By Ox Drover
Someone was talking about how she should have seen what her ex-significant other was up to with all of his sweet words. He was in prison, and telling her how he had changed and found the light and how wonderful things would be when he got out. She knew what he had done to get in there, the bad acts he had committed, but she chose to believe his “sincere remorse.” Now she wanted to know why she had been so stupid.
She wasn’t “stupid—”she was using denial to protect herself from something so painful the thought of it “scared her to death.”
Years ago, when I was married the first time, my husband and I were friends with a couple. I felt close friendship with both the man and the woman. I knew that they had been separated once in their long marriage because she had caught him cheating, and that they had lived separate for a year or so before getting back together. I also knew that the woman would not put up with any more cheating on the man’s part. She had made up her mind that if he cheated again, that would be it. They would separate and divorce.
The life they had made as a couple was satisfying. They had an adopted son. The man had a good, steady federal job. They had a paid-for home and some land in a community they liked. She was a stay-at-home wife who enjoyed that role and kept busy with homemaking and taking care of their son.
After my husband and I separated, I was totally devastated and frequently I would take my two young sons and go to my couple-friends’ home to spend the weekend. They lived out in the country and raised meat animals for sale. Our children were friends, and I considered both the man and the woman to be my friends.
One weekend a month or so, my boys and I went to see them for the weekend. Just before dinner on a still, bright and light Saturday afternoon, the man mentioned he had some new animals in the barn that he wanted to show me. With the full knowledge of his wife, who was cooking dinner, we walked out to the barn to see them. While we were walking down the aisle my friend appeared to stumble and fall, and I tried to catch him, but then realized he was making a “lunge” at me, literally!
I gave him a firm “NO!” and backed away from him. He got a sheepish grin on his face and said, “Well, you can’t blame a guy for trying.” I said, “Yes, I CAN blame a guy for trying, but I love your wife and I will not tell her what you just did.”
We went back in the house and ate supper. After supper, the boys and I left instead of spending the night. I was disturbed by my “friend” lunging at me, but I felt that it was wrong to tell his wife what he had done because I knew it would hurt her. I doubted that he would tell her, so I decided to just stay away from him without someone else present.
About two weeks later, in company with another female friend of mine, I went to visit the couple for an hour or so, and the wife was very, very “cool” to me. I couldn’t figure out why she would treat me in such a manner. After we left, I started discussing the situation with the girlfriend who had gone with me, and she said, “Silly, he figured you would tell her even though you had said you wouldn’t, so he had beat you to the punch, and he told his wife that YOU made a pass at him.” DUH!
Well, obviously my friend had it figured out, and that was exactly what this serially cheating, unrepentant creep had done. He had told his wife (my friend) that I had made a pass at him.
His wife knew me pretty well, I think, and she knew I would not have in any way encouraged her husband to make a pass at me. She knew also that I was reeling from the separation from my husband in a divorce from hell, and she knew her husband was a serial cheater in the past. But she chose to believe him. She went into denial about what she knew or suspected was the truth—that her husband was lying to her (again) to protect his behavior.
She knew if she acknowledged the truth, that her husband was a lying cheat who would not stop trying to cheat, she would have had to leave him, and she didn’t want to do that. The pain and financial problems, the loss of the “lifestyle,” would have been too painful, so it was easier to deny what she knew was true, and to get mad at me, rather than accept the truth.
What would have happened, I asked myself, if she had believed what she knew, instead of what he said? What would the woman whose man was in prison have done if she really looked at his actions, rather than listen to what he said? They would have had to act on those truths, and because the very thought of acting on those things was so painful, they chose to believe the lie. It was the less painful option.
I, too, have chosen denial of the seriousness of the things that were true. I did not want to admit that someone was evil, that they will not change because they do not want to, that a lifetime pattern of doing illegal, immoral and mean things means that person is not likely to alter that pattern. I did not want to accept that truth.
Denial in the short term is a salve to the heart of the devastated one who cannot immediately accept the whole raw truth that, for example, their loved one has been killed in an accident. They must accept that truth a bite at a time, like eating an elephant. Short term, denial is protective.
