This week we received the following email:
My daughter is married to a man I consider a psychopath. My daughter has not spoken with me for many months. She has totally changed her personality, voice, she says things she never would have said before, she attacks me to my friends. My daughter and her husband seem to have their own version of reality, truth, and morality that is not consistent with those outside her marriage or in the world. My husband doesn’t want to invite them to our house for the holidays or have anything to do with them. I feel the same way, too, because of their attacks and saying things that are not true about us. I have gotten advice on this blog to try and have a relationship with her no matter what (she needs us if she ever comes out of this relationship or if she comes out of the fog) and to not say anything negative about her husband. (The prior question.)
I really need more advice on what to do. She called my friends and has repeatedly said lies to them, then she called my husband at work and lied to her father. She has totally changed. I kept thinking she would snap out of it and go back to her “old self”. She used to have affection for us. She never would have lied to us or about us. Is this what happens when you live with a psychopath? Can they so change you that you see the world through their eyes or perspective? She used to be so happy and so much fun to be around. I don’t know how we could be around them now. Do you just agree with their reality and say you are sorry for things they said you did, even though you didn’t do them? It seems like a power struggle and the psychopath wins. It seems like the reason they are calling our friends is because they want to stir up drama and win some kind of “battle”. Our life was so even and no drama before our daughter met the psychopath. I am amazed how one person can affect so many lives for destruction, evil and suffering.
This is very hard to know how to respond to my friends, daughter and husband. Could you please give me some advice?
There are three questions here and I will try to answer each one:
(When you comment on this article please reference these question numbers.)
1. She never would have lied to us or about us. Is this what happens when you live with a psychopath? Can they so change you that you see the world through their eyes or perspective?
2. What do we do about a sociopath/psychopath’s smear campaign?
3. Can we still save our daughter?
Question #1 Is this what happens when you live with a psychopath?
The answer is definitely yes. This is what happens when you have any association with a psychopath, no matter how you know them and whether or not you live with them. This is why I strongly encourage family members to cut the sociopath/psychopath off. Sociopaths/psychopaths whole way of relating to the world is about power and control. This need for power and control is very personal. They do it one person at a time, one victim at a time. They do it very systematically with malice and forethought. When they succeed in hurting someone or getting another person to hurt him/herself or others, they step back, revel in it and say, “I did it again, s__t I’m great!” (they use a lot of foul language also.).
Never forget this
Sociopaths/psychopaths get off on controlling people and hurting people. That is why we don’t understand them, and are unable to predict their behavior. To let this sink in emotionally do the following: Next time you eat that piece of chocolate cake, have an orgasm, or watch your favorite team win at sports, focus your attention on the pleasure you feel, and say to yourself, “This is what a psychopath experiences when he controls or hurts another person.” Once you do this a few times you will have no problem understanding them or predicting their behavior.
Since sociopaths/psychopaths lack the brain wiring and chemicals necessary for love, they can only experience pleasure in relationships through power, control and sex. When a normal person says, I love you, he means he has affection for you and “cares” for you. We call it caring for a reason. When we love someone we take care of that person. If we really love someone we also take care of everyone in that person’s family.
When a sociopath/psychopath says, I Love you, he means I own you. When a sociopath/psychopath really “loves” someone they own everyone in that person’s family, including and especially parents, siblings and any children. When you own something you can take pleasure in it however you want. Again this is very up close and personal, There is nothing distant or impersonal about a sociopath/psychopath’s way of relating to others.
How do victims become psychopathic?
It is important to remember that all non-relative victims are to some degree tricked or fooled into the relationship. The need not to acknowledge the profound mistake causes them to lose contact with reality. Their brains are busy constructing the imaginary world they wish to be in. The victim therefore enters what may be called a hypnotic state. Hypnotic states involve shutting out reality and attending to only certain parts of it. In this state, the victim is easily manipulated. What the victim is willing to do may or may not be a reflection of who he/she is. The evil deeds may reflect the victim’s response to selective perceptions. For example, perhaps the daughter in the story above is now so confused about love that she believes the lies.
The process I describe above also applies to families. The less affected family members do not want to admit that their family has psychopaths (because usually there is more than one) in it. They want to have the perfect family as much as anyone else. They therefore normalize and justify ALL of the psychopath’s hurtful controlling behavior.
