes I was addicted to his abuse. How wrong and not normal it was, I only realized after months and months of no contact. Thank you all for your great support here on this website. Without you I would have never enforced the no contact. Happy thanksgiving.
I was thinking similarly to kaya48;I liked Stargazer’s expression that”it seems easier staying with the devil you know”.At that point I would change the rest to say,”over WHAT you don’t know”.I was always timid and feared my abilities might not be ‘good enough’ to make things work out.A left-over from my childhood that suffered immensely at the hands of my husband.Leaving him made me stronger than ever;and yet I realize I could have never done it in my own strength!
I came across a very interesting statement: “I stayed married to him, because I didn’t know how to take care of myself financially and I was able to “hide” behind his ability to portray the “loving provider”. In truth, I was terrified to be alone. Terrified to spend my life without a sociopath or the addictive pull it had on me. In reality there was no happiness, no trust, it was empty, abusive and cold. I truly believed I loved him, it was far from love, it was a lack of love for myself. So true.
You know, Kaya, I was thinking about this “the devil you know” stuff, and it made me realize how many people are very complacent in their lives because they are afraid to take risks and face the unknown. How many people stay in mediocre marriages, even if their spouses are not evil? Most people are afraid to change because the unknown is pretty scary. If there is any silver lining to being with a sociopath, you have no choice but to leave because it’s leave or die. And when you leave, you reinvent yourself. You grow. You learn who you are and what you want. You wake up and you really live your life maybe for the first time. Believe it or not, this is more than what the majority of people do. Most people find a comfort zone and stay in it. Most people sleepwalk through life. If you have a sociopath in your life, you are forced to wake up because you don’t really have a choice. And waking up is a good thing. Most people don’t do it until some earth-shattering thing happens in life that forces them to.
And the only thing you are required to do is feel your feelings. The only thing that can stop your healing/growth is if you refuse to feel your feelings. Going back to the sociopath (and into denial) is one way to avoid the feelings.
Stargazer
You are so right. I would have ended up dead if I stayed. And now I continue to learn how to love myself. Something I was not able to do while being with him. Because I thought so “little” of me because he kept telling me that. My new goal is to not going back thinking about my past. I live in the present. Yes, I was a victim of this absurd “crazy making” but I ended this addiction by filing for divorce. I can honestly say I have not cried in 6 months. What an improvement from daily crying while I was with him. Today he sent my son a text message “I cannot believe you refuse talking to me”. Doesn’t he get it? We don’t want him in our life anymore. Of course my son never responded because he does not need to. WE are in control now 🙂
From what you are all saying, the sociopath was a wake-up call. In this way they are catalysts in our lives. It doesn’t seem like a great gift at the time. We don’t realize till later the role they played in our lives – helping us to wake up. That is really the ultimate revenge against a sociopath – that they tried to destroy us but instead, we turned their sour lemons into lemonade. We go on to have better lives than we had before we met them. We don’t let them bring us down.
Do whatever you have to do to move on with your life. Sometimes it requires a heroic effort. Sometimes it just means having the courage to feel and release rage or grief. Maybe see a trauma therapist for the PTSD. Whatever it takes, just do it because you are all worth it. Your healing is not about them – it is about you. They were just the catalyst – the ones who brought it to your attention that a change is needed.
In the process of breaking free from my abusive parents, I became very free in many other ways, and I developed a kind of spiritual joy reserved for those who have been through immense pain. I consider the freedom and joy a gift they gave me because when I look around I see that not many people have it.
Miss Donna,
Learning about sociopaths and what happened to me and the rest of us, is starting to feel a little exhausting for me. I first learned about them in March 2012 and have spent my time from then until now trying to convince myself that what was happening to me was not a dream or my imagination, and was the stark reality of being in a relationship with one of them and that I was dying with him and had to get away from him. He was here again last night at 12:30am knocking on my door, and at 4:00am the night before. I ignored him.
If it’s not too personal of a question for you, may I ask how it is that you still want to use your energy on sociopaths, and more curious to me is how your new husband feels about the time you spend educating and trying to help other victims of sociopaths?
Doesn’t it sometimes feel like you want to just forget about the whole thing and stop having any focus whatsoever on disordered people? They make us sick and tired and confused. How do you find the strength to keep going for us here in cyberspace-land?
I’m in the middle of the final break-up with him and he keeps coming around and I can’t call the police because of the kind of people he knows, no matter what anyone says about getting the police involved. I can’t and won’t unless I am being physically threatened and I’m being careful not to give him any chance to be alone with me. I know this discard phase will end and he will eventually stay away, but I am so tired of the info that is rolling around in my head about what he did to me and how these people are, and just want it all to stop now, which is not how it works with them. It takes so long to get over them and the stuff we let happen to us as I have read, and I’m a little scared that he might have messed me up permanently in my ability to believe what anyone says.