Long term, denial is worse than dysfunctional. We must accept that they are “deceased” in order to be able to “bury the body” (so to speak), because if we don’t do that, the corpse of our existence starts to stink and rot. If we accept the truth, we must ACT on information instead of perpetually remaining in denial.
I never saw my couple friends again. I knew that there wasn’t any use in trying to tell her that her husband had lied, that I had not made a pass at him. If I had told her the truth and she had believed it, she would have had to ACT on it, or continue to deny it. She did not want to ACT, so she therefore continued to DENY he lied, and put the “blame on me.”
I do understand, though, how that woman felt. I stayed in denial for many, many years, rather than accept the truth about my psychopathic son and his lack of repentance for his crimes, including murder. Accepting that truth after decades of denial was difficult, and at times I asked myself why I denied it. I think the answer is that at the time, I thought it was easier and less painful. Looking back, I know I wasn’t stupid, but I did make a choice that, “knowing what I know now,” I would not make again. There is no use in beating myself up for not knowing then.
I know now. I make decisions now on what I know now.
TOWANDA!!!
Very good analogy tootsie roll!
lol Oxy – I STILL do that – what’s that clunk clunk? Oh turn up the bass 🙂
One Step – I actually TRIED a Tootsie Roll the other week and thought of you when I did. Found them in a random shop out of the way and they were nothing like I thought they would be. They were kind of like a chocolate caramel chew but soft – very strange texture and taste – kind of malted. Oh well – now at least I know what they are!
Thank you Oxy…I feel a real kinship to you with our spathy sons. I think the matter becomes tricky when it is your son…the denial a much greater salve to the shock of discovery at their illness/disorder.
As for myself, I have given my son, now 17 his last LAST chance at infecting my home/family. Even though I literally terminated my parental rights (voluntarily) on him 3 years ago, with the courts agreement (very unusual), I still wanted to believe that his diagnosis at age 13 might have been incorrect. I took him back, literally out of adult jail this fall, right before his 17th birthday. 3 weeks of amazingly great behavior, then it went south and since he was on probation for his offenses, he ended up back in jail for a dirty drug screen- which I posted previously that I had literally faxed his PO an incriminating facebook conversation in which he had admitted to taking my car while I slept many nights- he has no license or drivers training- and it was the “hahaha LOL” about taking advantage of me, that finally woke me out of my denial fog.
Yesterday, he was sentenced to PRISON for 30-180 months for all of the felony breaking and enterings, ect. that he had committed while on the run from his foster home a year ago.
I found myself strangely sad. Really sad. almost devastated. He certainly wont be returning home when released. I haven’t been to see him since he was sent to jail a month ago for violating his probation. Though he did send me a searing letter, packed with accusations and clear manipulation..called me a liar, someone only concerned with her image and how her family looked,ect. Ended though with a big request for a favor…if I did this, he would PROMISE never to contact me or the other kids again. He wanted me to go into his jail property, pull out his two ipod touches and headphones, sell them on an online auction, for say $225, and send him this in a cashiers check once he wrote me from his new prison home.
Needless to say, I am not going to be doing this “favor”…but denial had me considering it for a minute…
How sad. I feel like I have failed this child, yet my intellect tells me that he is how he is, BECAUSE of how he is. I have 5 other children, also adopted, who are nothing like him.
It’s such a game of head vs. heart.
Head needs to win.
Dear Roodyzoo,
I am sorry that you are experiencing this chaos, but it is not unusual for adopted kids to be this way as they come from a group of people selected for “high risk of psychopathy” by the very fact that they are placing their kids Either voluntarily or involuntarily up for adoption. This has been observed in adopted kids as a group for a long time, and back in the days when a child was presumed to be a BLANK slate on which the parents wrote the environment (and therefore the adoptive parents were blamed when the child didn’t turn out right, just as biological parents were) Now there is some realization that biology and genetics play some role in these children’s personality development. So, do not blame yourself and don’t let anyone else blame you for how this child has turned out.
Whatever promises he makes about “never contacting” you again, etc. IF you do thus and so are just like all the promises that every psychopath makes—-they are not to be relied on.
Of course this man/child believes that YOU OWE him this or that no matter what he does….or what promises he fails to keep.
