Just Like His Father? Is nearly four years old now and my own son is nearly eight. At the time the book was released, scientists were still engaged in the genetics versus environment debate regarding the development of antisocial behavior. That debate is now over and every authority accepts that antisocial behavior and antisocial personality traits develop due to a gene-environment interaction. I am working on revising the book because now some specific genes have been identified.
Thankfully, I have not had to cope with the toxic environment a sociopath/psychopath creates for their offspring. Just Like His Father? doesn’t really grapple with that issue other than to encourage people to consider that the child may be better off with only one parent. At time the book was written, my thinking was based on two false premises. The first falsehood, I was taught in residency, “antisocial individuals abandon their young” has turned out to be perhaps the biggest problem at-risk children face. Antisocial individuals do not necessarily abandon their young, but they do abuse them and use them as pawns to damage other people and they also use them in their cons.
Four years ago, I naively believed that the family courts would naturally dictate that sociopaths/ psychopaths should be kept from harming their children. This second premise has also turned out to be false and is the basis for the nightmare many people I now count as friends are living.
It follows that in addition to teaching the material in the book and workbook, to save at-risk children we also have to take on the system-hopefully by working together. The system is composed of mental health professionals who really do not understand antisocial personality disorder let alone the meaning of psychopathic personality traits to parenting. It is also composed of Judges who want to make the tough decisions easy by giving themselves judicial sound bites to go by. Here is the official mantra of the state of New York Family Court:
“Visitation by a noncustodial parent is presumed to be in the child’s best interest and should be denied only in exceptional situations, such as where substantial evidence reveals that visitation would be detrimental to the welfare of the child.”
The important words there are “substantial evidence.” Just what constitutes substantial evidence? I am working on researching the answer to that question and have access to an extensive online law library through the university where I teach.
I am preparing a generic document that people can use as a resource regarding the harmful effects of parenting by antisocial individuals and emotional and verbal abuse on children. Some recent research shows that the developmental damage done by emotional and verbal abuse is as severe as that due to physical and sexual abuse.
But we really have to change the legal mantra. Given what we know of genetic risk, we have to not only protect at-risk children from abuse, we have to provide them with an enriching, nurturing environment to prevent the intergenerational spread of disorder. The new mantra should be:
“In cases where one parent has antisocial personality disorder (psychopathy) the child deserves the best upbringing the least disordered parent can provide.”
AND
“The least disordered parent has a right to live life free of the sociopath/psychopath they were conned by.”
Setting the least disordered parent free facilitates his/her mental health and contributes to the well-being of the child.
Here is what you can do to join this effort:
- If you went through a custody/visitation battle and your children are old enough for you to comment on how the battle and the sociopath affected them please write me. I am especially interested in talking with offspring over 18 about their perspectives.
- If you have an ongoing situation you are willing to share please write. Recently, people from Alabama and New York asked me for help so I compiled the case law for those states. The goal is to compile the case law for every state then make the info available on the web.
- If you want to volunteer to read the case law and help me organize it, I’ll put you to work right away.
- If you are an attorney or legal assistant who wants to help please let me know.
- If you have political connections, we need you.
I am looking to form a committee of workers committed to this cause.
Last but not least, I regret the title of my book because it suggests gender. The title merely reflects my own personal experience. This is NOT about gender or fatherhood versus motherhood. Normal men love and nurture their children and I do not dispute that children need that love and nurturing. This is about a psychiatric disorder for which there is no proven treatment, antisocial personality disorder/ psychopathy.
We are working to save the most vulnerable of all children from abuse, neglect and disorder. We are advocating for those children who carry genetic risk for antisocial personality disorder and who have a mother or father who is not capable of loving and nurturing them.
Contact Dr. Liane Leedom at drleedom@lovefraud.com.
I love Alice Miller. The Untouched Key is another good one by her.
The above comments are so thought provoking—I just sit here with my mind spinning going, “WOW! What a wonderfully bright, classy group of folks brought together here at LF.
Annie: I think the “lacks impulsive control” isn’t meant like we normally mean it in conversation, I too felt that “DUH?” money when I read this because I had seen the plans in advance by years and months etc. but I think it means (upon reflection) that they don’t control their impulse to get what they want. Like we would want something or have the impulse say to “steal” something, but just because we know it is wrong, we squelch that “impulse” to steal. They just start planning how to do it and get by with it.