An ugly side of victim psychology
Since our drives are contagious, a person who is with a loving person becomes more loving. The person who is married to the power obsessed becomes more power obsessed. This can occur outside of conscious awareness. Part of being power obsessed involves delight in both aspects of victory-delight at being a winner and delight at the loss of the loser. People who are not power obsessed usually feel empathy for the loser. The brain power system turns off the brain empathy system.
Get away from that psychopath before his/her behavior rubs off on you more than it already has!
Question #2 The psychopath’s smear campaign
Please check out the other posts on this topic. A colleague recent told me a very similar story so I will address this again in detail soon. My inclination would be to ask the friends to tell their daughter and her husband not to call. If they call after being asked not to they may be prosecuted for harassment. That will put a stop to the drama. Please focus your attention on addressing this specific problem-the phone calls. The drama comes from the context of this problem. (Daughter in the clutches of a psychopath.) Try to make light the silly lies, that way the psychopath can’t win.
Question #3 Can we still save our daughter?
There may come a time when you will feel the need to let go and live the rest of your life as best you can. Only you can pick that time for yourself. Statistics show that the more psychopathic a person is, the more prone to life failure he/she is. In other words most psychopaths screw up, A truly successful psychopath is so rare that I have never verified a case- again it depends on how you define success. I mean this: all of their relationships are eventually broken, they lose their jobs, they have no real friends and they can’t manage money. They also suffer from ill health because they don’t take care of themselves, They also get into accidents and their life span is 15 years less on average. If the man in question here is a psychopath, he would be in the extreme minority if he is NOT cheating sexually or bringing them to the brink of bankruptcy.
The question here is whether this will take so long to run its course that the victim will lose herself completely. When that happens there is great risk of suicide when the relationship falls apart. So if you do decide to back off of the relationship, that would be time to set the record straight perhaps in writing something like: No matter how old you are you are still our little girl and we have loved you since the day you were born. Your choice of a partner has hurt us so much that we must ask that you not call us or have contact with us until this relationship ends. No matter what else happens, we will always welcome you back into our loving arms.
Has a sociopath/psychopath’s influence caused you to do things or be involved in things you regret?
Please comment below.
In regard to: I am amazed how one person can affect so many lives for destruction, evil and suffering. I had the benefit this week of talking with one of my ex-husband’s other victims. In comparing notes, it was clear, the man has harmed everyone who has had the curse of connecting with him. This is the mark of a person with psychopathic personality traits. Since he cannot love he can only do harm. He doesn’t know any other way of being! Just like an apple tree produces apples because that is what it does, the sociopath/psychopath hurts because that is what he/she does.
This reminded me of my mother’s sister. My aunt became a psychopath under the influence of her husband. My mom didn’t know what was happening. One day she lent them some money, and a few months later, they were claiming it never happened. I was there at the house, a teenager, when they stole the papers from my mother’s dresser. As an adult, I had to tell them once in no uncertain terms to stop telling lies, I was there, and I saw everything.
My aunt was living in unreality, and all the time implying my mom was nuts.
My mother reconciled with her sister just before she died — and after my aunt’s death, I retired from my own sister’s fantasyland. There is no escape. . . . read on.
This past winter, that aunt’s daughter — my cousin — accused me of encouraging her husband to have an affair. Shame, shame, shame. She was “surprised at my morality.” Morality? I had one conversation with her husband that she spied on over the phone — I had actually called to speak with her, not him — she took my comments out of context. In order to defend myself I would have had to call her on her little morality play. And by the way, she’s stopped having sex with this man for five years. Is it OK that she holds him hostage? Is that a “moral” marriage?
I just can’t tell her that her own parents fooled around, and her father even made a pass at my mother, pretty much in front of me. I have to make nice, or I’ll perpetuate the one family argument that tore my family apart when I was a kid. Emotional blackmail, and she doesn’t even know she’s doing it.
I see this as a political problem, too. So easy to fall into a childlike, dreamlike state in such a harsh world. The feeling that Daddy President will take care of you, doesn’t need to explain anything reasonably, and isn’t accountable. To buy lies about a war we’re “winning” or being expected to respond favorably to condescending remarks that we’re “Joe Sixpacks” or small-town moms. Whose reality are we being forced to buy here, on threat of our civil liberties being cut off?
Insist on reality. Period.