So, why does Miss Donna want to stay in this sociopathic world of hurt and evidence of pain now that she was able to get her sociopath out of her life? Don’t you sometimes feel that you just want to stop it and move on to a life with your new husband without the traits and sadness that come from dealing with sociopaths?
I want to give Kudos to your husband because I feel that it might not be easy having to continually deal with the sociopathic influence, and Kudos to you for what is your blessed, obvious daily desire to help the rest of us with them.
Thank you both,
Peace
Jenni Marie
Do not be so sure that the discard phase will end and he will stay away, especially if you have children. I believed that and he reappeared like a vampire to seize our daughter and alienate her from me after 20 years and his third divorce.
I can’t speak for Ms. Anderson. I think you raise some good questions Jenni, that can be generalized to anyone who takes up a cause after trauma. There’s the risk that the trauma comes to define a person by the cause taken up even if it does good for others, as this website does. It’s a risk that has to be weighed and I assume Ms. Anderson has.
I think it’s a great sign that you have become bored with your pounding thoughts about “him” and the subject of disordered people. I predict that means that you’ll move onto something more sunny and interesting to you… As, I think, you should. It is your life to do as will most please you.
I am the adult daughter of psychopathic father. I was in my 30’s before I started to understand what was wrong with him. I studied and studied and then read “Boundaries” by Henry McCloud. It was an eye opener. I learned that my father is classic mimic. He cannot feel emotions, but he knows how to mimic them expertly. When it served his purpose, he would play the role of loving father. My brother and I were told, and still are told, how much he loves us. Every card we ever got from him were full of underlined mushy text, and always signed with many “I’m proud of you’s” and “I love you’s.” Every phone call or voice message was full of “I love you’s.” We both knew it was pure B.S. For one thing, he didn’t know us well enough to be proud of us. And secondly, his actions never backed up his words…not ever.
Does a loving father emotionally and verbally eviscerate his family?
Does a loving father demand love and not give it?
Does a loving father try to involve his children in his schemes and manipulations?
Does a loving father lie, manipulate and fail to provide for his children, and all the while he is out living the good life?
No!!!!!!!!
The only option for me and my brother has been complete and total No Contact. That is the only way for us to have peace. Prior to this, any contact with our father was predicated with anxiety, fear, dread, and knowing we would be required to be fake, to be role players. We had spent our childhoods play acting the roles of expectation in order to avoid the violent outbursts we knew would come if his toys (us) weren’t playing nice. In recent times (10 years ago before going No Contact) I was even accused of being “cold” and unfeeling. Really?! That is rich.
So, my point is this, pay attention to words vs. actions. They mean everything!!! Whether it’s a parent or partner, pay attention. Don’t allow yourself to be love-bombed into thinking you are dealing with a nice, yet misunderstood person. Evil comes masked as a prince.
crackofnoon – so true. thank you for sharing. I’m glad you and your brother have No Contact with him.
I am, just now, coming to terms with the fact my parents are narc/sociopaths. My mother is at least a malignant narc and my father is a definite sociopath. I’ve spent 15 years running from them and the pain inside me. Numbing with alcohol and portraying two faces because I never developed into a whole person. After a long time of dissociation and rage throughout 2.5 years of therapy;
I remembered the sexual abuse by my father and the covering up and portrayal of a “PERFECT” family by my mother. Today, my brother and I see our parents for the monsters they truly are: no love for us or other or for each other, the lies, the attacks, the animal abuse, the cruelty, the control and verbal/emotional abuse. It even came down to my brother and his wife thinking I was a sick and horrible person because of the fabrication of stories they heard from my parents.
Only when my mother attacked (and my father fully participated in the act) his wife before they moved out of state did they truly realize who my parents really are- narc/sociopaths. I spent a few days with them and we talked about the dysfunction in our family from birth. I recalled more encounters to them and my brother remembers very little of his childhood and the family dynamic. With therapy he will, however, it would be an extremely painful process for him- as was with me.
Thankfully, my brother has a stable, loving and supportive woman next to him. While I struggle with the abuse inflicted on my for 37 years. This month I confronted my parents and told them I never wanted to see or speak to them ever again. And I mean it. If they died today I would not mourn them for so deep is my rage, hatred, fear, anxiety and hate toward them. We plan on spending holidays together and work on supporting one another into the future. It is just amazing and painful for me (and my brother, I think) to realize both my parents never loved me. Never cared for me except as an extension of them, an object to be used, misused, misguided and controlled and manipulated to stay under their control. They are so sick.
