This week while reflecting on the writings that most influenced my thinking about psychopathy/sociopathy, I received a letter from a mother of a five year-old boy whose father shows many signs of the disorder. She wrote:
Do you believe that children can show signs of being psychopathic? If so do you teach them to suppress the way they really feel by masking the problems with fake feelings? Can feelings of love really be learned? Just because someone on the outside appears like they have feelings does that mean inside they have actually changed? As you know they are good actors. The skill is learned very quickly to lie to blend in with the others. I bought your book off Amazon I should be getting it today. And i am also reading Dr. Hares book. I will try to look at your book some more today.
Shortly after my son’s father was arrested, I sat on my bed, with our seven month old baby asleep beside me, with the psychiatry DSM manual open to the page containing the criteria for “antisocial personality disorder”. I asked myself “do any of these criteria relate to common themes discussed in the child development literature.” I had to answer that question to know how best to mother my own child.
Interestingly, all the criteria mapped onto three developmentally acquired abilities: Ability to Love, Impulse Control, and Moral Reasoning. I then vowed I would read everything there was to read about each of these.
I started with Ability to Love. In my opinion the most important book about Ability to Love is Learning to Love by Harry Harlow, Ph.D. He is the scientist who demonstrated that a baby monkey clings to his mother out of pleasure in affection and “contact comfort” not because mother is a source of food. Prior to Dr. Harlow, scientists believed that the child learned to relate to his mother because she was associated with food.
The profound conclusion reached by Dr. Harlow’s research team is that babies are born to “learn to love” just like babies are born to learn language. We don’t come into the world talking but as our brains develop and we are exposed to language we learn to talk. Similarly, we don’t come into the world loving, but as our brains develop and we receive the right input we learn to love.
There are other interesting parallels between talking and loving including the observation that both are disordered in autism and both are influenced by genetics.
My world completely changed when I read page 44 of learning to love. It is on this page that Dr. Harlow discusses a very important developmental sequence. Ability to Love starts to develop before pleasure in aggression and competition sets in:
“The primary basis of aggression control is the formation of strong generalized bonds of peer love or affection… All primates, monkeys and men alike are born with aggressive potential, but aggression is a rather later maturing variable. It is obvious that a one year old suffers from fear and is terrified by maternal separation, but the child neither knows nor can express aggression at this tender age…This lack of aggression targets accounts in part for the fact that “evil emotion” culminates during the age-mate stage, long after peer affection and love have developed. It is the antecedent age-mate love that holds the fury of aggression within acceptable bounds for in group associates.”
Love starts to develop before aggression does, and has a head start in the race for the brain connections that form the basis of our values.
Now back to our 5 year old boy. I am very disturbed by the recent trend of referring to children as “psychopathic” in the scientific literature. Not that she does not describe symptoms of psychopathy, but to call a 5 year old psychopathic, negates the importance of learning to love and acts like it is an inborn ability.
I would say that this boy is learning disabled and requires extra help when it comes to learning to love. Just like speech therapy would help him if he couldn’t speak, love therapy will help him if he can’t love. Studies of autistic children show that a mother’s love makes a big differences for many severely affected children. Why shouldn’t we at least give this 5 year old the benefit of the doubt and give him love therapy.
Many studies show that the parents of at-risk children struggle with loving them. It is hard to love an impulsive child who goes after the cat with sharp tools. These parents are also harmed by suggestions that psychopathy is entirely genetic and firmly in place by age 3.
The focus on “discipline” also hurts these families because children need to learn to love. How can they learn to love if the people who are supposed to teach them are constantly yelling at them and scolding them or spanking them?
What is the answer?
An at-risk child is a full time job! Parents have to love that child 24/7 and not leave him alone to go to the kitchen to pick up the knife and go after the cat. Preventive positive parenting means waking up before the child, being there when he opens his eyes and saying, “I love you”. It means giving him hugs and kisses, playing and having fun together.
I have been reading back some of your post oxdrover and sometimes there are things in those post that just tear into my heart….I may not be a highly educated professional and I might not be ALOT of things but I do have alot of common sense and I do have great sense of intuition that has never let me down in the past. This might be the ONLY things I do possess right now that I have any confidence in. I am not feeling much confidence in my parenting skills right now and I question most everything now before I do it.
In my quest for information on personality disorders I came upon lots of information via the internet. I knew before I even came upon information of all the disorders out there that my son didn’t just fall into the “basic” troubled teen category. I knew that already in my heart and had been in denial about the underlying problem for awile before I was able to FACE it. I wanted to think he was just “lashing out” at me and flunking school was his way of doing that. so I focused on the school issue and ignored for a time his troubling personality traits. The lying, the manipulation, the passing blame, the lack of reality, the grandious thinking, and so much more.