Donna is right on the money, but there are a couple of things I might add.
The first occurred to me on my own, after an experience with a woman who is some crazy blend of narcissist/borderline/histrionic personality disorders (the textbooks and the DSM call this “co-morbidity”).
I found myself asking the question, “What is a reasonable person’s response to utterly unreasonable treatment?” Stop and think about that for a moment. When any one of us is pushed beyond our physical, emotional or spiritual limits, we might be persuaded to do almost anything in response. It’s a variation of the “fight-or-flight” response that we rely on to save our lives in some situations.
A sociopath often uses that same reactive tendency to control other people, and it works amazingly well! The antidote is to be self-contained and self-controlled, and many of us in the modern world simply don’t have experience or self-discipline enough to manage that. It’s sad.
It was important to me to understand that the sociopath’s methods are part and parcel of a world view, created and recreated and redefined over many years. Such a person cannot see a way to go forth in the world without manipulating people to serve their needs, and they will always find SOMEONE. If we know how to protect ourselves against this (sometimes subtle) abuse, perhaps the best we can do is assure that this someone will not be ourselves.
Secondly, I’ll share with you what a friend told me in the wake of my own experience with the woman I described above. He said, “Don’t let what she does change who you are.”
Isn’t that brilliant? For me, it was the perfect thing to hear at the time. I had been savagely manipulated, and these words helped me to resist further manipulation. Yes, a person in a close relationship with a sociopath will almost inevitably be corrupted. Real healing can only begin with complete and permanent separation.
It helps to understand the psychology of the sociopath, but I found it easy to obsess over that understanding so much that I failed for a while to get on with my own life. It’s a bit tricky to strike a balance with that, too, so I think it’s worth a mention. Get a clue, get away and get on with living your life. Easy to say, but sometimes very hard to accomplish.
You know, today I was feeling a little down thinking about my situation and all I lost and the misery I went through and wondering if and when I would truly get back on my feet. Then I read TDP’s post and I thought My God, I’m one of the lucky ones.
TDP, I have to say your post left me speechless, mouth hanging open. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for you, what all you have been through with all those psychopaths, and now trying to deal with your daughter. I do hope you are able to get her placed in that school in Utah. My thoughts and prayers are with you, and I wish you the strength to take whatever action you need to take. Good luck.
Dear
You sound like my identical twin sister, I am the daughter of a psychopath, the X GF of one, and the mother of one incarcerated for murder since age 20, his first prison sentence was at age 17.
You have my utmost sympathy and empathy and I also am a retired mental health professional who has worked with children like your daughter. I can’t even imagine how stressed you must be. I have seen children like you described your daughter in and out of institutions and medicated, only to continue their behavior as soon as they get home. My son didn’t start his until he hit adolescence and he was not ADHD as well. My other son was ADHD but is not a P. The ADHD Ps seem to show up earlier and be more scary as children than anything I have seen that walks on two legs.
I have 3 half sibs by my P-bio-father and only one of them is apparently a P. so he got 1 out of 4 P offspring, and my youngest bio son is definitely a P.
His most recent attempt at crime was to get one of his criminal P buddies to come and infiltrate our family by renting a home from me, then murdering me for cutting my P son out of my will, but by murdering me before my mother died, he would at least get some of a family trust. Didn’t work out, the P buddie that I call the “trojan horse psychopath” wasn’t able to get a chance to kill me, so he and my P-DIL of my other son, got together in an affair and robbed my mom and tried to kill her husband, but they went to prison for that one, so I am P-FREE now for the first time in my life.
Read Dr. Leedom’s articles and her web site for those that are parenting the “at risk” child, and good luck in placing your daughter in some form of facility. I know how painful it is to give up on a child at any age, but I also know that in order to preserve your other child and your own sanity, sometimes it is necessary to do what is necessary. ((((hugs)))) and I will keep you in my prayers.
Can victims become like the Sociopath?
Well I have to say that they are contagious – they want to replicate themselves and create the pain in you that they feel. They want you to hate yourself as much as they hate themselves — that is the only thing that makes them feel better.
They despise other humans because this is a projection of the hate they have for themselves. So instead of recognizing their self-hate, which is intolerable, they project that hatred onto others.
So, in my opinion yes, they will make their victims like them as long as the victim is with them.
I came out of a four year relationship with a Borderline Personality man who had tendencies toward Psychopathy.