The other thing of “poor behavior controls” is kind of the same thing in a way I think. I can’t put it into exact words of the meaning I give it but they don’t even TRY to control their behavior except to get what they want. There is no internal braking system or moral compass to either guide them or stop them from the directions they take.
Maybe Dr. Leedom can redefine these terms better. I know when I was reading some of her stuff is when I finally “flashed” on what was the meaning (rather than the discord) of the way the words were being used.
I don’t think “impulsive” means just jumping instantly into something because we know they can wait (though some are also sort of ADHD about impulsively leaping before they look)
You guys are awesome, and make more sense than 9/10 of the PhDs on the subject…awesome!!!!!
I will try to stay on-track while posting.
My youngest son’s dad was so angry that I left him that he tried to make me look unfit. ‘
I let my son visit his dad out-of-state. His dad would not bring him back. I had to take it to court. This is when he tried to make me look unfit.
He was vicious.
My son was 4 years old at the time. My son told me a few things about his visit with his dad. His dad said that women are stupid and “we” can outsmart them. I didn’t know if that meant the dad was saying that men can outsmart women, or did it mean that father/son can outsmart women. I think it meant that father/son can outsmart women.
My four year old son also told me that his dad and grandma jumped a man and stabbed him in the back.
I asked my son about this recently and he said his grandma jumped like a ninja on that man, and stabbed the man in the back with a knife.
His dad was stealing our son’s identity.
I tracked that man down on the internet in 2004 to create a ditch around him.
My son’s father committed suicide in 2004. About 3 or 4 months after I tracked him down. It made me wonder.
I and my son don’t have any contact with his family.
My son is interested in hooking-up with his dad’s family. He doesn’t know just what a disaster that family is. My son just knows that he didn’t know his dad. I can imagine he must embrace the moments he had with his dad.
How tough is this for me? How tough will this be for my son…
Dear Jeannine,
I was raised away from my P father. His family was fine (his disordered mother was dead) and I kept in contact with and still do with the large extended family of his father’s brothers and their offspring. Great folks, but me going to live with my P-sperm-donor was a disaster.
I don’t know how old your son is NOW or what kind of kid he is, or what your relationship with him is, but I would take it slow and easy, and prepare him for this so that he neither idolizes or demonizes them. Good luck. It’s a tough call. Maybe you can contact Dr. Leedom (her e mail is on the authors list on this blow) so you can reach her that way. She might be able to give you are more insightful answer.
God bless.
I am going to try and give a real life case example here but please forgive me if it doesn’t come out right. Am at home suffering through a kidney stone and the pain medicine has me a bit befuddled. Here goes –
I am curious just how people think the courts should be able to detect or know about any but the most obvious psychopaths? Here is a real life case as an example:
A couple is getting divorced and there is one child in the home. Neither spouse has any criminal history other than a speeding ticket here and there between them.
The mother wants custody and claims the father is the reason for the divorce and is physically and psychologically abusive to her and the child. She even has a picture of herself with a black eye which she states her spouse caused. She is well mannered and polite, well dressd, calm and appears to care for her child quite a bit. She does not present any signs of being overly angry or bitter at her spouse.
The father claims that his spouse is the one who is abusive both physically and psychologically. He states that she is the cause for the divorce and he just can not take being with her any longer because of how she treats him and the child. He admits that he has not always been a perfect father. He admits that he did indeed strike his child one time in a way that was abusive and how awful that made him feel and how it never happen again. His people skills are somewhat limited compared to hers so he has more difficulty trying to express things. The father denies ever being physically abusive to the wife but does admit that there were times when they would argue that he would get so frustrated that he said things that he shouldn’t have because they were hurtful.
So how does the Judge and Court decide? There are also other factors at play such as the beliefs of the judge and court about things such as domestic violence, mothers vs fathers in parenting, etc. Interviewing the child reveals no more information to go on as the child cares about both his parents and says little to present either of them in a bad light.
What happened is that the Court decided that the mother should get the child and since the father admitted to being hurtful a few times they decided he was “abusive” and the problem parent/spouse. So the father was punished for being open and honest with the Court while the mother was rewarded for not being truthful. Also the mother had a gaggle of people and resources helping her and validating her because she made the claim of being a victim of domestic violence. The father made the same claim yet received none of those reources.
