A Lovefraud reader who posts as “Mani” asked a question that I’m sure is of interest to many others, so I’ll address it in a blog post. Mani writes:
I was one of the children who lived with a psychopath for a long time. I fought all my life not to let him be a part of my personality. In comparison to what I was exposed to I think I have been successful. But is there anybody out there who can shed more light on the effects of a psychopath father on children, particularly boys?
I know there is tendency to label these children as secondary psychopaths but I haven’t seen anybody talking about the mechanics of it. And I am sure all these children don’t become secondary psychopaths.
This is a complex situation with many variables, depending on the individuals involved. I will describe in general terms the two basic types of outcomes. Lovefraud has a lot more information in the Explaining the sociopath archive. Dr. Liane Leedom has written many articles on the topic. You may also want to get her book, Just Like His Father?
By the way, the term “secondary psychopaths” doesn’t necessarily apply to children of psychopaths. It refers to which set of psychopathic traits are predominant in an individual.
Genetic risk
Psychopathic parents, both fathers and mothers, definitely affect their children in many ways. There are probably two general categories of effects, depending on whether or not the child has inherited a predisposition to become psychopathic.
Psychopathy is highly genetic. That means a child can be born with a predisposition for the disorder to develop. Genetics, of course, is a crapshoot, so a child may or may not get the genes. In fact, a child is more likely to inherit the genes when the mother is psychopathic, rather than the father.
However, psychopathy results from both nature and nurture. Whether this disorder actually does develop is due to the parenting a child receives and the environment that the child grows up in. It is possible, with extremely attentive parenting, to prevent psychopathy from developing, or at least mitigate it. Essentially, parents must teach the child love, empathy and impulse control.
Psychopaths make terrible parents. They will not bother to instill love, empathy and impulse control in a child. They can’t teach what they don’t know.
Abuse
Psychopathic parents do not love their children. They are not concerned about a child growing up to be healthy, productive members of society. They look at children as possessions, like a car or a flat-screen TV.
Some psychopaths neglect their children. Others engage in physical abuse and sexual molestation.
But even if psychopaths don’t engage in outright physical abuse, they usually inflict psychological and emotional abuse. They lie to kids, break their promises, and keep changing the rules. The parent may say something, and then insist the words were never spoken, which distorts a child’s sense of reality.
The net result is that a child grows up in a very unstable environment. If the child has inherited the genes for psychopathy, chances are good that he or she will develop the disorder. If the child has not inherited the genes, he or she may develop other psychological issues, such as anxiety and depression.
Children of psychopathic parents who are not themselves disordered often have much to overcome related to their families of origin. They may not know what a healthy relationship or a healthy family looks like. They may become involved with sociopaths themselves, because it feels normal.
I think people who have grown up in these situations have a lot of internal untangling to do. They likely need to address and heal deep emotional pain, either through formal counseling or through self-help.
I invite any Lovefraud readers who have more information to share on this situation to contribute your insights.
HI, I am a daughter of a psychopath and I could not agree with ProtectiveMothersAllianceInternational more. What mind-bending destruction to my soul and my entire life being the daughter of a psychopath has done. Disgusting!!
There is something which I see on your website here and I have seen on other websites which I just do not comprehend and think is an extremely damaging unfounded claim. That there is a psychopathic ‘gene’ that gets passed on. Where is the scientific evidence behind this?
Do victims of abuse need any more ignorance and lack of compassion.
Honestly it is shameful that I have to hear that!! There are other websites who have picked up on this and are slamming it, I hope you edit this out of your essay for being completely false and damaging to victims who have been through so much already now you want to attach a stigma to them! Unbelievable.
an0nym0us – I am so sorry for your experience. Yes, psychopathic parents are mind-bending.
There are many research studies indicating that psychopathy is highly heritable via genetics. However, as I’ve posted recently, just because the genes are inherited, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the disorder will develop. Whether the genes “express” is related to life experiences. Genetics are not carved in stone.
I can tell you how it has affected me to grow up with a father who was diagnosed with NPD in my 20’s, and a mother who is emotionally disturbed.
My father was casually cruel at times, my mother intentionally cruel sometimes, and the rest of the time they were just neglectful.
I can count on two hands the times I was taken to a doctor for care during my childhood. My brother and I literally had to be cut and bleeding, or curled in a fetal position in pain, before any adult decided we needed help. I can’t even tell if you if I’m properly immunized from diseases, but I suspect I did not have most of the shots recommended at the time. I had one pair of eyeglasses in the 2nd grade, and never again visited an eye doctor until I reached my 19th birthday and went on my own. Trips to the dentist? Once. At the age of 8 I taught myself how to do my own laundry by reading the inside lid of the washing machine and fiddling around with the settings on a dryer. I washed all the dishes and took care of our pets. My mother didn’t clean our home, so I did it when I could but it didn’t really help at all. By the time I was 14 I was working at a farmer’s market, paid under the table in cash, so I could buy my own clothes.