He is to young to be labeled for any of the disorders and TRUTHFULLY I don’t even want him to be labeled…..I still would like to have HOPE that whatever his problems are they are cureable/treatable.
The problem that I have had so far in this quest for information is that so much of the medical defining of these disorders seems stereotyped. I tend to believe the spectum of these disorders are broader and can’t be so black and white. And again much of what I read is how ADULTS with this disorder are in relationships etc.
When oxdrover said in an above blog about when her son was caught with another boy and he denied, denied denied….I can relate to that. doesn’t matter if they are caught RED HANDED if they say it didn’t happen in their MINDs it didn’t happen. And if you punish them for something they believe didn’t happen you will see some major ANGER projected at you. However my son also portrays a personality full of contradictions. He can also be caught red handed in a lie and not have any reaction…..This can be more disturbing to me than the denial. Denial is at LEAST a reaction. It is what you expect when you catch someone at something… For them to at leat react to it. My son can also be non reactive as if it never happened. Even though you are right there in the MOMENT it just DID happen and now you caught him at it and he will act like he never did/or said what just transpired? This is where I can only describe him as living in his own reality rather than in the real world. BUT when you live with this on a daily basis it messes with your OWN sense of reality and can tend to distort your own reality as well after awile. What really did just happen? To me it is a form of “subtle” type manipulation. I have no other way to explain it.
Can anyone relate to this even though I might not articulate it well?
” I can only describe him as living in his own reality rather than in the real world. BUT when you live with this on a daily basis it messes with your OWN sense of reality and can tend to distort your own reality as well after awhile. What really did just happen? To me it is a form of “subtle” type manipulation. I have no other way to explain it.
Can anyone relate to this even though I might not articulate it well?”
You articulate it just fine. Yes, most of us can. We’ve lived it when we’ve coped with various cluster Bs. (Anti Social, Narcissistic, Histrionic or Borderline) Don’t worry about this commonality too much. Teen agers can be totally crazy-making and still turn out fine.
Like you, I’m reluctant to label your son. Many people DO snap out of it around 25.
Parenting requires faith. You do it the very best you can, and things will PROBABLY turn out OK. No guarantee! Doubt and fear will make you crazy if you let it.
One of the smartest things you can do is to seek a support network. Most of the people on this board start posting quite late in the day and go until far into the night. You’re stuck with me right now ’cause I get up before 5 AM and “fall down go snore” around 9 PM.
I look forward to reading the responses you’ll have later in the day and into the evening. There are some really capable, kind, supportive people here.
I’m headed for the Zoo now. Today, tomorrow and Wednesday are “light” homeschooling days here at Casa Conley. The kids are enjoying a bit of fun with their public schooled friends.
Blessings!
Case in point: An example…Yesterday my son had his last day of Spring Break. He had 12 missing assignments that he was suppose to do for ONE class over break. He said he would do these both to myself and to the teacher at a conference we had with her before break.
He had to get these done before he could have his “own” free time, computer time.
Sooo He said me that he did 4 more of these assignments on the computer and forwarded to his teacher yesterday and even gave me the specific assignments to write down. Because he didn’t have his book home the assignments were on edline (online) to begin with so this just “fed into” his story…
Of course I emailed his teacher today to see if he had done them because seeing as they were not done on “paper” I have no way of knowing for sure without asking her. He did NOT send her these assignments nor the ones he claimed to do the day before. I was pretty sure I was being lied to when he told me that but he had DONE a project assignment that involved a poster for this class 2 days before during break so I wasn’t 100% sure if he was lying.
Now every bone in my body wants to take that computer away from him and ground him until EVERY one of those assignments are done on paper that he can SHOW me.
But I have done this in the past and I will get no results as far as the work getting done. Instead of taking the twenty minutes to actually fly through the papers and get them done he will be angy and volitle for DAYS on end . He will refuse to go to school tomorrow or refuse to go to see his counscelor (he has an appointment tomorrow), or whatever else he can think of???? Whatever the case may be he WON’t just sit down and do the work to put this behind him and get his privledges back.
How does a parent effectively deal with these situations with a teenager?
I know my son is mentally ill. I take no offense to that. But this is a no win situation as a parent because these “kids” do not react to a parent having control of a situation as the average kid would. Its not just a case of oh…lets say a little back talk because they are grounded. HE WANTS to WIN just like an adult with this kind of disorder would and he will win at any cost.