What was the truth that the court did not know? The truth was that the mother was a very disturbed person. She was physically abusive. But what was worse is that she was psychologically abusive to the point of it being on the level of torture with the methods she used. She had numerous “friends” at the time so talking to them only revealed the picture she wanted to portray even though she went through friends like crazy. But the husband never knew her friends to know this, which of course helped her case.
She was even more abusive to the child and had been since he was born. But she was educated enough to know to not leave any obvious signs of the abuse on the child. As for the black eye picture, she had taken that picture after she was in a car accident and saved it to use against the father which is exactly what she did.
She was so offended that he left her, so angry and finally deeply bitter about it that she painted him out to be an abusive nasty person who was the cause of all the her woes. If she was on here everyone would call him a psychopath and since he admitted to a few abusive acts that was just further proof to her and she used it against him. Just how bitter was she? She once broke the telephone handset over the childs head for trying to call and talk to the father and that was one minor example.
Yet to the Judge and court she presented a good image. Again just how is the Court supposed to have been able to detect her? Why do we expect they can detect those who even we could not detect (except the obvious ones of course) and after they acted like one. I once made a comment about something along the lines of detecting them to someone else and here is what I said that I think also applies here:
“That is like asking why we can not detect the flame before the match is struck. A psychopath is a lot like a baited hook must appear to a fish. Looks good and everything is fine until after you have had a taste and that hook is set and the pain kicks in. And yes you might have nibbled on a bit of metal and been a little leery but the bait just looked normal and so you took a taste. So how do you “detect” something that is almost undetectable until after the fact? And this does not apply to just psychopaths. Next time you are in a large group of people try to detect who among them have mental health issues. Most of the time you cannot pick out who is suffering from what unless they are actively displaying symptoms. Even professionals cannot do so. So this is no different from many other mental health issues really.
“I think that the “shock” of psychopaths is not in the fact that they exist. They always have and everything from movies to books to fables/stories and parental tales have warned us about these boogeymen. Sure the term “psychopath” was not used but it is the same. The shock comes, for some, in the fact that the psychopath shakes our protective self-delusions to the core by showing us a bit of reality that we hide from ourselves. We find out that we really never know people like we think we do and truly no place, no time, no nothing is 100% safe. There is no guarantee that the nice pastor or the charming lady teaching our children will not be psychopaths and wreak their damage on us and ours at anytime and anyplace. It can be very stressful for some people to face this. The shattering of our rose-colored glasses can be one of the most stressful events in a person’s life. Why? Because we have to trust others to varying degrees even if we do not want to. We are forced to be dependent on others and forced to trust them to various degrees. We trust the guy in the pharmacy to not poison us, we trust the person making our food to not contaminate it, we trust the waterworkers to keep our drinking water clean and not put something in it, we trust that teacher to be appropriate with our children, we trust…..and the list goes on and on and on.
In my opinion a part of the damage done by being abused by a toxic individual is the stripping away of some of the helpful illusions that get some through life. When dealing with a toxic individual a person can quickly find out that life is not always fair, systems such as family courts, the law, child protective services, and others are also often not “fair” or not what they are hoping they would be. Part of this is realizing that sometimes there are no good choices. Only choices between bad and bad and trying to decide which one does the least harm. Toss this realization in with the frustration, anger, hurt, betrayal, and all the other emotions connected with these cases and it can be very easy to become bitter at the systems and people in them. Toss in the other illusions that get stripped away as well and it gets even worse.
Trying to detect something that has a low base rate issue is going to cause a lot of false positives just to be able to get the right ones. And that will cause a lot of innocent people to suffer which will lead to other people complaining about the system needs fixing from the fixing that came from the fixing and so on and so on.
Dr Leedom also hit on another piece that played out in the case above and in many cases. The issue of various stereotypes and bias that various groups, judges, etc may have about numerous issues. And this applies to and effects both genders in a negative manner.
Everyone including the system should remember that each case is unique unto itself and there is always exception to the rule. That charming polite seemingly humble and sincere pastor really may be an abusive thug behind closed doors; that pleasant and meek mother of four really can be sexually abusing her own children behinjd closed doors, etc. Statistics are nice but they mean little to nothing about the individual and it is common and easy to get complacent nd forget that.
Also consider in the case above that even if the mother had been given a PCL-R test she wouldn’t have shown up as one unless the interviewer just took at face value everything the father said which would have been wrong to do. As Annie stated above they fly under the radar. And with little case history information to review you are stuck with the interview and little other information which puts it right back to square one fo trying to decide what is what based on he said she said and sometimes that one that makes the best presentation at the time is the one deemed to be the best choice.