If I have any empathy it is toward the empty shell of a woman I used to call mother. My instances of abuse: sexual abuse from toddler age into 5th grade by my father; covering up of the sexual abuse by my mother; a severely frightened child (who would hide from others) and a frightened adult; the loss of sense of self; the loss of boundaries and trusting my instincts; being incapacitated by fear in my work and relationships with men.
As an adult woman I am suspicious of all men- they will lie, they will cheat, they will use me, I am dirty, I am worthless, I am not worthy of love … and the list goes on. So, I sabotage any healthy and unhealthy relationship with a man or female friend.
I am beginning my journey toward healing from such severe abuse and neglect. I only hope I will find true happiness and true love within the next half of my life. Considering I’ve been trained and plagued by narc/sociopathic behaviors since birth-37years of age.
Any help, support or feedback would be greatly appreciated.
cashaw30
Your post is so heartbreaking. The two bright spots are you and your brother (with his wife). I had a terrible mom and a pedo dad, and I use my mom as my anti mom. That is, for years, I looked at my mother’s example and knew to chose anything but that.
I can not imagine the mindset of any mom who would cover up sexual abuse. I know it happens, I just can’t imagine what your mom told herself. I think it would take everything I have inside me to NOT murder anyone who raped my baby, that means even if he was my husband. There is no greater evil than someone feeding off the vulnerability and innocence of a darling child in order to get deviant sexual satisfaction. I would also have a very very difficult time feeling anything towards a person who helped the pedophile. So, you are much kinder towards your mom as you express empathy for her, yet she is a malignant narcissist.
Was it your therapist who helped you come to realize that your mother is a narcissist and your father a sociopath or did you know that before therapy? Are you still receiving therapy? Are you saying your brother associated with them until they attacked his wife? That he wasn’t a target of their abuse? I know that’s common in families, that one child is singled out for abuse.
I want to commend you for the enormous work you have done to separate from them and working towards healing from the consequences from their abuse. It’s difficult to find a good therapist, a good match for our needs. But once you found someone, they are invaluable. After several bad starts, I found an excellent therapist who helped me separate my anxiety from my reality, and I found a space to know peace and calm. That space allowed me to do some deep healing. I hope that’s what you are finding, that you are worthy and wonderful and deserve nurturing and encouragement.
You will find that happiness is the consequence of emotional health, but it’s not a steady state. It comes and goes and what’s wonderful about that fluctuation is to realize that’s NORMAL. In fact, ALL emotions come and go, and that’s normal. The ability to discern NORMAL was a very life affirming skill that I gained from my therapy, and to find delight in discovering all the NORMAL parts of us. I write about the outcome of my therapy only to share an example. Of course, you have your own goals and needs in your therapy and that will be as individual as you are.
You write that you are dirty, worthless, not worthy of love. These are Heartbreaking, cruel, terribly painful thoughts that are not true of you, but I understand those thoughts. That you likely know the words are lies in your head, but your heart can’t seem to feel the truth. I strongly hope for the process as you work towards the truth, to separate and name the evil was done to you by evil people is not a judgment of you, to excise that evil and free your spirit from such a burden. You deserved NONE of this. Yes, just Words I know, but TRUE words so I’ll say them again! You deserved NONE of your abuse. At least you know you are not alone, that it happened to others and that we can share our experience as we recovered from similar abusive childhood conditioning.
Life can be a nightmare at times but there is a path for us who were abused to find a better life, a satisfactory life, a life of care and appreciation and exploration and decency and to be however we chose it to be.
I am focusing on actions vs. words more than ever in my relationship with people. Especially men. I have a lot of girl-friends- most are supportive. My distrust toward men is immense.
Yes, my mom, covered up the sexual abuse. Her words are “get over it”; people who say they are sexually abused as children and remember it years later are liars. She would say forgive and forget, it only hurts you, and move on.
I am sure she told me this as a child. But the fear, dissociation, isolation, anxiety increased as I became her mini-self. Completely under her control. I suffer from CPTSD in my adult life. I have been re-victimized in my adulthood. Of course, she offered no support just verbal and emotional abuse. Telling me I was like her own mother -who hated my father and told my mom she should divorce him.
There are many, many secrets my mom has kept to stay in a marriage with a pedophile psychopath. Just so she would have her comfortable home, her demand for $, her slave for a husband, food to eat (she overeats and has an eating disorder/addiction). As adults, they know they cannot control and manipulate us any longer and it escalates their verbal/emotional abuse, their lying, their manipulations.
