When I first became exposed to the term “co-parenting”, I remember having a visceral reaction. I was sitting in the three hour court mandated co-parenting class, breaking into a sweat, and having what felt like a full on panic attack as the woman leading the class showed slides of “parenting schedules.” ‘How in hell was I going to co-parent with a man who was capable of such terrible things,’ I thought as I tried to get myself under enough control to not look like a crazy woman. At the beginning of the class, the leaders made a point to tell everyone to disregard most of what was being said if you were in a situation with abuse/domestic violence.
For some reason, this statement made me feel worse because I knew that somehow the courts were not going to treat my case the same as a cookie cutter domestic violence case (as if there ever is one). I knew how good Luc was at playing in that “grey area” of criminality and how adept at making himself look like the victim he was. That panic that I felt throughout the entire three hours of that class only seemed to get worse as the months passed. While I don’t break out into sweats and actively panic every single time I drop my son off, I never feel at ease because I know his father is damaging. The point of co-parenting is to allow the child to have a healthy relationship with both parents even if the parents are no longer together. My motherly instincts will not allow me to trust that baby boy is ever going to be able to have a healthy relationship with his father because his father is not healthy.
One of my coworkers wrote on the white board at her desk the phrase, “Crazy people make sane people crazy.” Most people who have never had the misfortune of co-parenting with a sociopath (if that is even what you would call this) might think that the below story sounds a little crazy. Honestly, I feel a little crazy sometimes whenever I try and get in Luc’s head and proactively prepare for his next crazy stunt. You tell me, is this crazy? Or is this just a reaction to the insanity of being forced to co-parent with a sociopath?
The Headless Bear
When a person creates an environment of distrust, it makes you question everything. Since the beginning of this nightmare (i.e. the existence of Luc in my life), I have been lied to on a regular basis by this man. Many of the lies have put both me and my family in harms way. Every time I think that things have calmed down, the man pulls another crazy move that I didn’t anticipate.
These crazy moves have left me attempting to anticipate the lies and deception before they happen. Please note, this is not easy as sometimes it makes you feel like you are going down the rabbit hole of crazy.
For my son’s first birthday, Luc bought him a build-a-bear. This was the very first thing that Luc had ever gotten the baby so as you can imagine I was a bit skeptical of this furry creature. Part of me thought, ‘come on cappuccino queen, it’s just a bear’ but then the other voice (the skeptic) said, ‘wait a second…he never does anything just because he is trying to be nice.’
While my first instinct was to tear the bear apart with my teeth and throw it in the mall trashcan, I decided I would do the more sane thing and ask my mother and aunts (who were standing right next to me when I first saw it) what they thought. This is when I realized how truly traumatized my entire family had been. One of my aunts said (before I even told them how I was feeling), “you better check that and make sure he didn’t bug it.” The other said, “It’s too risky, just throw it out – don’t even let it in the car.” I shook my head, threw the bear back in the box and took my son home.
I thought about the stupid bear the whole ride home. I also thought about how throwing it out wasn’t the answer as this could be the ONLY thing my son would ever get from his father (I suspect it was purchased in order to look good in front of the court ordered supervisor who would be testifying in court the next day). That being said, I still didn’t trust the bear. That night the bear spent the night in the garage.
The next morning, I walked downstairs (having dreamed about that stupid bear) and low and behold my mom was awake and didn’t waste any time to ask me what I had decided to do with the bear. I told her that we were being paranoid and that there was nothing wrong with the bear.
On the drive to work, I couldn’t stop trying to figure out if there was more to this bear thing. This is a man who has been lying and terrorizing since he met me. A bear couldn’t JUST be a bear. Once I got to work, I brought up the bear to my coworkers. Some of the more paranoid ones were all for the idea of cutting the bear open and making sure it wasn’t bugged.
Eventually, I allowed my mom to check for a bug. She cut the bears head off and pulled out all the stuffing. Of course, there was nothing there. It was JUST a bear filled with stuffing and a fake heart. (A lot like Luc himself actually) I felt terrible – and a little crazy. My mom told me I shouldn’t feel bad and that the bear was a “casualty of war.”
