After being physically, mentally, and emotionally abused by sociopathic parents, I often wondered when the trauma would stop.
Would it get better as they aged?
Or would I be relentlessly tormented until they passed away?
The answer: neither. After their passing, their legacy continued to haunt me.
My father was the violent, malevolent sociopath. Yet, my mother caused by far more pain. You see, my mother was a master of deceit. If you offended her (or worse, threatened to expose her), she would effortlessly spin webs of lies around you. Incite her anger, and suddenly you are Alice in Wonderland – sucked into her rabbit hole where nothing is at it seems, wondering what just happened to you.
Sadly, many people experienced her wrath. I used to get phone calls from some of her targets who feared losing their jobs because of her lies. “What did we do wrong?”, they would ask me.
No one understood that helpless feeling better than those of us at ground zero: her children.
Out of all five of us kids, I was probably tormented the most. This is because my older siblings detached from her early on. As adults, they protected themselves by setting up strict boundaries with her.
I, however, was the “softie.” Sociopaths LOVE compassionate people. They FEED off of them. I didn’t know this then.
Perhaps the biggest wake-up call for me came after mom passed away.
The senior center where mom lived had a luncheon in her “honor.” My siblings, feeling very guarded, declined to attend. Then there was me. The Softie. I will go, I said. I also brought beverages and offered to help serve.
Again, my siblings were rightfully wary. Unbeknownst to me, mom had convinced her “friends” that her kids – especially me – were evil and abusive to her. Her “friends” took turns at the microphone expressing their admiration for her after “all her kids put her through.” The stories that came out of their mouths would’ve made Stephen King proud.
I calmly went to the bathroom, sat in the stall, and silently cried my eyes out. I then composed myself and went to the kitchen to help serve the people who just slandered my siblings and I. At best, I received cold stares. At worst, I received comments like “I hope you’re happy now – your mom is dead.”
Why did I stay? Because if I’d walked out (or given them a piece of my mind), mom would win again. It was almost as if she was still there, taunting me: Do it! Get angry! Show them what a rotten little daughter you are…..
That was easily one of the most painful days of my life. Public humiliation and mom’s evilness aside, I still mourned. I mourned the loss of the lady who gave birth to me. And I mourned the fact that, on that day, I realized that I never really had a mom at all.
OMG Wendy – how painful.
I’ve heard of many bitter, deceitful, manipulative senior citizen sociopaths. They never change.
Wendy, so SO sorry for what you have gone through. It was similar but not as bad when my mom died. Her live-in boyfriend and his daughter could not understand why my sister and I did not have contact with my mother in her final years. They thought we were very selfish. I didn’t try to explain because they would never understand. My mom died bitter and hurt that her children “abandoned” her. That was her narcissism. She didn’t see cause and effect – that her life choices, neglecting us and throwing us to the wolves (her abusive husband) – was a willful choice. She had even told her live-in boyfriend that she put the men in her life first and not her children because her children would “grow up and leave some day.” This is the ultimate expression of the borderline-narcissistic personality. It was all about her.
Like you, Wendy, I was the compassionate sibling. I worked at having a relationship with my mother for many years, and we did manage to have some positive bonding and several visits. My mother did get into a 12-step program for a short time and showed some contrition, though I feel she was just too narcissistic to make any kind of lasting change. I do feel she tried and that she did the best she could.
My sister cut her off completely 30 years ago. When my mother died last year, I was at peace. My last act toward her had been to send her flowers on Mother’s Day about 3 years prior. And the last thing I said to her on the phone was “I love you.” I meant it. It took many years but I had finally forgiven her for her betrayal. I loved her and had compassion for her, but from a distance. My sister never did, and she remains angry and bitter to this day, not even wanting a relationship with me. When my mother died, I grieved and still grieve, not so much for the mother she was but for the mother I always hoped she could be and also for the tragedy of her life and the lives she affected. She died bitter and lonely, even with her live-in boyfriend. It’s all very tragic. She was a sad, unhappy person. I don’t recall her ever being happy. I wouldn’t say even seeing me brought down made her happy, though she was very jealous of me. She was just plain unhappy and always stressed out. She lived on Fiorenals (sp), which was the precursor to Valiums. In fact, when I was 14 and tried to commit suicide, I had only to look in our shared closet and take a handful of pills out of the bottom of my mom’s purse. She didn’t even put them in a vial. And she didn’t even notice the 10 pills missing.