I wish in retrospect that I had been able to LET GO when he was 17, I’d have saved myself probably some grief, but at the same time, who knows how much more he would have hated me if I had let go then, and he might have actually gotten paroled and come after me and succeeded in killing me. I’m not going to second guess how things turned out. I didn’t go NC with him when he was 17, so maybe this is the way it was supposed to turn out, but I KNOW NOW what he is, I KNOW NOW what he is capable of.
I am glad that you turned him in to the PO. When mine was turned in to the PO they FAILED TO ACT ON IT COMPLETELY, until after his court date came and went 3 months later, in fact he had on an ankle bracelet monitor that he had cut off and they STILL FAILED TO ACT. I wish I had thought of it at the time and had gone to his court date and told the judge how little support (like none) I’d had from his PO and I know now that THAT
judge would have TAKEN ACTION against the PO for failure to act. The judge was in a wheel chair from being shot by a thug and he was a NO NON.SENSE JUDGE.
In the meantime you must educate your other children what a psychopath is, and that their brother IS ONE, and that they must not be drawn into his web by his lies. That may be difficult with kids but I wish you luck on that.
My son also used to take my car at night while I slept as well, or our other family car if I was at work at night, and drive without a license. They have this “entitled” mentality that whatever is yours is theirs for the taking, and it expands to whatever belongs to anyone is theirs for the taking.
Stay strong and realize that the fledgling you raised wasn’t the same “species” as the rest of your children—he looks the same on the outside but he is lacking internal parts that make him unsafe to be around, a conscience and empathy, and prison will only make his problems worse, not better. He will get a master’s degree the first trip to jail, and a PhD in prison. Just remember, the boy you loved and the man in the cell are not the same–the boy is gone and the man is a STRANGER, a dangerous stranger. God bless you! Peace!
Oxy,
thanks for talking about adopted kids having a higher risk factor for psychopathy. I’d never considered this as a factor in J until a few months ago. Well, I’d never considered that he was a SP until a few months ago!
He often talked about the fact that he was adopted—it is an interesting story: this 3month old Pyute/Irish boy born to a 15yo mother & 16yo Pyute father in the forests of Oregon, adopted by a wealthy Quaker couple from NJ, with a highly nervous adopted mother (she was actually institutionalized for 6 mos when he was a toddler—he was always told it was because of him & his hyperactivity & other intractable behaviors), & his adopted father, the head of Chemistry at a prestigious NJ university.
Many of his bio father’s Pyute family still live on the res, & the father has been progressively morbidly depressed for about 20 yrs. His bio mother has been married (not to the father) 3 times & had 3 other children by 2 of those hbs. (& 2 of those have been in & out of jail.) J grew up in the enormous family home (built in the early 1700s), on his very strict Quaker adopted grandparent’s dairy farm, with a grandmother who wore only black & spoke in “thee & thou”. And in the academia environment as well. What a stark contrast from his birth!
J told me many times that he remembered the trauma (not the actual event) of the separation from his bio mother…that it resulted in desertion/separation anxiety. Okay. I understood that. I’d never even considered a “failure to attach” syndrome.
When he talked about his every-summer-all-summers at camp, & his years in very restrictive Christian boarding schools (like Stony Brook), it was always with a touch of bitterness. He never once talked about ANY life-time friends from boarding school or from camp. In fact, I could count his long-time friends on one hand….& he was in touch with them very infrequently.
I always thot that these things were “positive” in creating his unique & special character!
I know I have a lotta quirks & quarks myself, & I know I came by them all “honestly” by a lotta bumps & bruises from my dysfunctional family (N mother, distant father, & pathologically greedy & bitter, bullying SP brother, but thank god for my grandparents!), & from a “freewheeling lifestyle” that caused me to crash into a lotta nasty situations—like a couple of physically abusive relationships—& like too-long a love affair with drugs & alcohol & guys who loved them, too!
So I could understand & “appreciate” that he had his own share of Scars.
I never understood what “that look” was—that staring right thru you/ eyes like cold, hard marbles SP look. Now I know what it was. Something that I thot was such a minor aspect of his personality…his eyes really were mirroring his soul. He never learned to form attachments….in fact, he worked against forming attachments. And it showed in his eyes.
