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.
Dear BP,
Yes, running my mouth when I am angry is a nice “release” and Frankly I enjoy it, but as I get older (and I hope WISER LOL) I am realizing that sometimes it is better to not let your buzzard beak overcome your hummingbird arse and spout off. It is much safer, and saner and smarter NOT to warn your opponent of your intended moves. The surprise of attack can sometimes stop the war short in its tracks without damaging your army, but if the enemy knows your every move because you sent him a telegraph of your intentions you will lose. That’s why they use spies in war. LOL
However, there are times too when “bowing up like a mad mama badger” is a good defense as well because it might make them think twice before attacking someone that they think will put up a big bad fight, and even if you don’t win, you will severely hurt them.
Problem with that is that many Ps are not really afraid of losing, (too arrogant) and not enough fear of punishment, and my P son qualifies on both counts, so all my warning did was to pith him off and give him time to rally his troops and counter my attack. If I had sneaked in with my MOUTH CLOSED I might have done better. LOL
No, BP you won’t ever be an “innocent’ naive person again, but that’s okay, being that was what allowed you to be victimized in the first place….but you will learn to be loving, caring and CAUTIOUS and not feel bad about it. LOL I think we are all getting wiser as we go.
Okay.
Somebody has got to tell me; how do you back-Spath?
Every time I must communicate I worry, I have to make every response calculated, and I want the spath to eventually get bored and leave me and our son alone even if that means no $.
However, it looks like we may finally be reaching a settlement. This, only after deciding to move, full steam toward trial. I think his attorney is finally telling him the outcome at trial will not get him any more than what he has.
I still feel like I am letting my son down though, as I agreed to two more nights a month and those two days with MIL as daycare.
Still using the money as a carrot though. IF he does not want to pay arrears and then some…trial here we come!
Dear FAD,
Well, HOW MUCH MONEY are you giving up to not go to trial AND to give him those extra days and the MIL time with the baby?
All this nit-pick CARPOLA he has given you and deliberately doing things to pith you off and irritate you, not even talking about violating the spirit AND the letter of the court orders, I wouldn’t give too much to the jackarse! Going to court will COST him $#$ for lawyer AND he’ll have to pay arrears most likely so you are still I would think in the driver’s seat with money….but who knows, maybe when you reach an agreement with the jerkwad he will THEN get bored….
I’m glad to see though that you are no longer “insane” with his jerking you around! I sometimes am AMAZED that I am not STILL INSANE! It really is (laughing and shaking head here) amazing just how CRAZY they can make us with all the gaslighting and carp that they pull. I’m glad you are getting your feet back under you! I can’t even imagine just how much anxiety you have had over your baby! I can’t imagine myself not at least planning murdering the jerkwad! So you didn’t kill him, so that’s TWO POINTS for you right there! (((((Hugs)))))
Dear BloggerT7165
i think you and I have been making some similar points. It’s hard on support forum like LF because people’s pain is so real that I don’t want to add to it by seemingly making excuses or having a ‘poor me’ attitude.
However – I said above that the only thing that really works in my view in preventing or reducing the long term impact of child abuse in a deep and strong alliance between CP workers and non-abusive parent and with the child concerned. I hope a forum like this may help some parents to find ways of ‘working with’ their CP worker and vice versa to confront evil ‘together’.
Blessings
Delta 1
Hiya Annie – thanks for your comments am trying to find some references for ‘Protective Behaviour Work’ which we do here in the UK and might be of benefit to all. Will get back to you on this and your other comments.
FAD – Arggh – a tough question. It’s tough because on the one hand ‘its simply about telling yourself ‘who cares what that a**clown thinks’ and on the other hand it’s all about how brainwashing and Stockholm Syndrome, gaslighting and all the other techniques have ‘primed’ you to ONLY care wha the a**clown thinks’.
If someone you have no time for or didn’t care about was sending you abusive messages you would have not difficulty in spotting it and probably batting it off without too much trouble.
I think a start is to accept that every single contact from your a**clown is designed to be annoying, intrusive, insulting and wretched. That’s a basic fact.
The second point is that the clever a**clown will have some basic grasp of stuff that you’re legally obliged to do and will worm this into the gaslighting and insulting stuff to ‘keep you on the back foot’.
I’ve seen good advice elsewhere about keeping communication bland, dull, repetitive, non-emotional, facts based etc etc.
The S N or P or otherwise disordered individual is wanting evidence of your ’emotion’ of some kind and will keep on ‘pricking away’ until their sick need is satisfied. They may even get off simply on imagining an emotional reaction that simply doesn’t exist on your part. However if you’re lucky you may win out on the waiting game as some exes are tougher and more determined (and frankly downright dangerous) than others.
