By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
One of my favorite quotes from Dr. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning came to mind today. Dr. Frankl wrote his book after spending time in a Nazi concentration camp during WWII. He lost his wife, his family and most of his friends. His book was not just another list of the atrocities done by the Nazis, but a look at the emotional toll taken by the hopeless situations in the camps and how different people responded differently. I learned a lot from this book, and I highly recommend it for those who have suffered “hopeless” situations.
“We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able to change a situation—just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Over the past few years, as my age and “decrepitude” creeps up on me and I am no longer able to do the more active things I used to do, sometimes I get so frustrated I could scream! I want to be out galloping across the fields on my horse ”¦ I can almost feel the wind in my hair as the horse moves beneath me.
The truth is, though, I’m sitting here with my leg up after surgery to replace my Achilles tendon. Though it is probable that I will be able to walk again, probably with a limp, I am never going to be running freely or galloping my horse across the pasture. I am no longer, as the above quote says, “able to change the situation.” I will continue to get older and less able to do the things I did in my youth. That is just the cycle of life, and no matter how I wish I could be young again, have the young, supple body I did then, those days are gone by.
My son, the psychopath
There are a lot of things in my life that are not what I wish they were. I can’t change these things. They just are what they are. One of my sons is a psychopath who is bent on killing me, or having someone kill me, if he can, and especially before my mother passes away, because that would give him some financial advantages that would not be possible were I to out-live her.
Patrick was one of the brightest, most lovable little boys I ever knew in my life. He loved to fish and fly kites and play with the farm animals and our pets. He was a standout at school, and the teachers and other kids loved him. Plus, he was cute as a doggone button. He was unusually responsible as a pre-teen and I really enjoyed being around him.
When he hit the “terrible teens,” though, I was frustrated beyond belief that I couldn’t get him to continue to be the kind of kid that had charmed his friends and his teachers. It happened suddenly, almost overnight. It seemed that he morphed into this teen-aged monster. Somehow I had to change what was happening to him. I had to save him before he did something that would ruin his bright life of the future. What college would accept him, or give him a scholarship, with a criminal record?
Then the next thing I know he was in prison for a felony. I couldn’t give up though. People had found Jesus in prison, and maybe he could get out and go to college anyway, and “straighten out.” I couldn’t believe it was hopeless.
Accepting the situation
But it was hopeless, because my son, my beloved son, Patrick, is a psychopath. No one can force anyone to change if they don’t want to. That is the hardest thing for the rest of us to accept: There is nothing we can do to help the person we love(d) stop hurting us or others. There is nothing we can do with the situation except accept it, and find meaning in our lives in spite of what it has cost us to be involved with a psychopath.
I also dated a man who I believe is high in psychopathic traits after my husband died. I was extremely needy and vulnerable to someone looking for a new “respectable wife” to cheat on, and I think that was what he had in mind. Breaking up with him was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. I cried for months.
Accepting that my son is a psychopath and wants me dead, and accepting that the man I hoped to spend the rest of our lives together with was a cheat, a drunk, and not to be trusted, is all part of what I cannot change any more than I can change that I am 65 years old and not up to, and will never be up to, doing the things I have done in my youth!
Stages of life
Psychologist Erik Erikson’s “stages” of life is one of those interesting concepts that actually is quite simple. I am in the “integrity versus despair” stage of my life. This is the early end of “old age,” in which I, as entering old age, must review my life.
- This phase occurs during old age and is focused on reflecting back on life.
- Those who are unsuccessful during this stage will feel that their life has been wasted and will experience many regrets. The individual will be left with feelings of bitterness and despair.
- Those who feel proud of their accomplishments will feel a sense of integrity. Successfully completing this phase means looking back with few regrets and a general feeling of satisfaction. These individuals will attain wisdom, even when confronting death.
Now I can’t say that I can look back entirely without some regrets, or without feeling that I might have done some things better, but I have made peace with those regrets. I don’t view every mistake I have made as “worthless,” because I have learned from those mistakes.
Mostly I am accepting me as what I am. I am working on finding that wisdom that Erikson talks about. Working on finding dignity and peace in what is left of my life. Not giving in to despair about things I cannot change. I would change Patrick if I could, but I can’t. That’s just the way things are. I am not going to hold out unreasonable hope and then feel despair because I can’t achieve that unrealistic hope of “escape” from the emotional bondage of loving my son. I have accepted and I have “escaped,” and I will live free from unreasonable expectations.
