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.
You are welcome onajourney. I hope it works out. My children are young. I had them late. (I’m an old hen with two chicks.) Any how, some day I’ll have a son-in-law and a daughter-in-law. I hope they’ll be a source of Joy, but there’s no way to be sure.
Let me know how things work out. I’m sure there are things to be learned from your experiences.
I seem to have been born a total patsy. (Who knows. Maybe it’s some kind of as of yet undefined form of autism. Any how, everything I know about dealing with other people I’ve had to learn the hard way. Because of God’s kindness to drunks, fools and children, I have been blessed with a wonderful husband and a 25+ year marriage. That makes me a lucky fool, because I have proven time and time again that I am entirely to trusting and tolerant. Every interpersonal competency I’ve got has been hard earned. Whatever you learn from this debacle with your son-in-law, I hope you’ll share it.
Blessings,
Elizabeth
You seem like you have really studied about personalities and communication alot. I am thinking I should have studied that more over the last years. I also think you have a gift for expressing yourself well. Thanks again…
“We need to educate teenagers”
I took a Psych course in high school. I thought it was the dumbest course ever. “This is just common sense!” I thought. When I was required to take Psych or Sociology in College I chose Sociology. I still thought Psychology was the silliest little pseudo-science ever invented.
Then I had a serious run in with a textbook Narcissist. What a debacle. Only by doing research on his bizarre behaviors did I stumble on ABNORMAL Psychology and CRIMINAL Psychology. Now that was educational! Suddenly Psychology wasn’t just common sense. It was a revelation to me. Some of the people in my life who acted out constantly were simply unwell. I looked back at some very bizarre episodes in my life. Boy, had I ever been stumbling around blind. Why weren’t these personalities covered in Basic Psychology? It sure would have been helpful!!!
Yes, we do need to educate teens. We need to go beyond Normal Psychology to those totally mystifying situations where one is dealing with a sick person.
If you grew up with people who were reasonably healthy and well intentioned, barring the odd neurosis or case of depression, then the personality disordered have to be explained to you. It should be part of a basic Psychology course, because if it isn’t then sensible people write Psychology off as useless.
I think I see one of your points, I guess when you are young and don’t have a way to apply the knowledge, it wouldn’t sink in the way it does when you are going through one of those mystifying situations.
I just wonder if there could be more warning for others. I was totally shocked and had never read anything like this before when I started reading. It is so hurtful all the things spouses/significant others have gone through.
You will talk with your own son and daughter about personality disordered people and what that means to date and marry. I just wish I would have had the knowledge and shared it with my children earlier. My daughter is so sweet, loyal, trusting, not worldly-wise, excuses everything.
There used to be all sorts of things that were taboo to talk about 50’s, 60’s, but now 2008, people talk about them. What about personality disorders? Is that a taboo?
DEar Elizabeth and Onajourney,
It seems to me that too many people believe that “there is GOOD in EVERYONE” or that babies are born “blank slates” on which environment only writes. Or that someone who had some “bad breaks” in life is the reason they are EVIL but if you just Love them enough, you can SAVE them.
BULL HOCKEY! But, the people who believe the things in the above paragraph are not easy to convince that there is NO HOPE for some people AND THAT THE ONLY SOLUTION IS TO NC THOSE PEOPLE.
Sometimes I wish that we would have taken over “Devil’s island” from the French. LOL Only it wouldn’t be big enough to hold all the Ps that should be sent there. Maybe the interior of Austrailia? Or Greenland, or how about the South Pole?
Some states are getting “wise” and making a “three strikes” law and keeping habitiual felons in prison for life without parole. That would catch and hold the most violent of the Ps is my guess, but is not the total answer as there are too many that “skirt” just outside the likehoood of arrest or prosecution.
I agree that our teenagers need education about abnormal psychology, but I am not sure they would believe or understand it, the hormones are raging so much at that time.