Because I do know that I can’t possibly be the only parent that has delt with these challenges in a mentally ill teenager…Thats why I am asking these questions. Last time I did ground my son from the computer it became very close to a physical confrontation. He is not going to take no for an answer and if need be he will bully me physically. I can see that in his eyes.
I would love to go to a support group of parents who have delt with these types of issues but no of none in my area. I live in a small town and the bigger cities are pretty far away.
Dear Witsend,
My heart goes out to you my dear! I have been there and unfortunatelly, my story did not have a “happy ending” where my P son was/is concerned.
I suggest that you look at Dr. Leedom’s site about parenting the at risk kids.
Is his father in the picture? How old is he? There are 1000 questions I could ask and still not know all I would want to know about your son. Like how long has this been going on etc. What are other stressors in his life?
First off, I do think he needs PROFESSIONAL THERAPY. and YOU need professional therapy to help you in dealing with this. It is a heart breaking, frustrating, and long term situation. It takes it “out” of YOU and you need to take care of yourself as well.
Do you have other children? How are they doing?
As for him bullying you physically, the ONLY thing you can do about that is to turn to either the law or inpatient therapy. You must NOT let him bully you physically. YOu must set limits for him that you CAN enforce.
I’m not sure what your son’s diagnosis would be, and frankly, that needs to be done with a professional. Maybe you could arrange some of this through the school. Someitmes schools will pay for this and arrange for it. I think it is at a stage where you are going to need some professional help.
Feel free to come here and blog, ask questions and READ. Knowledge is power. Being here is very healing as well, because you are NOT alone. There are those of us here (I am not the only one) who have kids that were/are psychopaths. So we have walked in your shoes. I hope that is NOT the diagnosis for your son, but if it turns out to be, it is something that you will have to eventually accept and learn to cope with. Taking care of YOURSELF is important, I did not do that and I wasted decades of pain, grief and tears! ((((Hugs))))) and my prayers are for you and your son!
Ox Drover thank you for your reply. There could be a thousand questions to answer…..So instead of going there, I will answer just a few. My son is 16, the tramatic event in his life happend when he was nearly 4 years old. His father commited suicide…So no, he doesn’t have a father in his life. His disturbing personality traits are something I saw at about the age of 15. And when I say disturbing I mean DISTURBING. Because before they surfaced in puberty my son althiough a stubborn and VERY strong willed child still seemed to fit into what I would consider going through the “normal” phases of childhood/adolecence up until about a year and a half ago. When these disturbing traits started to surface.
After my husband commited suicide (12 yrs ago) I can honestly say that I did my best to raise my kids. (under the circumstances) I was devistated by what happened especially since my son who was not quite 4 at the time was in the house with him ALONE when it happened. I was at work. It was determined at the time by a professional child psyciatrist (arranged by the police) that he (my son) did not see it happen but woke up to his father being dead and spent the rest of the day alone with him until I arrived home from work. I also would have determined this even without the doctors opinion (although at the time I was very grateful to have this doctors opinion) as I listened to my sons child like “chatter” recount of this day for months after the suicide. Because my son was there and I was NOT there, tormented me for years….
After this happened as much as I was really not in the best place I could possibly be, I decided early on that suicide and trying to grieve a suicide death was a very draining and emotionally challenging place to be. And I also knew that raising a soon to be 4 year old and a 14 year old was also a draining and challenging place to be. I put all the energy I had left into focusing on raising my kids. And because my son was robbed of a father I tried to be the best mother I could be. NOT saying that I did everything right (obviously I didn’t) but I certainly was aware of the fact that my son would need a very loving/nurturing enviorment. I and I did try to provide that.
Suicide is the ULTIMATE rejection, the untimate F*** You…That can be, and often is the FIRST “feeling” or message, that those of us who love someone that takes their own life recieves. I suppose it is because suicide seems to be at least on the surface, a death of choice. AFTER many years of therapy I have a different view as a survivor of suicide. A more paradoxal view if you will….Although it might appear to us to be “death by choice” I believe NOW it is more so that the person believed they HAD no other choices. (not a fact but rather the reason they made the choice) This is my own interpetation, not one I am trying to pass onto others but one that many survivors in my shoes also can relate to.
I never wanted my son to feel that ultimate rejection and tried to raise him with love and lots of attention.
I do have an older son (different dad) whom is a full ten years older so he is an adult now. And he is fine.
But what I consider conventional parenting also seemed to work with him for the most part. Action/consequence, boudaries, respect of parent, respect of house rules, positive reinfocements, etc….My older son of course had his moments during his puberty/teenage years. But I guess I ALWAYS could see that this to shall pass, I always saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I knew it was a phase. He would grow out of it etc.