Yes, one could say it was JUST a bear – but it was more than that symbolically. That bear became a symbol of the environment of distrust. It also made it very obvious to me that co-parenting would be impossible. I have a lot of work to do on myself to get to the point where the little things don’t bother me. I also need to get to the point where I can safely stop anticipating his next crazy move.
Yes, we do become paranoid but hopefully safer. How many ignorant years I lived leaving my house doors unlocked until last year when my grown son attacked me. Now I kerp all doors locked, not against strangers, but against my own children. Sometimes, accepting the truth is our best way of coping and staying safe. Best wishes Tiffy…you are not alone!
Thanks for the articles. This idea of parallel parenting makes a lot of sense. There is no way that I can co-parent with someone like this. He should have no reason to contact me and vice versa. Luckily, we don’t share legal custody and he is just a “visitor” in my sons life – for now. While the court tells me I need to share “important information”, this is up to my discretion and given the physical danger I am in when it comes to having contact with him…I am not inclined to cooperate with this for everything.
Flicka, some form of paranoia keeps us safe IMHO. I was just speaking to a coworker this morning about his upcoming camping trip. I told him I would be afraid to just camp in some random woods. Speaking to him was interesting because it was the first time in a while that I realized how this experience has made me very cautious in ways that I never was before. My mind is able to go to the worst possible scenario because I have met evil and had a child with him….so I know how terrible people are capable of being.
Thanks for the articles. This idea of parallel parenting makes a lot of sense. There is no way that I can co-parent with someone like this. He should have no reason to contact me and vice versa. Luckily, we don’t share legal custody and he is just a “visitor” in my sons life – for now. While the court tells me I need to share “important information”, this is up to my discretion and given the physical danger I am in when it comes to having contact with him…I am not inclined to cooperate with this for everything.
I was just speaking to a coworker this morning about his upcoming camping trip. I told him I would be afraid to just camp in some random woods. Speaking to him was interesting because it was the first time in a while that I realized how this experience has made me very cautious in ways that I never was before. My mind is able to go to the worst possible scenario because I have met evil and had a child with him….so I know how terrible people are capable of being.
I fear for my innocent and precious 4 year old granddaughter every day. I’ve seen my son (her father) violently kick his beloved dog for a minor infraction, yet the courts do nothing to safeguard the offspring of psychotics until AFTER they’ve done provable damage…disgusting how ignorant the legal system is concerning this growing mental illness.
Tiffy: my ex used to peek in the windows, let the dogs loose from the back yard by opening the gate, root through the trash, pump the children for information, etc. The only thing that you can hope for is that he will find a new victim at some point, and lose interest in you.
flicka,
I noticed you use the term psychotic several times before. I’m not sure what you imply though.
Psychotic means someone who has dillusional episodes and fits… someone with a mental disorder who hears and sees things that aren’nt there at times and then acts in the real world upon the illusions they hear or see.
A psychopath has no psychotic episodes, no mental disorder. They don’t see or hear things that are illusions. A psychopath has a personality disorder, where they lack empathy, lack the ability to feel deep feelings ecept for envy and rage.
Is your son psychotic or a psychopath?
Darwinsmom, you make a good point about psychotic vs psychopath. That being said, I think my ex is a psychopath who also might be a psycho. Is this possible? Sure, he didn’t test as a psycho but then again the psychologist only relied on self-reporting from him. What I do find interesting is that several people who speak to him (and aren’t fooled by his charm like I was) say that he appears dilusional. This is different than hearing voices, but he has delusions that make him act extremely irrational. Either that or he comes across as delusional when he backs himself into a corner and his lies become outrageous. I guess who knows at this point?
cappuccinoqueen,
On one of the last nights I was physically together with ex-spath he returned very late back home, while we had to leave by taxi an hour later for to get the bus (reserved tickets already paid for) for Costa Rica and the city of Liberia where I had to cathc my plane 2 days later. I basically had packed all of my stuff by then and had he not arrived at the time he did, I would have left by myself half an hour later.