This is all such powerful realization. It makes me stop all the “whys & why nots”…..I still wonder “why me”, but I now accept that it was something I needed to learn—& not just about him—->about ME. I don’t like it! I thot I’d been very self-aware all this time (I AM an astrologer, after all!) But this has made me come to face things I hadn’t wanted to see in myself!
And being able to come here to LF & read & “listen” & ponder & share has been a huge part of my coming to understand all I do now.
Dear whyme,
I also have a genealogical and biological history of alcoholism and abuse going back on both sides and my husband’s father is no doubt a high level abuser and control freak. Career military. So my kids have the double whammy on each side genetically.
The depression in J’s father is a KNOWN genetic trait, and the dysfunctional lifestyle of his mother, early sexual behavior, multiple relationships and marriages, chaotic etc. all sounds like J got a good dose of psychopathic-trait genetics. Factor in being adopted, but, and here is a BIG BUT—I don’t believe his remembering the trauma of being away from his biological mother at an early age—that is preverbal and psychopaths are great at putting on a PITY PARTY—-poooooor me, I was abandoned……sheeeeet!
Being blamed for his adoptive mother’s neurosis is a “MAYBE” and that may or may not be so, psychopaths again lay on the pity party—POOOOOOR ME, MY ADOPTIVE MOMMIE DIDN’T LOVE MEEEEEE” SHEETTTT! again!
Non attachment? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did he not attach because of his genetics, or did not attaching to a caregiver because one wasn’t there consistently the trigger for the genetics?
What about the “Quaker grandparents? ” Again, a maybe, but it is possible the reason he was sent off to camps and schools is that he was UNMANAGEABLE from an early age and that is the reason he has no friends from childhood or long term friends.
But don’t try to figure out his life by what HE TOLD YOU, remember, he is a LIAR AND THE TRUTH IS NOT IN HIM.
OK, so you were a wild child, I get that. I did enough of that myself to appreciate you trying to give someone else a break for being a “wild child” too—but the difference is that YOU have stopped being a wild child—in fact, you have stopped being a CHILD, much less wild.
So, now it is time to set some standards for the behavior that we allow others to do to us. BOUNDARIES. It is time to set some standards for the kind of people we will associate with in the first place.
1. NO CRIMINALS–simple enough, if the person has a record worse than jay walking—no friend of mine. It doesn’t matter to me any more if they are claiming to be reformed or not.
2. NO LIARS—now I am using this to refer to ADULTs (because kids do lie and that’s part of growing up)–and LIE means to deceive for the purpose of ‘putting one over” on someone or aggrandizing themselves. Like, embellishing your resume is LYING, telling me how nice my new dress looks is MANNERS! LOL
3. NO CHEATS/THIEVES/MOOCHES—no financial responsibility or work ethic–no friend of mine.
4. NO ARSE-HOLES—have some manners, fool, or keep away from me.
That pretty well sums it up for me—that’s the list of deal breakers, and as far as the positive side just “be NICE”—if it ain’t nice, don’t need it.
Hi Ox Drover:
Great words as always. Actually something like that happened to me but with a twist.
A friend thought her boyfriend who was a disc jockey was cheating on her since he always had women around with his job. This friend and I were very close for years, we worked together, went to each others homes, she watched my daughter, no issues.
So, she asked me to go to where he would be working one night and check him out (he did not know me). I did just that and he did hit on me, I asked if he had a girlfriend and got the typical “no”.
I called my friend and told her what happened and she was shocked and upset (as one would be).
The twist is she confronted him and he said I came onto him – which was a lie and from then one – she cooled our friendship.
It bothered me since I did as asked, told the truth and she took his word over mine. WOW, what an eye opener.
Shortly after that incident, she stopped returning or making calls to me, so I knew our friendship was over.
Reflecting back I figure she was so desperate for a guy – she would do anything, including freezing out a true friend.
Ox Drover, this is quite a story. And I imagine it happens all too often. How awful that your friend would believe her husband even though she knew he was a cheat/liar. But I totally get the protective need for denial.