My youngest son is a different story. Right from the MOMENT I accepted that these personality traits were in fact disturbing and also it was like looking at a completely different person than who I had known 2 years before….I somehow sensed early on that this wasn’t a phase….This wasn’t just normal teenage rebellion. This was something MUCH bigger and much more demanding of all of the parental skills or lack of that I could muster.
From there things escalated very quickly. Things about a month and a half ago here were very much out of control. I was feeling that my son on top of the other issues at hand was very depressed and even suicidal. THAT alone made me feel very fearful/helpless…..
He had seeing a counscelor and finally was evaluated (not a complete eval) by a phyciatrist and put on meds. To see if they might stabilize his moods.
Now he is refusing to take them and I don’t think the meds had enough time to prove how well or not so well they were going to work but they did seem to take a bit of the edge off of his irritability. And after how out of control things were here several weeks ago I am grateful for any changes, even small ones. When things were out of control he was completely not allowing (strange word to use I know but the TRUTH) me to parent at all.
He was giving ME ultimatums. Something he had never done before. He was making every bad situation worse. If he was flunking 3 subject he decided to flunk the rest of them as well. He gave me THAT look….That dark scarey look that I KNOW you must all be familiar with. The look that chills you to the bone. The EYES where no one you KNOW is “home” anymore. Eyes of a stranger and a scarey one at that. CERTAINLY not the beautiful blue eyes that I had known in the past of my son. I recieved that look more times than I care to count in a few short weeks. And before this period of time I had only seen that look once before…..
Anyways we are back to things progressing quickly again…I am going to counseling (just started) (I have NO insurance for myself so was on a waiting list a mile long) He has been seeing a counscelor since Aug/Sept. Although if I had a different insurance I would “shop” for a different doctor for him….My only insurance is medicade for him and it doesn’t offer options or choices.
I would say that raising a child with sociopathic tendancys within their personality, REGARDLESS if they are a sociopath waiting to “happen” in adulthood or if they just have another major personality disorder, this is somthing that the average person can’t relate to. It is easy to sit back and be judgemental and wonder why a parent might give up or sound like they are “crazy” for making the decisions that they have made with their child. I can’t even imagine seeing these tendancys in young children as in some of the stories I have read…..
Trust me when I say this is like being between a true rock and a hard place. When it is your child.
THERE is nothing harder than coming FACE to FACE with the reality that your child that you have loved unconditionaly since the day they were born has this evil/dark side that doesn’t even seem possible. NOT even concievable to you even though you are living with it. ESPECIALLY when it is masked from the rest of the world and your friends or family don’t see it.
I have felt many times in the past that I would have been able to find a decent doctor even with MEDICADE if my child had lets say, a rare form of cancer….But because he has a mental illness very few support systems/doctors are available in my state for those on medicade. Just getting him a doctor at all, (even not a very good one in my humble opinion) was a constnat uphill battle.
I have read many, many, post that you and others have made on this site and others as well.
They do seem to help because you realize that there are some people who do relate to what you are going through even when you can’t articulate what you are going through very well.
Right now I realize that I can use all the help I can possibly get because I know what I have been doing is not effective. I also know that if he decided he isn’t going to take his meds any small relief that was provided by this medication is going to be gone. Today when I handed him his pill he just crushed it on the table to “show me” he meant business.
And I am tempted to crush his in his food tomorrow. Although this presents me with some moral dilema….I don’t even know if that is within my right or boudaries as a parent? But it is something I am going to think about. When my son was young and hated the “taste” of the medication he would be given by a doctor I had to get it into him some way or another…..This just seems different somehow.
witsend,
I have read all your posts. I don’t have any answers for you, unfortunately. I don’t even have any kids. My heart goes out to you. I am just curious–and please let me know if I’m prying–whether there is any other anti-social personality disorder that runs in your son’s extended family? In trying to figure it out, it is always helpful to know if there may be a genetic component. It’s so hard to know how his father’s suicide may have affected him. With my limited knowledge in this subject, the only thing I can think of to do would be to meditate or pray and visualize you and he sitting and looking at one another. Visualize yourself reaching out to him and trying to break through the barrier between the two of you. You can ask him–his spiritual self–what you can do to help him. Maybe you can get some spiritual guidance on this. I have often asked for answers to come to me in my dreams, and they do sometimes.
Well that is a very good question and one that I can’t fully answer. As far as my family is concerned there is nobody that I can recognize as having anti social personality.