I vow never to be like her. So her legacy to me is to give me the gift of personal growth. If not for her, I would not have embarked on my spiritual journey at the age of 23 and would not be the person I am today. That is the silver lining.
I hope you cherish your compassionate nature, Wendy, and that your horrendous childhood can somehow become a gift to you as you go through life – that, in my opinion, is the way to win. I have struggled with financial, intimacy, self-esteem, and all kinds of other issues my entire life. But the last chapter of my life has not been written yet! And neither has yours! That last chapter will be about how I prevail over adversity. I wish this for you too, with all my heart.
Hi star,
You said: “And the last thing I said to her on the phone was “I love you.” I meant it. It took many years but I had finally forgiven her for her betrayal.”
forgiveness=love.
My heart seems very pleased to have heard this.
Best,
Onejoy
OneJoy! Made me so happy to hear from you.
Wendy and Stargazer, a big hug to you both. As a child we expect a parent to protect us, not to be the cause of the harm directly, or indirectly by allowing their partner to abuse us. My mum is not a psychopath but she
was a big disappointment to me as her poor judgement/selfishness/whatever throughout my life continued to cause me danger (an abusive and violent step-father and half-sister) right into my 40’s. The motivator? I think it was security driven – a fear my mum had of being alone without a man and wanting to have the image a family life. Possibly she has dependant personality disorder or symptoms of it. There comes a time when we must accept who they are, stop hoping they will change, stop believing they will one day feel remorse for their wrong-doings and make it up to us. They won’t, because they do not see wrong in what they do whether it is because they are disordered, or if not disordered because they have different standards, values and motivators to our own. Because of this I never got any explanation when I tried to speak to her about it all. It just made her angry and she would disengage. My mum is not a bad person and I love her. SOME of the things she does causes harm because of certain security needs. Now I rely in my own judgement and I have no problem saying no to her when I feel her judgement will bring harm to me. I learned (the hard way) not to trust her judgement over my own because her drivers were self-serving and were never anything to do with what was best for me. As a child I didn’t know that and I was being thrown to the wolves even into my 40’s. It took the last traumatic event a few years ago for me to realise it was my mum indirectly, but not intentionally, contributing to my harm. At the end of the day we are our own best protectors once we reach adulthood. I’m so terribly sorry for those of you who have had sociopaths/psychopaths as parents as it would have been a million times worse than my situation.
Thank you, Bally. Like your mother, my mother was afraid of being alone, and that’s one of the reasons she never left my abusive stepfather, even though I begged her to repeatedly over the years. Her own father had died when she was a teenager, and her mother used to leave her alone for days while she (her mother) ran off with her boyfriends. Being an only child, my mother developed a deep fear of abandonment.
Before the abusive stepfather came into the picture, she would fly into rages and hit us, kick us, and pull our hair when she would get frustrated. She worked nights as a nurse. Sometimes my sister and I would be playing in the house while she was sleeping during the day, and we’d wake her up. She’d fly into a rage. I remember curling up into a ball when she would do this. Then she would apologize and hug us and tell us she loved us. During one of her rages, she hit me. I fell on the hardwood floor and broke my front tooth. I lived with a broken front tooth until I took myself to the dentist and got a crown at 16. It was black where it got broken, and all the kids teased me, so I never smiled. This was probably for the best because I never learned about brushing my teeth anyway. My first teeth cleaning was in college. My teeth had so much tartar that I actually believed they were all supposed to be connected in the back. The dentist couldn’t believe I’d never been taught or encouraged to brush my teeth! She thought maybe I grew up in the Appalachians. My mother was a nurse – an RN, but the level of even physical neglect to her children still astounds me when I think about it. My biological father was an attorney, but he was a very weak figure in my life until he totally disappeared when I was about 12. With two educated parents, you’d think we’d occasionally go to the dentist for a check-up.