I believe he has some good in him and some feelings of remorse for certain things and in certain situations. However, I feel this is a spectrum disorder rather than an all or nothing disease. People afflicted with personality disorders can swing within that spectrum depending on the situations happening and stress. They can’t tolerate rejection, losing, being treated unfairly or not being in control.
Depending on how far into the total psychopathy scale they are, the worse their behaviors.
Now, I have borderline personality disorder which is very close to sociopathy, and I was more sociopathic when I was around him. I was angrier and wanted to cause harm and it made me feel better, but I did feel remorse afterwards and still cry over it. But when I was in it… I dissociated and could only think about causing harm to them and others and, of course, eventually myself.
I having been studying about psychopathy and BPD for quite some time now and have come to understand that they are both diseases of the brain having been deveoped in such a way from infancy due to neglect, abuse and trauma.
When a baby is born, the brain is only partially developed. The limbic system and frontal lobe continue to make neurological connections after birth.
If the baby experiences love, nuturing and is responded to and stimulated properly, the connections between these two areas of the brain develop conscience and remorse and the ability to love. If the baby experiences trauma, neglect and is unloved these areas fail to deveop properly. The proper connections are not made between the rational frontal lobe and the more primal limbic system specifically the amygdala.
These areas are where emotions and fears and response to danger lie. If we are ruled by this area of the brain, then we are more animalisic in nature even when confronted with minor slights or even perceived danger real or unreal.
Most normal people think rationally when confronted with a difficult or stressful situation. The frontal lobe and the limbic area are in communication and are sort of working with eachother to assess the danger and make the right decision with respect to a response.
Here is where the disorders lie. Now, we call them disorders because they don’t lie within the normal spectrum of societal behavior. But remember, the infant was not raised in a normal family and therefore the brain develops the more primal side in order to survive. The infant is basically trained not to love, not to have a conscience and to respond with anger, rage, violence and not to feel guilty because to the BPD and the sociopath, there is a REAL danger of not surviving.
I like to think of it as a feral child raised by wolves or something. The brain does not develop the more higher functions such as self-care, language and so forth. The question is, if these connections and developments are not made in infancy due to trauma or perhaps fetal brain damage or abnormality, then can hey ever be developed?
I suppose it depends on the severity of the disorder. For example, I have BPD, but I am very high functioning and intelligent. However, when I am faced with rejection, fear of abandonment or if I feel my basic needs are threatened, I will fly into a rage and go into attack mode.
Now, here’s the kicker, the rational part of the brain sort of goes to sleep during this and the limbic area becomes overstimlated. So then, rational thought is put on hold, dissociation occurs and it does not matter what the objective reality is, all I know is I have to fight to survive. And fight I will.
Okay, so what does all this mean? It means that BPD is a sort of epilepsy according to new research. The primal limbic area goes into overdrive and part of the rational mind becomes unconscious. When it’s all over, the rational brain kicks back in and tries to make sense of what happened. Now a BPD will have remorse at this stage and a true sociopath will not because that portion of the neocortex has not developed at all or is severely underdeveloped. This is why the sociopath can do things and feel the other person deserved it. They are always in fight mode and “winning” to them means “survival.”
They have no remorse because they feel none is necessary since they had to do what they had to do in order to survive. Does a wolf have remorse for eating the rabbit? Do we show remorse for eating chickens etc? No we do what we have to do to survive and get our needs met. However, we also balance this with not harming others in the process. The sociopath does not care about harming, because his basic survival is all that matters.
Fortunately for me I did have some loving and caring during my infancy to I did develop okay, but I still have episodes of limbic system malfunction. I work every day with yoga, positive affirmations, lexapro (and maybe some tegratol in the future – and anti seizure medication to be used in times of stress), I see a pyschologist and a therapist.
I am trying to retrain my brain so as to not have borderline episodes as often or ever if I can.
The sociopath does not want to get better because this is his only way of survival. In his mind it’s either you or him. Getting better would mean death. Yes this is irrational to you and me, but that is because the sociopaths brain has not been fully developed to think rationally.
The only way to be healthy and get better is to be away from the sociopath and to work on yourself totally. It’s the only thing that works for me.
Now, that I am on the road to recover, I can look forward at least to helping others with my disorder — that is for the future though.
I have to first learn how to swim before I can help rescue someone who is drowning.