Even though my son C was 30 when he married, I “saw through” his now X wife. I didn’t realize the extent of her EVIL but I did realize she had married him for a meal ticket and that she was DECEPTIVE. I never talked down about her, I did caution them to “wait” to get married, but that fell on deaf ears and I think that she pushed more for marriage because of that as she didn’t want her meal ticket to slip away. Once he was married, he intended to stick to it “for better or worse” and even when it turned out for “worse” and he knew it, until she tried to kill him, he wasn’t going to opt out for divorce, even thought he knew she had cheated on him.
I think in the future he will be much more cautious and HE DOES KNOW WHAT A PSYCHOPATH IS NOW, and I hope can spot the red flags. I do know one thing though, and that is that if I have any “reservations” about someone, I “betya he will wait a while at least.” LOL When He was little I had him convinced I had eyes in the back of my head and now he is convinced I am a “prophet” LOL
My psyco’s mother has been married 8 or 9 times ! think she has to marry incase they are unhappy with what they got after the first week , she has them by the BALLS !
My psyco has been baker acted 5 maybe six times ????? that should/could be a sign that perhaps he needs more than see you next time have a good time ?????
indi explain baker acted? you mean he has had 5 or 6 victim’s? In the first few months my XP and I was together he wanted to get (our) pictures taken together and he wanted a ring….. thank god gay marraige is not legal in my state or I would prolly be homeless……
Oxy: I’m one of those people that believe we are born innocent … blank slates. We all have free will. Free will to choose what we want to believe … is our glass half full or is our glass half empty? You can have several people looking at the same thing … those same people will have different perceptions of what they are viewing. Free will. I believe you are what you think. As adults, you realize how difficult it is to break a habit of how you think on different issues. We have the choice to choose new and different ideas and throw away ideas that no longer matter as we mature. What was beneficial to us at age 15 or 17, is no longer beneficial at age 20, 30, 40, or 50… and so on.
As adults, we need to ensure that safety nets are put back in place and that these checks and balances are working … while our children grow. Parents can only do so much, if they are doing anything to benefit their children at all. A child has a mind of their own. Most parents haven’t a clue who their child is after they leave the house in the morning (who they are, what they really think, etc.). It’s important for adults who’s careers involve working with society’s children, stop pushing children through the system to get them off their plates (aka out of sight, out of mind). Safety nets need to be checked and overseen by higher authorities (again, checks and balances). It’s time for our society to instill our punishment/reward system. If you are not doing your job, you go through the process evaluations, being allowed to improve or you go through the process of being eliminated from your position. This process needs to be overseen by independent hearing officers that aren’t known by the authorities overseeing the process (meaning, no pay offs) Period. This, turn your back and no one is the wiser is the problem with our society. We are suppose to have checks and balances in place, but where are they? Why aren’t they followed through with? Oh, yeah, money and corruption. Or is that corruption and money?
Bottom line, is someone thinking positively about their life or are they thinking negatively about their life? Free will again … do you try to master the virtues in life or the vices in life.
If someone is focused on the virtues in life, they put one foot in front of the other on that virtuous path. Same with vices … they are focused on vice and they put one foot in front of the other to accomplish all the vices on that path in life. Again, the heated debate about the teaching of God out of our school system. Who knows us better?
Oh, and the state I live in has the 3 strikes law. There are pros and cons on this issue too. Some criminals have conducted the most horrific crimes that they normally wouldn’t have acted on if it weren’t for the knowledge that they have 2 strikes against them already. They myopically conducted a last ditch effort to get away from having that 3rd strike come down on them permanently. We lost a beautiful family in our state and the husband/father of the victims is left to walk this horrific path of the aftermath.
Peace.
BAKER ACT – If you are a danger to your self or other the authorities can arrest you and they take you to the psyc ward at the hospital where you are held for 72 hours and supposedly evaluated and released. have a good day see ya soon ,have fun out there ! NEXT!!!!!!!?????????
Indigoblue: A grade school student that I attended school with … checked himself into a psych ward in town … was released … went home and killed his abusive father …
I happened to be driving by with friends as he fled the scene … he was captured, spent time in a mental hospital … released years later … and is out living his life.
And no, I do not know the specifics.
Peace.