((((((Joyce))))))
Big hugs, and thank you for a great article.
Words of wisdom for all of us to learn from.
A woman I used to know and who had recently contacted me on FB to reconnect (we still live close to each other) sent me a get well card and in it she mentioned that she had a “nervous break down” in June and was unable to work.
She has a son about the age of my two kids, maybe a year younger if I remember correctly. I lived close to her in the early 1980 and our kids played together. She was divorced at that time, though she has since remarried.
Her son, one of the sweetest, cutest kids, just like my Patrick, fun to have around in his pre-teen years is a chronic criminal as well as drug addict.
When she first contacted me, she really wasn’t able to even imagine the concept of NO CONTACT with her son. I’m not sure she is able to imagine that concept yet, but yesterday she drove him to the police station to turn himself back in. He had only been out three weeks.
She told me that he does well in prison, but doesn’t do well on the outside, but she just “can’t give up hope that he will change.”
This woman is hurting deeply, to the point her lilfe is falling apart by what is happening in her family. By what someone else is doing.
We can’t change what our sons are, or how they behave, THEY are the ones who determine what happens to them, but though she doesn’t know it and isn’t ready to realize it, SHE is the onnly one that can change her own life,, and to recover form her “nervous break down”
WE and only we can decide what our RESPONSE to the things that happen to us will be.
Viktor Frankl’s book helped me to see that. He went on to have a life even after losing ALL, including his wife. I’ve read the stories of many survivors of the Nazi camps, including the one from Corrie ten Boom, and many other less famous ones, and even the thrivers of the survivors tell of others who live sad unhappy lives after they were rescued.
Many victims of psychopaths and other domestic violence also live sad, lonely, distrusting, and unhappy lives, but we DON’T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THAT, we can, and if we work at it, study about it, and learn what it takes we can become VICTORS not victims.
“Victim” is a state of mind, and so is VICTOR, so we must choose what one we want to live in and as we approach our own old age, and look back on our lives we can experience what Erikson calls “integrity” instead of “despair.”
Thanks for this great article. I know its different when I say this because I imagine that mourning the reality of your son is much harder than mourning the reality of an ex; however, it made me think about something.
While I realized quicker than most how bad my sons father was (and is), I still have moments when I find myself wishing he could be that person he is not and never will be – a good father.
I imagine that this pain is even greater when you can remember the child as “good” and then one day they weren’t.
My ex has an older son who he has custody of. The child is officially turning a teenager this year. I worry about him because while seemed just “emotionally disturbed” but not the same as his father…I wonder if now is the time when he could turn into exactly what his father is. Not only does he have the genetic factor, but he has been living with this evil since his mother was murdered about 10 years ago. Ox Drover, I am curious on your thoughts on this and what sort of things you think might start happening with this kid. Unfortunately my son is forced to deal with both of them on a weekly basis so I want to be prepared for what we might have to deal with.
Joyce – this is soooo needed by me right now. Thank you !! I’ve been feeling this stage of life coming on – the reflection stage (I’m 57) – and I’ve been struggling with the despair vs. acceptance / dignity. So glad to know I’m doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing.
I’ve sent letters to LF twice – once about my spath mother and then about my spath husband. I left the spath mother and now I’m needing to leave the spath husband after 30 years with him. But the good news is that I’m “gray rock” with him lately and he is talking of leaving. Hooray !! No – I don’t show my excitement to him, I just stay “gray rock.”
An employee assistance program counselor where I work said to me, “You have a lot of life left,” meaning that life does not end after the spath departure. It can actually be quite joyous and perhaps profound. Hearing these ideas from several sources, including you and Frankl, helps me reflect on what it is to be human and live our lives as they are. These gems help me through and keep the despair at bay. The perspective you give in sharing your choices to embrace dignity and acceptance is one I will carry with me through my choices.
My favorite from you, “Now you know better, so now you do better.” Thanks for the life example – it’s priceless. And thanks LF for the all the resources – so appreciated.
Dear OpalRose,
My late husband died when I was 57 and I went into the DESPAIR mode feeling like “oh, woe is me, I’m old, fat, no man will ever want me I will be AAAAALLLLOOOOOOOOONE and no one will love me” mode and guess what, a psychopath I had casually known for about 10 years presented himself as my savior. His wife had recently CAUGHT him after his 32 years of cheating and tossed his arse out…so he was looking for another “respectable” wife to cheat on. He kept his harem of women scattered all over several states.