Om
T
Dear
I am glad tha tyou know you are NOT ALONE in this thing. A few months after my P son killed his girlfriend, who was also his criminal partner (she had decided to rat him out) and he was arrested for her murder the next day, I was finally persuaded by a friend of mine to go to work in a psych hospital for adolescents like your daughter (mostly) and it was a godsend for me, because I realized that I was not the ONLY mother in the world with a child who was a Psychopath.
That was over 20 years ago, and I have been repeatedly sucked back in by him, even when I knew better, but a couple of years ago when I saw him the last time, he was frustrated with me and let his “mask down” and I too SAW THE FACE OF SATAN looking out, the same look I had seen in my bio-father’s eyes, and in my Uncle Monster’s eyes, and the eyes of other children and adults who are Ps or “budding P’s” since we can’t call them that until they are 18.
I learned a lot about them, how they act, how they react, and how they think and behave, I just didn’t apply it to my P-son even though I KNEW…I allowed myself to get sucked back in. Partly because I was raised by a mother who was a TOXIC enabler of males in the family.
Since then I have gone NO CONTACT with her, though she lives very close to me (actually on the same farm) but now I have started to heal, learned to forgive myself and to forgive the others—but I will NEVER TRUST THEM AGAIN, but I have gotten the bitterness out of my heart. I won’t live in bitterness and anger the rest of my life.
I “handled” my P-son, who I am NO CONTACT with in a way that I can live with. My son “died” when he was 11 or 12, and the MAN who is is organ recipient is not my son. that man is a STRANGER, and EVIL stranger, but my son that I loved and still love, that young child, is DEAD, and I have buried him, mourned for him, and come to acceptance that he is GONE just as my late husband is gone. Not coming back. I can live with that. I just can’t live if I continue to have contact with the MAN who got my son’s organs.
I have one other biological son and an adopted son, the former 39 this week, and the latter 31. I am very proud of both of these men and they too are NC with my P-son.
I’m starting to live again, and live better than I did I think in the prior 60 years of my life. I’m happy, and doing well physically mentally and spiritually. Enjoying the NOW and each day’s blessings.
I will keep you and your daughter in my prayers. You are so young to be dealing with such anxiety and trauma, and you seem to be coping “as well as can be expected”—God bless you. There is light on the other side of this. Your baby needs you too, and I’ve been in that “tight spot” between two children that each need things and you can’t do BOTH. Sometimes I felt like I was in a river trying to swim and save myself and save both my children too and I couldn’t save both of them and myself–how to choose. It was horrible. But life is better now. I sincerely believe that God led me by the hand through this “valley of the shadow of death” to “green pastures.” Peace.
Holehearted,
I really enjoyed reading your post and all of your insight into BPD and sociopathy. I have studied personality disorders for many years, and I’m especially interested in healing from an energy perspective (where energy gets blocked in the body for the different character disorders). I myself was diagnosed as a BPD many years ago. Though I feel the label did me more harm than good, I have spent many years working with different modalities to heal these tendencies in myself. I truly feel like the worst of it is past and I’m a different person now than I was 20 years ago when I was in my “dark night of the soul” as I call it. However, I still battle with abandonment issues and depression (especially over this recent P). But I’m a much stronger and more grounded person than I used to be. My life has been relatively stable for many years. What a long haul to get to get here! And it’s an ongoing process, as I’m still working with healers. I no longer identify with the BPD label for myself. If I am, I’m a pretty high functioning one at least.
Whereas the borderline uses the defense of “splitting” (good person/bad person), the sociopath is in complete denial of feelings. The problem with being in denial is that you don’t know there is anything wrong with you. At least BPD’s have an idea that something’s wrong.
Dear Tdprocessing,
My first “view” of anything besides a “perfect” child was at age 11 when he stole something and when confronted with the evidence DENIED DENIED DENIED, then ran away from home. I had to turn out the entire county to find him and we did. I paddled his butt for running away and for the lying (not the stealing but the lying and the running away) He looked me square in the eye and said “You can’t watch me 24 hours a day I will do it again and YOU CAN’T STOP ME.” Sheesh, he was RIGHT! I knew it.