There is no easy answer or easy fix to this issue and no matter what system gets put into place or what changes get made there will always be those who get around. In fact there will always be those that will delight in beating the system just for the sake of beating the system to show how superior they think they are. I worry as much about the unintended consequences that can happen. Labeling a parent a psychopath is a very serious matter and has life long consequences for all involved, even more so for those that are a false positive and really are not. It is one thing to advocate for abusive/toxic parents to not be around the children but it is another thing entirely to try and label a parent with the psychopathic label. And please consider all those who have commented on here about how they themselves appearred to be “crazy” and the abuser appeared to be the normal one and how that could have ended up with the abused being labeled a psychopath and the psychopath being labeled the victim.
Acck looking over this I see I went on a bit of a rant so I best end it now.
As an FYI about the “system” and mental health professionals comment by Dr Leedom there is this from a forensic psychologist from CA:
The courts call upon psychologists and other experts to assist in only a tiny minority — somewhere between 2 and 4 percent — of the messiest and most complex cases. Many of the parents that psychologists evaluate are so consumed by pathological narcissism that they are incapable of seeing their role in damaging or destroying their own children.
I grit my teeth every time I see the concept that there’s something magical about a parent that is somehow better for a child than some other caring adult. Like people in general, most parents range from average to dreadful, and thus are NOT the best possible people to care for any given child even if that child carries their DNA. When a court needs to intervene, what IS in the best interests of a child is for the highest-quality person available to care for them, which often eliminates one or both of the biological parents from the running (or else they wouldn’t BE in court to begin with).
What’s REALLY going on in cases like these is the unspoken idea that children are the PROPERTY of the parents, that the parents have the “right” to have their kids with them even when a superior caretaker is available; the idea of the magical superiority of a biological parent was created to enable what is virtually OWNERSHIP of children by their parents to have a solid legal footing.
BloggerT, King Solomon had a WISE solution … Judges today need to use his wisdom by giving ultimatums to both parents and JUDGE their reactions.
“Divide the baby with a sword, and let the matter be settled.” As the king’s shocking words echoed throughout his chambers, those who heard his decision were stunned.
It was a heartrending scene: Two women stood before King Solomon, each claiming to be the mother of the same baby boy. The first mother told of how she and the second woman had each given birth to a son, three days apart. Her son was born first. The second mother accidentally laid on her son while they slept, and he died. Discovering that her son was dead, the second mother switched the babies, placing her dead son beside the first mother-asleep at the time-and taking the first mother’s living son to her bed.
When the first mother arose in the morning to nurse her son, she found the boy dead-but on closer examination discovered it was the other mother’s child. She knew her son was in the arms of the second mother. Now, standing anxiously before the king, she hoped that he would somehow perceive she was the one telling the truth so she could be reunited with her baby.
Solomon issued his verdict: “Bring me a sword. Divide the living child in two, and give half to one, and half to the other” (1Kings 3:24-25). The two mothers’ reactions were worlds apart. The first mother pleaded with the king: “O my lord, give her the living child, and by no means kill him!” But the second mother’s words were chilling: “Let him be neither mine nor yours, but divide him” (verse 26).
Their reactions told the king all he needed to know. “Give the first woman the living child,” he ordered, “and by no means kill him; she is his mother” (verse 27).
Read the full article at http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn15/profilesfaithsolomon.htm
DEar BloggerT,
You sound better spaced out on a bad day (Kidney stone! OUCH!) than most of us do on a GOOD DAY without meds to fuzz our brains! Logic and rational thought as always, thanks for posting!
You are right of course, how to you detect the flame before the match is struck? Of course we can’t, no one can.
Psychopaths are sometimes very good at projecting an image of being the kind, rational and caring individual—while the actual victim may sound like a nut-job on steroids! (been there myself!!!) Some of the VERY socially skilled psychopaths (Bernie Maddoff is an example, John Edwards, etc.) become very well connected socially, politically and financially to such an extent that they are in a position to fool the courts too.
I read an article in a UK newspaper last night where a “well respected” BBC journalist/executive hit and killed his very tiny wife (he was a big man) because she burned the meat (he put outat trial that he was only defending himself from this beast of a woman who was going to throw a plate at him!) The judge gave him 18 months (total) jail time because, after all he (the judge) knew this guy just over reacted during a tif and didn’t really mean to kill the woman, and after all he probably never did that sort of thing before and had no way to know she would die from a blow to the head so severe that it ruptured arteries and rendered her immediately dead. 18 MONTHS IN JAIL, of course shorter than that with time off for good behavior.