My sons father was adopted. So I don’t know his biological parents. My husband did know them somewhat though, and spent some time with them a few times when he was growing up. I met them at my husbands funeral including his biological brother. That was the one and only time I ever met them or spoke with them.
His biological family ALL had addictive problems with both drugs/alcohol. As did my husband, my sons father. This is all I know.
My sons father had his own demons. He was an alcoholic. Obviously he had another not so “visable” demon that likely contributed to his ending his life.
Since this has presented itself in my son I have thought long and hard about his father. I was only with him for 5 years. And although he was the love of my life he had many issues. I saw those issues as alcoholic behaviour, however sometimes I question now some of what I deemed alcoholic behaviour. My sons father could be the most charming person on earth. And reeled me in, hook, line and sinker even though I was VERY RESISTANT to getting involved with him at the time.
The dark side I saw in him (and there was a dark side) I saw as him fighting his demons, at the time, alcohol….. He fought very hard for sobriety but when he finally realized some sobriety time in his life he had alot of issues to deal with. His being adopted was a big issue for him. It is possible if he had been longer on this earth, that I could be able to conclude more. Was the disfunction I saw in his personality something I would have seen more of as time went on, (such as a personality disorder) or was it as I thought at the time the disfunction that comes with alcohlic behaviour? I can’t honestly say.
There are many similarities and there are some differences as well.
I would like some pointers if you will, on how to begin to learn how to meditate. It is something I haven’t been able to master in the past…..Especially when I feel so troubled and I would like to be able to meditate….How do you turn OFF the stress and actually get to the point of “getting to that place” of a meditating state?
witsend,
In order to meditate, you need to have an object. The object I use is the breath. You can focus on the breath as your belly rises and falls or at the tip of the nose where you breath in and out. As you are focusing directly on the actual sensations of breathing, you will notice you mind wandering. You just make a mental note that you are “thinking” and gently return to the sensations of the breathing. Over and over again. It’s impossible for the mind to ever stop, and you are not trying to stop it. You just observe when you are thinking and gently bring the mind back to the object. If you practice enough, you will notice the mind quieting down.
The visualization I was talking about is actually something different. You imagine the person you are having difficulty with. You imagine talking to them from your spirit to their spirit. You are visualizing dissolving the barriers to getting through to that person. I don’t know if this would help with your son, but it’s certainly worth trying. It’s difficult to know at what point you know someone is a sociopath. Sounds like you are still giving him the benefit of the doubt that there is some way you can reach him. I hope you are right and can find that way. I really admire your strength.
Hello Witsend: I have been parent of a troubled teenager. I understand so much of what you say.
First of all, let’s look at you. You can’t be there for your kid if you are in turmoil.
This stuff about meditating — try something simple. When you are in the shower, imagine the shower washing away all your worries, and your worries, along with the sweat and dirt of yesterday, go down the drain. Imagine also that the hot shower is bringing you new, clean energy to replace the old poisoned stuff.
If you start with visualizing this kind of cleaning up of your own energy, you can then start to think about other ways to visualize. But this is an important place to start.
I don’t know what resources you have in your area, but I am sure you are working hard at trying to find ones that will help. Has anyone mentioned “Parents’ Anonymous”? I understand (from a talk with someone today) that this is a 12-step group for parents in your situation. I know it’s not clinical help with your son, but it could be helpful support for you.
As to the situation with your son, no one knows for sure how deep his issues run. I understand that “dissociating” is something that shows up in psychopathic behavior, but people do that when they have different issues as well. (Dissociating is a term for when people seem to distance themselves from the reality in front of them, and act as if something else was real instead.)
My other immediate question for you is — What are you doing to take care of yourself? Seriously! Your judgment can be off if you aren’t nourished and sleeping well and instead you are trying to deal with crisis after crisis.
I’ll check in in the morning. I hope you sleep well.
My ex-husband’s mother told me that when he was four and five years old she would say to him as he was going outside to play, “Now Johnny, don’t get into a fight today”. Everyday he would go outside and beat up another child. He is 51 and still to this day loves to fight and cause pain. He is a very successful man when it comes to making money, looked up to as a spiritual guru in his AA meetings. He is still very abusive to me however. He can’t stop trying to control every aspect of my life and uses the children every way he can.
Sometimes I wonder if his father and mother had not been abusive alcoholics and was able to get him help early on if he would have had a chance. His mother is extremely rejecting, dominating and controlling and his father is even worse. Maybe Johnny never had a chance.
My question is: Is sociopathology inherited or is it a learned trait?