Anyway, at first he seemed piss drunk, stepping outside of a car, peeing in the middle of the street, then grabbed some leftover rice with vegetables from the kitchen and gobbled it down in a manner that made me puke and started to tell some adventure tale of being in some rich expat’s house, and some drug gang trying to enter, and all types of guns being pulled and it nearly being a shoot-out…. I hardly could make sense of it, except that it could have been the basis for the scrip of a Miami Vice episode. But it was most definitely and very clearly as lalaland as it could ever be.
However, along with his behaviour, the bestial manner of eating, the garbled speech, etc… I’m sure he was far gone on drugs. He later claimed it to be just marihuana, but I’ve had some space cake trips where I could see Pegasus outlined in the stars perfectly (and it was a space cake trip for hours) and didn’t ever come close to the miami vice fish story. Coke doesn’t make people hallucinate either. I suspect he took crack but not sure.
Anyway, drugs have psychotic trip effects. Other than that one time none of his lies or big fish stories ever gave me the impression he truly believed what he was saying; the sole important thing was that I believe it.
Anyway, here’s a few links on psychosis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosis#Signs_and_symptoms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosis#Psychiatric_disorders
Darwinsmom,
I guess that is the major difference….on some level they don’t really believe it. Sometimes I wonder if my ex gets so deep in the lie that he starts to believe it as true. But here I go again…down the rabbit hole. I just can’t think as crazy as he acts. LOL Thanks for the links.
If I am honest with myself, I really don’t think he believes it. I think he just hopes that the person listening to the story will believe it…or he will be able to create such amazing looking smoke and clouds that you will be distracted from the hideous reality beneath it all.
The words co-parenting and sociopath don’t belong in the same sentence. A family court judge recently told me that if I didn’t settle ie give my ex-path 50/50 custody then he would flip a coin to decide my case. This was after showing him graphic photos of my daughters face, which was swollen and had a blistery rash caused by a drug reaction to an antibiotic she was taking. Her father, a doctor, had her in his care for 5 hours and dropped her at my house (he didn’t bother to come in and tell me what was going on) for me to take care of her. After several calls to an on call physician I was advised to give her benedryl and get her to her regular doctor in the morning. The doctor immediately put her on a 10 day course of prednisone because the reaction was so bad. When I texted him to tell him what was going on he said, ” I know and I told her so.” He didn’t lift a finger to help his daughter who was in distress. The judge asked me if I involved my ex in the decision making process regarding this incident. I told him that he knew what was going on and did nothing about it. The judge said you should have involved him. This is co-parenting with a sociopath.
At the same hearing I told the judge that I had strong evidence and witnesses that would testify that my ex, the doctor, touched them or said inappropriate things during examinations in his exam room. He said he didn’t believe this fine doctor would do such a thing. Again, in the end my ex-path got 50/50 shared custody. Since this change in custody (two weeks ago) my daughter has missed her volunteer work that she goes to every Monday and has spent the night away from her dad’s home two nights already. Tonight he told her she had to buy her own eye drops because she stopped to look at lip gloss instead of focusing on getting the eye drops at the grocery store.
Sadly, during the six months it took to go to a hearing, my 15 year old was conned by her dad to say she wanted more time with him because he bought her a home with a swimming pool and a new puppy right before meeting with her law guarding and the judge. Right after the bogus hearing, I received a text message from a reliable source telling me that my ex-path was serving alcohol to my daughter and her teenage friends. As someone with the inability to control his impulses, the new custody arrangement is like handing the keys to the candy store to a teen. He now has 15 years olds who look like 20 year olds prancing around his swim pool in swim suits while he acts as a bartender for underage drinkers. This will end badly eventually.
Shame on the judge and law guardian for not taking the time to investigate my allegations and for now properly interviewing my daughter to find out why she agreed to a change of custody after 4 years. I volunteered to submit to a mental evaluation and for the law guardian to make surprise visits to my house. Neither was done.
For those in my position, keep praying that one day the family court system will recognize and admonish sociopathic behavior and make better decisions regarding the placement of children in the home of sociopaths. Stand strong ladies…..