I find it DIFFICULT to believe that a man would use his fist on a much smaller woman to strike that kind of blow, when he had NEVER hit her before. But, then, I know what a psychopath is and how they operate many times, and the judge obviously doesn’t.
It pains me that our form of family courts will pauper parents who are trying to protect their children from psychpathic co-parents though. At 300$ per hour for an attorney (or more) how can a parent protect their child from someone they know is a psychopath and who is physically or emotionally abusing the child.
Dr. Anna Salter, an internationally recognized expert, in her book, Predators, mentioned one case in the US where a father who had sexually molested his daughter took a lie detector and failed, but worked it all around to where because the lie detector test was not admissible and his father was rich and could hire an attorney, actually got custody of the child with only supervised visits by the protective mother. It happens.
One of the things I did learn in dealing with my latest rash of psychopathic attack by my son, his Trojan HOrse and my X DIL was that you need to KEEP YOUR BIG MOUTH SHUT and not let them know what your plans are before you spring it on them.
You should have EVIDENCE gathered before they even know you are upset, much less intend to do anything. I RAN MY MOUTH in my anger, and it cost me dearly in the end because they were FOREWARNED and therefore had time to smear me and protect themselves from the little evidence I did have (before the fact) I only got it after the fact and by then it didn’t do me any good actually.
This Mel Gibson thing where she had the tapes recorded (if they are indeed completely genuine) she also I think had some “dirty hands” as far as trying maybe to extort money from him. But who knows for sure?
Having evidence that is better prepared and before the psychopath suspects you might be gathering it, and under different circumstances might be a much better idea than the way she did it. Certainally much better than the way I did it by running my mouth off and warning them what I intended to do.
The book “The Legal Abuse Syndrome” in the LF store is a good start on learning about handling yourself in a legal fight with a psychopath.
Thanks for your great contributions, BloggerT—and personally I don’t think what you said is in any way qualified as a RANT—if you want to see a rant, look at either my posts or sometimes ErinB’s ((Smile!))))
Running the mouth off in anger is such a normal healthy appropriate human response, the body needs to express the trauma via the voice lest it goes inward and cause chronic depression….
I think my explosion of anger at him near the end saved my life because it burst through the denial system that he built around me brick by brick…it’s the equivalent of being buried alive…and needing an extrordinary sudden effort to get the hell out before you are dead.
I think to stay calm (surpress the rage) is to mirror ‘psychopath’ back at them and it’s the best camouflage…if you are not “readable” or “predictable” the psychopath is at a loss, disarmed and easily side stepped….
but to be ABLE to hold the tension of doing that because after all we are human and not psychopath…would require support in the background where you could express it later…it is when you will really see a person, when you do something not expected and how they react…and you have to be able to handle what you uncover
I think I tried everything with the P..when I uncovered how ruthless he was I denied it because I could’nt handle it, I was devastated…so I would stick my head in the sand again and allow him bullshit me…but the amount of reassurance I needed from him was mounting as all the evidence was being picked up by my intuition which was working perfectly…but it was my enemy as I didnt WANT to believe what it was telling me..I kept reading it as me being negative…which was the exact opposite of the thruth
I think that’s it…I was picking up all the danger signs…but couldn’t handle it, so I buried my head in his lies..needing more lies to stay ‘sane’ ie safe from the devastating truth meaning I DEPENDED on the lies to keep me ‘happy’ bonding to his lies, clinging to them, that’s what they create…an insecure clingy whipped dog effect….terrible…and it needs one hell of a rage to break that..
I do not regret running my mouth off, it was my incredible hulk moment when I burst out of my shirt and the P knew I was capable of anything and deliberately stoked it so I would go all the way into madness…but the rage was the only sane thing left inside me….the denial waters broke and the illusion tumbled down around me and I found out I was strong enough and could manage the devastation…emerging tough as nails and ready for anything now.
If I could go through that I could go through anything…but the rage and the anger stays until it’s done….no one is going to bury me alive without a fight! and I’m still having to talk about it…hope folk can understand my need to put words on my experience..sorry if it’s a bit me me me…it’s hopefully a phase? will I ever be the innocent woman again…and would I want to be?