I ended up taking him out of public school and putting him in private school and my step father had retired at that time so I sent my son to live with him (my mom was traveling for work at that time M-F) where he would be watched, drive to school by a neighbor of theirs who was a teacher there, etc. and it seemed like ALL WAS WELL, until he hit puberty then he went frrom Jekyl to Hyde in one summer. 180 degree turn around, and I had NO CONTROL over him.
I was supervisor of a hospital on the night shift, so I ended up taking him to work with me every night and putting him to bed in an unused wing of the hospital where he could be LOCKED IN. I dropped him off at school on the way home from work. Still I couldn’t control him. My mother took him in when he started getting into trouble with the law and roaming the streets at night on my night’s off while I was asleep, AGAINST MY WILL BTW, and she kept him a year or so, and then I unwisely let him come home. I had remarried in the meantime. The reason he wanted to come home was that the law was about to get him in the little town where my mother lived.
But even with my husband to help me, there was no controlling him and within a year he had commited several crimes of various magnitudes. Just before his 18th birthday I caught him with $100K worth of computers he had stolen from the business of some friends of ours (shut down their business, cost them no telling how much) and I turned him into the police. He still bears me a grudge for that one.
He has been in and out (mostly in) jail or prison since 1988. I think I totaled up the months he has been out since then and it is about 12, in three different times he has been out. He is in for “life” now for murder, cold blooded, premeditated that he did in anuary 1991. He came up for parole once and got a 4 yr set off, he comes back up in Jan 2011. I will be there at his hearing to beg the parole board to NEVER LET HIM OUT. I also have a copy of a letter he wrote BRAGGING ABOUT HOW VISCIOUS HIS CRIIME WAS, “Worse than the cops even knew.”
He is a pretty good con, and can quote the Bible and every philosopher you ever heard of. He has an IQ in the 99.9th percentile, has been in every gifted and talented program every school he went to had to offer. Had a full ride scholarship to any college he wanted to go to. Could have been anything he wanted to be, but he chose to be a convict, didn’t even finish high school, got arrested a couple of months before graduation. He never met my father but he is so much like him in actions, phrases, personality and IQ that is is freaky.
He was one of the brightest and best of the little kids I have ever been around and I thoroughly enjoyed being his parent until the “morphed” into Satan himself. I kept hoping there was some magic phrase I could find that would show him what he was throwing away. I wanted SO BADLY to “save” him from himself that I threw away what I KNEW WAS RIGHT, for what I KNEW WAS WRONG.
I wish you luck with placing your daughter in a program that might save her. I also know the heartache that a parent who has a “defective” child who is otherwise bright and capable. I hate to use that word “defective,” but I don’t know what other word would apply. They have a missing cog, or a gear out of sync some way. I would have preferred a child who had no legs or whose body was bent and broken to a child who had no soul.
I fondly remember that freckled faced little boy that gave me so much joy and for whom I had so much hope. He was absolutely the greatest little kid I have evern known. Loved by everyone who knew him, wanting so much to please and do well.
God bless.
TDProcessing,
I just read your earlier post, and it brought tears to my eyes. I recognized some of your story, as my P stepfather also treated my sister and me like slaves, making us constantly work. He also took any money I tried to save. My life was really the Cinderella story (only I still haven’t met my prince yet). My heart goes out to you for all you have dealt with and all you are still dealing with, as it sounds much darker than my early life.
What happens when you find out you have a child who is a P? What can you do, if the child is still a minor?
WOW!!!I believe I could have written this story! My daughter did the exact same thing to her father and me. Dr. Leedom is so right. You have to live your life and let the relationship with your daughter go. She will come back…when? No one knows, but she’ll be back. Our daughter did the same thing. Her psychopath husband spent time in prison for conspiracy and we slowly were able to begin talking again while he was gone. She found out she was pregnant just weeks after he left and once she had the baby (he was still in prison), she realized that this wasn’t the life for her. But, it still took being physically away from the P. They are now getting a divorce and he is playing all of the mind set games. He took ALL of her money that she had inherited, has taken her personal belongings and won’t give them back, etc, etc. But, we’ve got her and our beautiful grandchild back. I might add that he is furious that she would leave him. I feel that he will probably try to prolong everything simply because he didn’t leave her, and “how dare she do that to me!”
Dr. Leedom gave me this advice that she is giving the mother in this post and she is dead on target. Please try to understand that not all things work in our time. Pray like there’s no tomorrow and things do come in God’s time.