My parents owned Corvettes and pleasure boats. We weren’t poor.
I rarely had friends come to visit because I was embarrassed by our living conditions and by my parents themselves.
I hid in my room for about 9 years and only came out to eat or get ready for school. When I was 16 I started staying at my friends’ houses whenever I could.
My brother cut off his toes with a lawnmower at age 17 because my father ordered him to cut the steep backyard without proper shoes.
As a teenager, I lived in deep fear of embarrassing myself somehow. I had to think about what I wanted to say and do in public at all times before I would act. It was painful to subject myself to scrutiny, and I did everything I could to remain unnoticed. This issue still haunts me to this day. I do not want people to notice me. I can’t look people in the eye.
I started binge drinking at 17, and became sexually promiscuous not long after. I did not have a clue that these behaviors were in any way wrong, or dangerous, or unhealthy. I longed for true intimacy with another human being but went about it all the wrong ways.
I could go on like this for days. I think you get the point.
After a lifetime of failed relationships and mental anguish, I finally went to therapy in my 40s. That therapist told me that my parents weren’t safe and that I was a mess. I had to learn how to behave properly in relationships with other people. I had to learn right from wrong. I’ve had to learn how NOT to manipulate people and use them for my own purposes. I’ve had to learn how not to lie. I’ve had to learn that being abused is not acceptable. Most of all, I had to learn how to take care of myself both mentally and physically. You see, these things were all I’ve ever known. This insanity was my every day life for all of my childhood and most of my adulthood. Nobody ever taught me anything different. I learned from their examples.
I am the child of two narcissistic parents, though the extent of my mother’s traits are now proving to be worse than I’d known.
Through a bitter divorce my mother gained custody of the small children, me with my brothers and she moved in with a very shady, older, foreign man. Shortly afterwards, my brothers moved to live with dad and I remained with my mother. I endured alternating sexual abuse with psychological beatings by this man which my mother ignored but used me to offload her bitterness of the divorce with my father. Telling me endlessly that my father had wanted me aborted so I was thankful for my life only to her.
Back then she was beautiful, vain and able to gain pity from many people.
I never had friends over, was locked in my bedroom every night and at my fathers house at weekends felt more like a charity and undeserving of their lavish lifestyle. Indeed no effort was ever made to spend time or money on me.
I developed an extreme shyness around people but a love of art and animals, preferring their honest ways to mankind.
Every animal I owned during my childhood suffered a sad unnatural fate which my mother has caused either deliberately or ensuring that she ignored a vet’s advice which led to extreme pain and death. Controlling and overbearing beyond belief, I could not have a say in anything and memories of my animals has left me with pain. My pet now which my mother will never meet is loved and happy.
By thirteen I moved to live with dad and that was a hard few years, knowing of the abuse my father has always seen me as tarnished and virtually sneers at the sight of me. I have not been encouraged to defend myself in any way and have been bullied by one brother particularly who exhibits traits very similar to my mother and I’ve been bullied throughout school and my professional life. Though I appear as someone who has it all together, people see before long that I can be pushed out of most places and I’ve quit jobs continuously when colleagues mobbed or bullied me away.
Like Andrea, I moved overseas. Very far away. I love my home country but when I return revolting dramas ensue and my mother makes sure I get back on a plane in a hurry. I do not stay with her ever and prefer hotels with my partner than staying with any family.
My mother had another son with the stepfather who has turned out to be the worst kind of criminal as that man’s past son.
I have fears frequently.
Most recently my grandmother has moved into a nursing home which is close to my mother and as she was living far from my mother in the past, my mother now has control over everything. She did not tell me when my grandmother who is very dear to me, went into hospital until the second last day of the month stay but everyone else knew. I had been calling my grandmother’s home from overseas for a long time oblivious to the fact that something had happened. My mother has been the only source of information to me on the family throughout many years. All the letters to my grandmother I’ve sent from overseas are now with my mother.
My grandmother has declining health and I want to see her again but know already that my mother will stage an awful drama. She wants me to have no contact with my grandmother, is trying to end our bond through things she is doing, and became livid over last year when I gained a long lost communication with one of my brothers. Particularly as I revealed one of the drunken, ranting letters my mother was sending me weekly full of endless tirades of the divorce from my father.
My mother is an alcoholic, scorns anyone with wealth, has lost her beauty and became unhealthily fat, whines to this day about the divorce with my father and took jabs at me when I used to speak to her. She is the embodiment of hatred, laughs at my healthy and vegan lifestyle, has never admitted or accepted her responsibility in my childhood problems or openly acknowledged the sexual abuse though things which went on in the house with the stepfather instigated her entirely.