I’ve had the crown replaced twice since. For a long time, I would get very angry every time I needed dental work, due to the injustice of the expense. Several times I asked her for help with dental costs and she always refused. Several years ago, I finally forgave her for all of it. It has been a huge relief not to carry around the resentment any more.
Besides starting my young adult life in debt over dental work, I’ve been completely on my own since I was 16 and buying all my own clothes since I was 14. I put myself through college and always managed to find places to live. Often I’d rent a room in a house with crazy roommates or dysfunctional live-in boyfriends. I’m sure some of them thought I was the crazy roommate. This continued till I got my first solo apartment at age 33. It was independence day for me. I bought my first condo at age 35. It wasn’t much. It was in the ghetto. But I was very proud of it. Never mind the types of jobs I had to do in order to get there. That’s the topic of another story!
Wow, sometimes I forget what a hard life I’ve had until I actually tell the story. Makes me very sad for all I’ve been through.
Stargazer, thank you for sharing your experience. It sounds like you were neglected in some ways. Your experience of the tooth is very sad. Your mum inflicted physical damage with her abuse.
My mum left my biological father before I was born and moved back home with her parents (with me and my brother). My father had nothing to do with us unless it was to use us to annoy mum. From how she described him it sounds to me that he had a lot of psychopathic behaviours. He wouldn’t pay child support and signed all rights of us in court over to mum so he wouldn’t have to. I’ve met him a few times but not many – he is a different story. He died a few years ago.
Thank goodness we were raised by our loving and caring grandparents up until I was 11. Sadly for my grandparents mum saw them as responsible for her children and used them financially and as permanent babysitters. Then after dating a string of abusive men she married one and we went to live in another country. Had I not of lived with granny and grandad I wouldn’t have known anything other than abuse from my mums choice of men and indirect abuse from mum. So as a child I knew these behaviours were wrong. What I don’t understand is the reasons mum was always attracted to this type of man – she had been brought up by my grandparents as I had done – they were Christians and good people who gave lots of care and love – very kind people. So why would mum find abusive men so attractive…it is such a mystery to me unless she wants to feel controlled, wants to have drama, wants to see her kids abused……maybe it is something about seeing the abusive behaviour as powerful and she finds that attractive. Her father (my grandad) was just the complete opposite. Quiet, kind and good to the core.
I believe that the years of abuse directed into my life by my mother groomed me nicely for the psychopath to come knocking at my door. Also because of other vulnerabilities/weaknesses too…..at least now I’m exploring these to be more self aware.
Bally, thankfully, you grew up with some love in your life via your grandparents. It does seem odd why your mother, who was raised with loving parents, would be drawn to abusive men. I hope that understanding more about her motives can help you understand yourself more.
When I started to see my mother clearly – her vulnerabilities and why she made the choices she did – it helped me to accept and let go of the bitterness, as it sounds like you’ve done as well. The important thing for us to know is that we are not our mothers, and whatever agreements we made with them unknowingly – i.e. to participate in their drama, to take care of them, etc. – we can break, so we are free to live our own lives and make our own choices.
Forgiveness (acceptance) has been such a key in my healing. For many years I didn’t really understand what that meant and why I couldn’t do it. I’ve gotten bits and pieces of it along the way. I’m still learning, as there have been many many betrayals in my life by lots of different people, including therapists. I’m realizing that this is the reason I don’t really even trust therapists. In a way, I’m having to backtrack and deal with the pain of all of it and forgive these people. Some are harder than others. But my mother was a big one. When I forgave her, a huge burden was lifted. I felt like a different person. I’m very curious to see who this person is (me) when all the pain has been cleared out, and what great things I’m capable of.
Stargazer, I’m new to LF, however I noticed from some of your postings that you are very wise and give sound advice. I think you would make a great therapist and perhaps specialise in victims of psychopaths. Plenty of work there!