My parents last and only visit ever was for my birthday this year. They knew I was undergoing EMDR for severe trauma. They knew I was diagnosed as CPTSD and they didn’t say a word. They didn’t care about my pain. Instead they started talking about children in their neighborhood and it sickened me- I literally felt nausea to hear the way they spoke about the children. Their next victims- I hope not!!!
Obviously they were threatened by my behavior because on the ride to the airport they started asking for a key to my house in case anything happens to me. They talked about how a body could be buried in the woods where I live in Virginia and not be found or in New Jersey. My mom started yelling that her “friend” was a “liar”! Don’t listen to her”! – her friend remembered sexual abuse by her grandfather years after in her adulthood.
Then my parents went home and killed my cat they had taken a couple years ago. Not kidding, 12 hours later my cat was so sick it needed an IV and was going to die (all of this said before they even took the cat to a vet). It was at this time I seriously feared for my life.
I cannot say just how sick they make me feel. Sick in the body, mind, spirit. It disgusts me and has taken a long process to remember and reconcile the fact my parents are evil and horrible people.
If you ask anyone who knew us they would say we were a “perfect” family and my parents are “so sweet”. The glares my father gave me were pure evil- pure evil stares this last visit.
My sister in law said she never had seen so my hatred in a persons’ eyes as when my mother was screaming at her and had my sister in law on the floor, sobbing and shaking. All because my brother was out of their control, they were moving and they were not having children. (no grandchildren for them to be pedophiles).
It is horrible to reconcile with the fact I was brainwashed for so many years knowing something was not right and feeling empty inside. I relate to putting on the mask- I put on the smiling, perfect mask for years and it was ALL show. All for show! I had to play their sick game to survive and now I am paying for it in my trauma which is all encompassing.
Dear cashaw30
I hope you are still around and able to read this. I thought about what you wrote and I wanted to tell you what I have learned, old woman that I am.
I had a family that no one would want. I am so ashamed of them. They are crude and abusive and thieves and pedos and proud of being without feelings. But one thing that I know and have always known, they were my birth family but they are not me.
In the same way, You are not your birth family. You are a wonderful mix of insights and humor and perspectives and beauty inside and out. You don’t have to take on the judgments that you heard as a child. They were wrong, wrong about you and wrong for you. You can see the truth, that those people are limited in their thinking and their being, a pedo father with the dregs of a wife, they are evil.
I am sorry to read of your diagnosis of CPTSD. That’s a lot to carry. I hope you are working on a resolution from every possible avenue, medically/multi therapies/and talk therapy, etc etc.
But I also hope you realize you are not your parents. You are special simply for being the unique you that this world needs.
I hope you separate the judgments and mean things that others said to or of you from the very special person that you are. I can’t know you, but I know of you. You are like me, and like many of us here, who were targets of evil. But the reason we were targets, and the reason it bothers us, is because we don’t accept what they say of us. We know the truth. That there are good people in the world, and we are part of those good people and that they, our birth family, was not part of those good people. But we are.
Please hang on to that truth. People who have a heart and can feel, in this world with all it’s selfishness? Those are the people that make people like me feel that gee, maybe the world has a chance after all.
Please don’t be hard on yourself. Give yourself plenty of slack. We are none of us perfect. But you, me, we… are worth celebrating. I’m wishing you the kind of life you want, and if you want help, or a sounding board, we are here, to encourage you to reach for better that the deal you got when you were born to the wrong parents.
With all my heart,
MWHSOM… and btw, Not what they said of you either.
Thank you NotWhatHeSaidofMe: your posts have helped me. I am looking for a trauma therapist while handling other challenges ahead. Yeah, their voices are still in my head even after all these years. They sure did a bang up job on their daughter. It feels good to know I am not alone. As a therapist said “you are in good company”. Ha! Didn’t find meaning in it until now. The cognitive dissonance I experienced trying to separate myself from these two monsters has lifted, thankfully. I plan on never going back to them for anything or anyone. Today, I realized I’ve always been taken care of in some for either roommates, friends, my doggies in my time of need and support outside of my parents will appear as I continue to separate from their sickness. There are good people. I need to continue to no sabotage my relationship with the good ones. I’ve worked hard to get past my learned narcissim toward women and can have close friendships with women. Now, it is time to heal my narcissist wound which relates to men. It is possible to have healthy male relationships, if I recognize the areas of my trauma that are triggered. Ironically, since I confronted my pedophile parents I do not have the body sensations in my mouth and throat. I still feel a deep pain and nausea in my stomach however other parts of my body are not presenting the somatic state of the abuse. I plan on hanging in and I would like to continue to correspond with you.
Once again, thank you so much for reaching out!