I have a loving partner who has been by me for a number of years now, we are in our thirties, though he is not familiar with the kinds of traumas which a family like mine can cause. I share all facts of my life with him and he does not hold me responsible for the way I was abused and neglected and tries to understand the way it carries over in adulthood, making me shy and avoiding.
I never took action against that man in my childhood after I confessed that it happened and that has led me to feel like a coward. I have only recently sought some therapy against trauma but rely mostly on self help and learning from others, so I am grateful to the site and others who have shared their stories in this way.
PatriciaA, I can relate to a lot of what you’re saying about your mother. I don’t know if I am more aware now, or if she’s losing the ability to wear the mask of sanity, but my mother has become so much worse in her older years. Most everyone she knows has shunned her quietly and she has nobody but immediate family left. I look at her face and see the pinched features, and deep frown lines, caused by a lifetime of discontent and contempt for the world. Her actions only fortify what I see in her face. My adult children have become a target of her malice because I have essentially disengaged from her. She intentionally sows anger and resentment between my two sons. She intentionally manufactures drama. She’s a puppet master pulling their strings. No amount of confrontation with her, or begging my sons to ignore it, will stop this madness. She outright hates my 12 year old daughter because the two of us are emotionally bonded and that takes my attention away from HER. I think deep inside her she hates all of us, yet she will not willingly let any of us go because she needs to feed from us. It is evil. Pure evil.
Onmyown, I really feel for you with this situation, the things you describe are very similar.
I hope the emotional bonds with your children remain strong and that your sons can find a way to separate from the actions of your mother.
That is so hard to do when the person causing pain is family. It’s almost impossible to accept that anyone could want to harm the people they should hold dearest.
I just stumbled upon this post and your comments, and I have to say that I feel so much empathetic hurt and worry and anxiety over your experiences. I am “co-parenting” with a sociopath—if you can call it that—and I worry every day about my children and their future lives.
Every time you reach out, you touch someone like me. And that helps me hope that my kids can grow up and out of this—and away from this web. I’m so sorry for what you’ve experienced. Every bit of recovery matters. It’s a ripple effect.
Many thanks for sharing,
H.G. Beverly
Wow. Such a good post. It prompted me to join this site.
I’m the son of a sociopath. My mother is mainly guilty of neglect.
I was exposed to everything in this post. When I was really young, I really loved my father; I enjoyed spending time with him. I went out of my way, to spend time with him, but, by the time I was in third grade, I’d started developing a fear of him.
He’d take me with him to work, or just tag along, without warning. He’d just say “Let’s go,” and get upset if I asked where we were going. – any time of day, any day of the week, and sometimes we’d be out all day.
Sometimes I could get away with pretending to be sleep, but there were times when he’d wake me up, just to take me somewhere, and I wouldn’t dare ask where we were going.
I’d get whippings – lots of them, until I was welted, for small things. Maybe I left a toy on the kitchen table. He also had a tendency to walk into my room, and just start whipping me until I figured out why – following me around, until I started doing the task. – never saying a word, before or after.
He put me in a lot of stressful situations where I was breaking the law, or have me in control of some expensive or dangerous equipment, and yell at me, or insult me, insisting that I was weak, or it was easy, or use some sort of threatening statement like – “If you don’t hold that chainsaw right, you’ll cut your balls off.”
My younger sister became my responsibility, to the point that anything that she did “wrong” was blamed on me. If she didn’t speak loudly enough in public, my father would say that I’d rubbed off on her.
I was also made to be cruel to our pets. To train our dogs to walk on a leash, my father would have me yank the leash, pull the dog, yelping, by the throat. Slap him, hit his paw with a rock, to teach him how to “handshake”. I felt terrible, but I also knew that if I didn’t train the dog well, then it’d be taken out on me.
I was afraid to express any emotion around my father. If I cried he’d insult me (or ignore it). Also, he’d whip me until I cried, then whip me to get me to stop crying; so, I learned to turn it on and off.
If I got angry, I’d get whipped.
If I expressed a lot of joy, he would usually do something that would make me unhappy (often making an insulting joke and laughing about it).
He’d insulted my mother, who was very passive about everything. If I ever told my mother my feelings, in private, it was likely that she’d tell them to him, and he’d embarrass or insult me with them later.
I became extremely confused. He called my mother lots of things – mostly stupid, liar, thief (the last two are actually quite true, and I noticed that, by my teens, since she forged the signatures of my sister and I, to drain our bank accounts, and has done lots of other things). He was very strict about me NOT lying, but he lied to people frequently, and wanted me to learn how to put on an act for people (especially “white people”).
Past about…4th or 5th grade, neither of my parents were active in helping me with school work. I had to teach myself a majority of what I knew (including morals), and I didn’t have any close friends. I became really withdrawn, got bullied. I honestly was in fear, every second I was awake. I was harming myself and warming up to suicide, before I even understood what all that meant.