Mum…I wish I knew why she was only attracted to abusive men. When grandad died 19 years ago, Mum said that she wouldn’t have been attracted to a man like grandad as he was a certain word, that I can’t repeat, as the word is unjust. Basically meaning he wouldn’t have been exciting enough for her. Grandad was faithful, steady, reliable, intelligent, dependable and quiet. Mum preferred abusive men – I may never know why.
Bally, I really appreciate your thoughtful comment. I will never be a licensed psychotherapist in spite of having years of graduate training in it years ago, but if my words can help anyone, even on here, I will consider some of my role in life to be fulfilled. I also teach dance (salsa), and this – to me – is a form of healing. I feel there is no difference between giving and receiving, especially when it comes to healing. This is because we are all connected and when one person receives healing, it affects all of us. In fact, it affects the entire planet.
About your mom, you may never know why she made the choices she made. And in fact, SHE may never know. To complicate matters, in my belief system, there could be influences from past lives, though I respect that not everyone shares this belief system. The way it happened for me is the more I learned about myself, and the more compassion I developed for things about myself that I didn’t particularly like – like my own narcissism – the easier it was to have compassion for my mother. She was in immense pain and very unconscious of it. People are unconscious until they become conscious. In my mother’s era, the technology and support was not out there to get help for narcissistic/borderline disorder, and it is very difficult to recognize and fix by yourself. In my generation it is still a rocky road to recovery, but the help and technology are there.
Stargazer, I’m glad you can still put your training and experiences to good use by helping others.
I can understand how your beliefs would connect a persons former lives to how they are today.
And you are right, none of us are perfect and we need to keep improving. So easy to question someone who behaves differently to ourselves. For me, I guess understanding the reasons for someone doing what they did is a great healer. I guess it is about knowing the drivers. If the drivers are ultimately innocent then it is easier to forgive. When I read about psychopathy I realised the drivers of this were about power, control, self-gratification and entertainment at the expense of others. It was healing to have the answer and then to steer clear!
Bally, I have found the same to be true for me – when I can understand a person’s motives, I can forgive more easily. In the case of someone with malevolent motives, it’s not so easy but it’s important for your own healing to forgive anyway. This is how I look at it. When you get to the point where you can see the malevolent motives clearly, you have a choice as to what to do with that information. Holding onto the anger will make you, the victim, miserable for the rest of your life. The other choice sounds very controversial, but this is how I do it. I think to myself that if I were born a sociopath, with a defective brain in the empathy department, and with a high drive for excitement and power, I might behave the same way.
When we talk about free will choice, I make a distinction. Yes, we all make choices. But if a person is very unconscious and completely non-self-aware, like my mother, they will not make clear sound choices. They will react out of conditioned patterns. A sociopath is the very epitome of unconsciousness. They do not introspect. They don’t feel empathy. They are driven by the quest for power because that is what they are made of. I tell myself that if I were born like that, I’d behave the same way. You don’t have to understand or empathize with this type of person to have compassion for them. You can just realize that “there but for the Grace of God go I”. Does that make sense? You and I can become conscious and enlightened. Then we can truly be at choice in our lives. A sociopath will never have that ability, and that is the great tragedy of their lives – the lives are lived with no meaning for no purpose.
You can say that yes, they do have choices and they choose to be evil. It’s all a matter of how you want to look at it. I vote for looking at it the way that will bring you – the sufferer – the most peace.
Wow- Wendy this story made me cry. Your sweet heart being used wrongly is such a tragedy. I hope you experience being surrounded by people who: love, honor, and respect you.
My mother was awful to me too. She is still alive, but I often wonder if I will even go to her funeral(should she die before me, I think after reading this, that I will plan it very strategically if I decide to go. Maybe I would hire a body guard so I can come in see that in fact she is dead and leave quickly. I don’t need all the toxic people in her life giving me cheap blows on a day that means so much to my emotional healing.