The key is to KNOW in your heart that your a**clown is exactly that. I say out loud ‘god another attempt by that a**clown to convince himself he’s relevant to my new life – tchhh!’.
Answering the facts coldly and blandly – at a time and place and way of your choosing – preferably via a lawyer or other 3rd party so he doesn’t have direct access to you if at all possible (hard to acheive I know).
Reading about common gaslighting techniques so you start to recognise them more often might be useful- sorry I don’t have a a reference as my store of ‘examples’ in based on personal/professional experience. Some sites on the internet have some examples/lists though.
Building up the rest of your life so that you are ‘finding yourself and your power’ again alongside this. The more you focus on you and the less you focus on a**clown – the more powerful you will become and then answering his pathetic messages will become easier and easier.
You’re probably still massively hyper-vigilent to message/contacts from him. When you were with your abuser – over time your emotional safety began to depend on ‘pleasing him’ – if not your physical safety. That’s a damn hard ‘bond’ to break – it seems a real ingrained part of the human condition. I’ve been there unfortunately. My former abuser is a really rather pathetic human being in hindsight- but when I was with him I thought I’d rather die than displease him etc (Duh! Delta wake up!!)
Hope this helps a little – i don’t know much about your particular situation – so have tried to think of ‘general comments’ that have been ‘tried and tested’ by myself. Others may have more ideas.
Blessings
Delta 1
Here is what I did.
From the book.. which I cant find for the life of me…I learned that a sociopath will NOT follow any rules of the court. Divorcing a sociopath will take years.
So… this was very hard.. I was always afraid it would backfire on me.
Sociopaths will NOT do anything you want. So.. I reversed what I wanted.. I hounded him to pay support.. he would not..(all in writing.. email) The minute he would not pay I filed contempt.
He racked up 7 contempt of court for failure to pay.
At the same time I begged him to call our son.. come see our son ect. Of course, If I wanted that.. he refused. He was busy ect.
Combine 7 contempt of courts and not seeing our son for a year.
It was over.. he no longer had any credibility in court. By the time I got done with him.. my son was old enough that if he had to testify he could. It never came to that
I looked like the poster child for being a good mother wanting to compromise. He looked like the deadbeat abandoning father he was meant to be.
Then after 4 years, my attorney retired and his attorney dumped him. I haven’t been back to court since.
Our number has been changed.. we moved..
I won. He looks so awful.. he owes over 30k in support now.
I dont care.. I wanted him away from our son. Worked like a charm.
I am so grateful to my psychologist who explained what a sociopath is. Once I fully understood that this man no more cared about us than he cared for anything… I could think properly. It takes a lot to fully get it. We all want to think that our spouse cared for us… but these people do not care about you, they never did. They don’t care about the child.. they don’t care. They are incapable of it. They only care about manipulating you and hurting you.
If all he cared about was hurting me.. I made it seem like him not seeing our child hurt me the most.
Ahh. Good ol’ reverse psychology.
I have thought about this on and off ie; asking him to watch our son instead of a sitter.
However, the last time I placed responsibility on him (giving him power) he took our son to a different Dr.
But, telling him finally that he could, and would he please pick up our son at daycare (because he begged for contact with Day Care) he wouldn’t do it because it perceived that it was of benefit to me.
Right now, he is doing a really good job of taking him when he supposed to so there is no room for me to say, ” please come and see him/take him”.
Hopefully I will really catch on to this and use it to my advantage.
Dear FAD,
The reverse strategy “back-pathing” I think EB calls it LOL sometimes works. Your soon-to-be X (we’ll have a party when it is final!!!!) does stuff just to pith you off, like cutting the baby’s hair, and you know he has NEVER followed the rules on the child exchange or writing in the journal etc. so it might work with him you just never know.
Once you get something in writing about the custody, you might start demanding that he keep the baby more because you “do have a life besides the baby” you know…act like you may be going out on dates or something andhe SURE wouldn’t want to keep him in that case. LOL See4 how oppositional I am.
Just got back from town and it is SOOOO HOT today (yesterday 107, 3 deg over the last hottest day ever) and if it doesn’t cool off I may get neekid!!!!! Sweat is running off my nose even in the house in AC since I came inside!
Well, Dr. Leedom, you sure know me and my case. Right now, we’re in a situation of hurry-up and wait. I will update my story in the next couple days to let you know where things stand. The kids are still on a waiting list for a therapist. 🙁
whoamI – towanda! GOOD FOR YOU!!!