After his retirement from work he spent great amounts of time goin all over the country to different living history events. His wife did not participate…and at each event he would have 1-2 women lined up.
Once when he and I and another friend and my son went to an event with him in Colorado he had a woman there and spent the day with her and then brought her into our campfire at night. She acted like an “egg sucking dog” when he introduced us, but then I KNEW….kicked him to the curb when we got back home…I did 6 or 8 more days in Colorado “gray rocking” and trying to pretend I didn’t know, and cried and cried.
I don’t “like” getting old, but it is a fact of life that we are born, mature and then grow old and die. We can’t change that. But what we CAN CHANGE is our attitude about it.
I do not want to be one of those bitter old women who look back on the failures in their lives and don’t resolve them.
I have had my share of “failures” and failed relationships, and tragedy and trauma and sometimes I handled those things well, and sometimes not. I have guilty feelings for the things I did wrong, but have made amends where I could do so, and I have also cut out of my life those “friends” and family who are dysfunctional and negative. I don’t need those people in my life.
The much fewer number of folks I associate with are all people who are a positive influence on me, not a negative one. I also no longer grieve over the loss of those people in my life. One of them was my best friend for 30 + years and I sometimes think oif the good times we had, but down dwell on the bad times. She isn’t a psychopath, but she has problems with dysfunction that I can’t heal and I can’t tolerate it when in her own dysfunction she “goes off on” me. I set boundaries about that, but she violated them again, and I cut off contact.
Learning to set boundaries that I will only associate with people who treat me as well as I treat them has been a big step for me. It eliminated 99.9% of the trouble makers in my life.
C-Queen,
Tell me more about the murder of the mother. Do they know who did it and why? Was the P connected or suspected?
I know there are people who still believe that a baby is born a blank slate upon which is written by environment what s/he will become. That was the “official” belief for many years.
How ever, as an animal breeder and raiser I saw from an early age that the “personality” of animals of many breeds seems to be determined more by the GENETICS than by how they are raised.
This is partly why different breeds of cattle and dogs (for example) are bred. The Spanish fightiing bulls are bred for aggression and willingness to attack a human on sight. The cows of that same breed are also aggressive and the most aggressive of the cows are picked to be the mothers of the next generation of bulls.
There are several breeds of dogs which are also bred for aggression and were used as war dogs for many years.
Sure you can “train” some dogs of “peaceful calm breeds” to bite and some dogs in the rougher breeds may be non aggressive, but then you may see a dog from an aggressive breed that is “sweet” TURN in an instant and eat someone alive. DNA over environment.
I also worked with wild animals, big cats, primates, and other large predators, and they are cute and cuddly when they are kittens, but when they grow up, no matter how much love you have given them they turn into PREDATORS, mored dangerous predators than their wild cousins, because they now have NO FEAR OF MAN. You can never trust them. EVER.
Mankinid is pretty much a mongrel breed…even people who thinkk they are of X race, usually find upon DNA testing that they have at least small amounts of other races in their mitacondrial DNA (from the mother).
It has been known for some time now that “alcoholism” is genetically passed down in the DNA. So a person with these genes is more likely to over indulge in alcohol than a person who doesn’t have these genes. It does not mean, however, that they have NO CHOICE about drinking or not drinking, they DO HAVE A CHOICE. Well, they have a choice up until their brains have been destroyed by the alcohol and they are no longer capable of a choice.
Psychopaths I don’t think is one gene, but there are GENES that seem to make a person likely to be a psychopath and the studies done using adoptive children (who usually come from disordered parents) it is shown that these children are much more likely to show high P traits than children from “normal” homes, even though those children have been raised in “normal” homes. It is called the Adoptive Child Syndrome, At first psychologists and other experts put the “cause” down as the kids felt “rejected” by their birth parents and that was why they acted out. BULL HOCKEY! It is now known that DNA plays a BIG part in psychopathy.
Studies done on identical twins (identical DNA) raised apart by different families are 50-80% more likely to BOTH be Ps if one is a P. So DNA isn’t 100% the cause, but couple the DNA with SOMETHING (we don’t know what) in the environment and presto! You get a psychopath or at least someone high in P traits.