I remember being in the denial stage very clearly, although at the time things weren’t at all clear…..like I was living in this bubble, hoping that things would miraculously change and that the abuse would stop and my abuser would transform into the wonderful person I thought he was. Thank God it only took me months to break free from the chains of denial and plunge into the chaos of change. It’s so much better on the other side even thought it was a pain in the ass to get here. I really feel for the women who take years to leave denial behind….and especially for those who decide to remain there.
Thanks for such great writing and such wise thoughts!!!
http://OrderofProtectionSurvivor.blogspot.com
Dear Carinamom and tormented,
I agree it is too often the case, and that is why I used that as an example of why we stay in denial—the “price” to get out is sooooo painful—we have to accept a truth that destroys our fantasy world.
The way my husband died (aircraft crash, I was FIRST PERSON THERE) was terrible, BUT I think it was better that I was THERE than if I had been gone and heard about it 2nd hand. I was almost gone that morning, but I broke my finger giving a cow a shot and because of that stayed home with an ice pack on my finger. I think it was the GRACE OF GOD that kept me there.
The MOMENT I SAW HIM I KNEW and I turned to my cousin who was there and said “He can’t live” and he said to me “Don’t say that!” (there was NO doubt in my mind, NO denial) I was still in shock because I couldn’t see my son or the other two people even though I was told later I was 3 ft away and “looking right at them” but the TRUTH of my husband’s pending death I think was easier For me (as a medical person) than if I had not seen it for myself. By the time I got to the hospital where they had taken him I WAS THE ONE WHO TOLD THEM HE WAS GOING TO DIE….they were trying to “let me down easy”—actually I was very angry at them for their attempt at deception.
Even back when my friends(?) turned their backs on me at a time when I needed it, fortunately my GF knew what was going on and pointed it out to me, so I think the hurt from my friends’ betrayal was less acute than it would have been if I had not known what was going on.
There are lots of lessons to learn in this life and learning about denial in ourselves and in others is important. When we see someone in denial our (at least MY) instinct is to try to educate them…I do that here every day, that’s what this blog is about, but I need (for myself) to understand that sometimes the denial is going to win, and to have compassion on those people who still aren’t ready to give it up. Sometimes it is frustrating when someone stays in denial for a long time and keeps on making excuses and wanting me to validate them….I can’t validate them, and I won’t, but at the same time, I try not to push someone into more pain than they can handle because I know that giving up that denial is painful! VERY PAINFUL. Been there myself. We all have.
You know, Oxy…..
when I think back about what a “wild child” I was for too much of my life, & when I compare that to those lists of SPN traits, it kinda scares me…..I mean, too many of them describe ways I was when I was younger. I’ve broken a law or 2 & got a DWI in ’73, so I have a “record worse than jaywalking”. I always had a good “work ethic”, but I managed to avoid working for other people most of my life….being an artist & astrologer & free-lance construction worker & girl-of-all-trades (& having a family with $) helped me with that. And now, at 66, having been “retired” for 4 yrs, thinking that my life was set with J, I’m not anxious to get a “job”, even tho I need one & know it’d be good for me…Okay, I just got emotionally slammed to the mat 7 mos ago, but I *should* be on my feet now….but I guess I’m okay with waiting for my inheritance I should’ve gotten 7 yrs ago. For now, anyhow.
And I sure’s hell grew up in a hotbed of pathologies capable of producing a sociopath! (Looking at the list of “effective parenting” in the “Sociopathic Children” article, I can check OFF every one of those positive parenting traits as ones that were NON-EXISTENT in my parents!)
But I’ve never been a LIAR—-to my detriment, I’ve always been painfully honest with the people in my life. (broken a law or 2, but “honest to a fault!” Is that a oxymoronic syllogism? LOL!)
So I mentioned this to my therapist the other day. Well, I guess the better way to say it is that I broke out in sobs, saying, “how do I know I’M not the sociopath, thinking about some of the stuff I’ve done?”
She laughed & said, “A ‘good’ sociopath never questions their behavior, or considers it ‘wrong” & possibly sociopathic! And never feels guilty about it!”
I sure hope she’s right. 🙂