Stargazer, thank you for sharing your thoughts. Having been love-bombed for 3 years (while cheated on, lied to and manipulated) I suddenly felt the psychopath was losing interest in me. I remember saying “I can’t live without you” (it was more about I needed the continued attention I had got used to). He replied “that’s what I was waiting to hear” and continued to lose interest in me. So it was all about winning me over as I was a hard one to crack. I went into No Contact with the psychopath, even though I didn’t know anything about this disorder then or the No Contact rule (which I recently learned about on this website). The “final” time of NC was easy (I had one previous one when I discovered his cheating and lying but was sucked back in) as it became evident there was yet another new woman only this time he lost interest in me and stopped his frantic texting etc. So……NC was easy because I self-reflected and realised the only reason I let him into my life was because he made me feel good about myself and because he duped me. Knowing he had now lost interest in me no longer made me feel good to have him in my life. I also didn’t feel good about him, the person, even before I first discovered he was a lying, deceiving, manipulating conman. He wasn’t my type intellectually or physically. He bored me with his repetitive talk about the same old stuff. Bored me with his constant lies. Bored me that I never felt I was having a meaningful conversation. Bored me that he didn’t self improve. I was bored of being in his crazy world and bored of him being on a road to nowhere. NC was also easy as he never pursued me this time when I stopped texting. So it confirmed I had become a chore and confirmed he had someone more exciting and I was just now an obstacle. So I was actually relieved to be rid of him. There was no closure, no final conversation. I basically knew there was someone else (he suddenly stopped being contactable, he said my texts were taking 6 hours to reach him, he stopped initiating contact with me etc etc). That was my closure. Then suddenly a year ago he contacted me again and tried to manipulate me into responding. I had been reading about psychopathy and during this time thankfully realised he was a psychopath…and that many come rolling back. Predictably he wrote like he was the one who was dumped and was having a hard time without me! He tried everything from pity to getting me jealous to respond but I had moved on. I genuinely wasn’t interested.
I didn’t feel a need to forgive or not to forgive him. Because he means nothing to me. He is a psychopath and he doesn’t matter. That’s how I see it. Now he is just an example to help my learning of psychopathy, nothing more than that. Or to share the experience to help others. I would like to expose him to stop him harming others of course. But at the same time I don’t know anything about him and I am not interested.
For those we feel a need to forgive you have a beautiful way to do it. Thank you again.
I know that I will fight the emotional effects of my parents’ behavior for my entire life, but I think my mother’s death will bring about an escape for me. All the ongoing craziness will come to an end – no more trying to keep a disordered person “in check”, no more trying to explain to a senior citizen how normal people behave, no more constant push and pull between her and the rest of the family. I think my relationships with my extended family will dissolve completely. Mother has so poisoned the well with them that there is no going back.
Yes, in some ways, I look forward and plan for her death. For my complete freedom.
For my friends at Lovefraud.com, I share the heartache of realizing that my parents were unloving, exploitative, misleading, and sadistic. My Dad passed on when I was 18 years old. My Mom’s wrath intensified till she passed on this past year. I never disrespected either parent. They had good devoted children until the day she passed away. We never left her side during her hospital stays. However, prio to her passing I was able to reconcile with myself that “it was Mom, not I who was the deeply flawed human being. I suffered with panic attacks, depression, pervasive and debilitating anxiety for years and years. Like many of you I married a deeply disturbed and abusive psycho. Suffered the humiliation that accompanies consistent betrayals and deceits. However, my sister and I are so close. We have a bond that is remarkable in it’s nature. We provide guidance, warmth, nurturance that more than ever replaces the pain and heartache from childhood. When my mother was ill, my sister was devoted to her well being. I love this about my sister. We rarely talk of my mother’s awful character. Everyone envied my Mom’s polish, meticulous ways in decor and fashion. We never let on it was all a facade. Wonderful relationships followed my healing. I am close to my sister’s 5 children, her 26 grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. We embrace one another with a depth of affection only those who have suffered so long and so deeply can understand. It’s never all for nothing. Enlightenment works both ways. We learn what to let go of and we learn what to hold dear. Would I have learned this precious lesson simply by reading a book? I think not. My sincere gratitude to each of you for your support in this difficult journey we call “the journey of self discovery”. Kalina