My psychopathic son Patrick had both grandfathers I think qualifying as full fledged psychopaths. In addition,, I know that my sperm donor’s mother and her father as well were HIGH IN P TRAITS if they didn’t qualify as full-Ps On my egg donor’s side, her brother was a full fledged psychopath and her maternal grandfather was also a psychopath, and there are indications in court records in Tennessee that I found leading back to a man who was murdered in 1860, who was a psychopath, and several more on that side of the family that had 3 generations of murder-suicide.
If my son wasn’t programmed for psychopathy I can’t imagine which kid would be. He was an “angel” until he was 11, then one episode of theft, and denial in the face of being caught red-handed, but I thought that just a “kid” thing…heck I used to steal money out of my mom’s purse from time to time when I was little. When the testosterone hit though, and in his case fairly early at about 13 he had gotten man-sized and had to shave, it started. The rebellion. By age 15 it was becoming criminal, by 17 it was felonies and arrests and prison time by 18. By 20 it was murder.
Now at age 41, he sits in prison, blaming his problems on me. I was the first woman who turned him in to the cops for theft and got him arrested (at age 17, I thought it might teach him a lesson so he wouldn’t do it after age 18 and have an adult criminal record. All it did was make him hate me more.
It took me almost 20 years to realize Patrick is a psychopath and that he is a dangerous one. Realizing that he had sent someone to kill me, to inviltrate my family to gain control over the family assets when I was dead was sure a kicker to me.
I had cut off contract with him prior to that when he litterally BRAGGED about how violent his crime (murder was) “worse than the cops even know) and a passage from one of Bob Hare’s books about how the left brain and the right brain of the psychopath don’t communicate and they don’t have ANY idea what emotions we will feel. So I saw that day the TRUTH about my son and I have never seen or communicated with him since then. My “son” is dead, the little boy I loved and the man in the cell is a complete stranger to me. I know he is dangerous and I don’t doubt he hates me or why or what he will try to do if he can fiind another con to send after me, and I don’t doubt what he will do if and when he gets out. “Life” doesn’t mean REAL LIFE. Unfortunately.
Joyce, thank you for your profound article. I am needing to read this, as well.
I want to share that “acceptance” is something that I’ve done, and that accepting a situation as being beyond my ability to “fix” isn’t necessarily pleasant. What I “want” and what “is” are two different things, entirely, and neither of these will ever cross paths.
We’re all struggling with acceptance – it’s not easy, simple, or remotely comfortable. It can be painful beyond description. But, with acceptance comes an understanding that we are simply mortal human beings that have control over only one thing: our individual selves.
I may be down, but I’m not out, and my energies are for my own healing, now, and not for spending on wishful thinking.
The old saw goes like this: If wishes were fishes, nobody would ever go hungry.
Thanks, again, and brightest blessings
Dear Ox Drover, Appreciate your insightful post! Although I’m headed into my mid-fifties (52), I already feel what you wrote. As a matter of fact, am going to print a copy, that I can refer to in the future….thank you so very much. Also, as I sat reading, fighting back the tears of grief, pain and sorrow for my own son as well. Although he is not in prison, he may as well be; for the things and choices he has/is making. While reading your post, I drifted back, somewhere in time, where my son Jason, was the sweetest, happiest little boy who always smiled, never cried, (only when he was hungry)….cheerful, playful, considerate of his sisters, just a very happy disposition! One day in Oct. of 1993, there was a knock at the door. It was the police, with a warrant for his father’s arrest. It was in the afternoon, the kids were at home, but as Jason’s father was being arrested’ hand-cuffed, and put in the cruiser, for the charge of aggravated rape, (which he did 8 yrs. for). Jason stood at the window…and watched it unfold. On that day, in Oct. of 1993…..I also stood there and watched my son,”unfold”, and that day, my sweet son Jason…died. For after this event, Jason changed at 10 yrs. old, and was never the same. As a mother of four (3 girls 1boy), I tried my best, and hardest under the circumstances, to do the best I could to be BOTH parents, however for a boy, a Mom can’t fill that “male role model”. As the days and months turned into years, I was always there for my son, as well as my girls. It was soooooo hard! My kids are in their late 20″s and early 30’s now and Jason will turn 30 next year. The girls are doing good, but Jason is on street drugs, and alcohol. He is a “floater”, actually a bum, drifting from person to person, who’ll ever feel sorry and take him in. I live in Ohio, but he lives in Texas somewhere. Don’t really talk to him much anymore, for there is nothing much else I can say to him. I’ve done and said all I can do! He is the product of a extremely traumatic event in his life, BUT…….he is also a sum total of his choices as an adult…..just as we all are! At times, I drift back and wish things would have/ could have been different for my kids, especially my son. Once in a great while, I will pull out pictures of when they were little….and just sit there as a Mom, grieving for the pain of loss, loss of their innocence, loss of their childhood….and just cry. My son Jason, is my “biological” son, however I don’t know who he is, don’t know the “person” he has grown up to be. Unfortunately, he followed in his father’s footsteps. He fathered 2 children that he neither sees, or supports. I have a grandson, and a granddaughter that I know of, but grieve over the fact that I will NEVER know them…let alone, have them in my life. I’ve told my daughters, from time to time, that I will go to my grave…wondering what kind of man Jason……could’ve been. I know, I know….it matters not, now. But still, to this day, I miss my little boy. Also to the day I die, I will despise my ex-husband, (the father of my kids) for the chaos, pain and carnage…he inflicted on all of us. OX DROVER, I do appreciate your pain, and do so very much empathize with you! Again, thank you for giving of yourself here, and sharing your pain, and loss. I’ve learned the best way to help us through our pain, is to allow our pain to be purposeful. If we can help each other, even in some small way, whether in word or deed…to use what we’ve been through, to help and encourage one another; then our trials and testings and pain, will not be in vain. Wishing everybody here the best!
Ox Drover,
I won’t get into too many details, but to make a long story short – everyone who knows anything about his son’s mother’s murder knows that my ex did it. It’s a cold case….remains unsolved. It is not the only one he is a suspect in. The case for that child’s mother actually reminds me a lot of the Drew Peterson situation. There is A LOT of circumstantial evidence but no smoking gun. Unfortunately, the girl who is dead…wasn’t rich…and wasn’t of the right ethnicity for the locals in that area to pay enough attention. I hate to go there, but I really think it has a lot to do with it.
Dear Radar, I wept as I read your story about your son. It hurts when the DNA wins….but it is important that we do not “blame ourselves” Your girls had much the same DNA and they didn’t make those same choices. Accepting that your son made those choices, spread the DNA even further (as far as I know I don’t have any biological grandchildrn) and I don’t wish for any, that’s for sure. I hope the stops withh the current geneeration. My son C has decided not to have any kids, but I know if Patrick gets out he will spread his sperm far and wide if he can.
You did not “fail” your son, he failed himself. Maybe seeing his father arrested tripped the trigger, or maybe it would have tripped at puberty anyway. Who knows? But we just have to ACCEPT what is, not grieve over what we wish Was.
The hardest part is not giving in when they come to you for “help”—-or pretend to have changed and you get your hopes up only to have them dashed down again.
I’ve accepted what Patrick is….I’ve accepted that my egg donor doesn’t love me, probably never was able to in the structure of our family, and even indivdually, these thins are hard, but all together, they are monumental. Sometimes I have felt like Job (the man in the Bible that God let Satan attack and took everything but his life and his nagging wife! But in the end, Job found peace and that’s what I would like to do. I’m working on it.
Working on being grateful for the things and the many blessings that I have, and for my adopted son D who is the light of my life as well as my closest friend. God has blessed me beyond belief and I am grateful for that.
I’ve made some horrible mistakes in my life, done some really stoooopid things, but through it all, I’ve been able to some how with the grace of God make it through it all.
However long the rest of my life is (no one has any guarantee how long they have) I will be grateful each day for the love of those friends that I do have. I’m not alone in my losses, and there are people whose sons have done worse things than mine has done, other parents hurting. Right now this minute there are 2 million men and women in prison and 5 million on parole or probation. Each of those people has two parents so there are many milliions of parents who are heart broken because one of their kids is in prison or on parole or they have given up on them.
I know several kids who are now grown and in prison that I knew as sweet little kids, and I know their mothers are hurting so badly, but just can’t accept what IS, but keep on hoping against hope that the kid will change for the better. I wish I could give some comfort to these parents, but they are not in a place emotionally that they can hear what I have to say. They are still in the “he’s my son, I just can’t give up on him.” stage.
I know acceptance is hard, and the road to get there is twisting and turning with hills and pot holes but keep your nose pointed toward the goal, and you will get there. (((hugs))) and God bless.