I remember being about 10 years old, and tying a rope around a tree limb, and my neck, and running with the rope around my neck, to choke myself.
At 16, I had fallen in love with a girl, for the first time, but she didn’t feel the same, and that, on top of everything else going on, caused a “mental breakdown”. I developed major depression. I fought with my mother, before she was okay with me staying at a healthcare center.
Long story short, I’m 29, and I am still, very much dealing with the effects. I have serious social anxiety, mild agoraphobia – there are things about me that I can’t tell if they’re “me” or my father. I have troubles coping with reality, for instance (once considered schizophrenia – downgraded to schizoaffective).
I don’t understand what a loving family is like. I’m very uncomfortable with expressing joy or definitely sadness. It’s really difficult for me to connect with people emotionally (I always feel like I care for them, but they don’t care for me)
– getting a job is always frightening. Career/life-goal wise, I’m behind the norm. I have no desire to have children, and very little desire to get married.
I’m still working on myself, but it’s a constant battle, where I feel like I’m only gaining an inch at a time.
Therapy is the only place I’ve ever been able to talk about my life, and I still have a lot of unexpressed feelings, because fear kept me silent, when I was younger. Most frustrating is that, as an adult, most people have not taken my experiences seriously, and just call me weak, lazy, or think I should simply snap out of all of this.
To me, you sound dissociated ‘living in your head’ dp/dr
Check this out, it could help you heaps
http://www.dpselfhelp.com/forum/index.php?/blog/167-fearless-dp-blog-how-i-cured-my-dp/
unsong – welcome to Lovefraud. I am so sorry for what you endured in your family. It is a true tragedy.
Tomorrow Wendy S. Weber will be posting her first article. She, too, was “raised by psychopaths.” I invite you to read it, and perhaps post more about your experience. Many people find it helpful to share on Lovefraud.
I wish you strength in your recovery.
Thank you, very much! I will check it out.
I am not sure if my father was a sociopath. Probably. What concerns me more is how I have attracted so many psychopaths into my life that have cost me heartache and financial loss. I do know that I was daddy’s little girl, but when I reached adolescence he had no use for me, except to criticize me. I stopped talking to him around age 13, and rarely spoke to him afterwards. Quite a challenge as I was an only child. He picked on me, my mother, and made fun of my grandmother — my mother’s mother. He also was an alcoholic, but his drinking was very controlled, all day, no benders. Maybe that is sociopathic drinking, always seemingly in control. He was also very two-faced. Silent and angry with family members, but always put on a good friendly “front” for company. Obsessed with guns, refused to get medical treatment for his problems as well. But always went to work, up, almost to the end to a good, professional job. He passed when I was 21 of cirrhosis, and my comment to my mother was “good, he will not be able to hurt me anymore.” There were episodes of his rage, yelling and slamming doors, and a lot of mortality about right and wrong, probably because he was a preacher’s kid and belonged to the Masons. I just know that I felt suicidal during adolescence at times and that my mother just closed up into herself and was very depressed.
So, I grew up depressed, except my artistic interests were my salvation. My mother really encouraged this. After my father died, my mother blossomed and found a new relationship. I did a lot of expressive types of psychotherapy, made peace with my mother, and him, I guess, and turned into a friendly, talkative person who is still very interested in the arts and would have done really financially well for myself career wise, except for two tangles with sociopaths in the workplace, both costing me good jobs and periods on unemployment. And, of course had a major relationship with a sociopath that ended up in being stalked. I am just thinking that dear old dad must have had these characteristics, otherwise I would not have been so drawn to sociopathic situations again and again. I am happy to say that now I think I am sociopath free, and if I even suspect this pattern of behavior from someone, I will withdraw my involvement from that person.
Not in a relationship now, but I have to say that I feel healthy, have radar for sociopaths, can help others recognize these problems in their lives with sociopaths, but currently have great regrets for how sociopaths have cost me financially and relationship wise. But, hopeful about the future.
There is a way that all of this can make us stronger and more spiritual.
Graceous – yes, your experience with your father definitely made you susceptible to sociopaths in your life. I wrote about this in a recent article:
http://www.lovefraud.com/2014/02/03/why-sociopaths-keep-showing-up/
I’m a bit late to this game but after recently being discarded (thank goodness) by yet another sociopath boyfriend, I’ve begun reflecting even more on my mother’s sociopathy. Many of the things that folks mention here are also true for my mother, though some I hadn’t recognized as being common among sociopath parents:
— sowing discord between children and grandchildren (my mother AND my grandmother both manipulate the family members like this, putting themselves in the middle of all relationships. I’m fighting this and trying to get my siblings to see what’s happening now that we’re adults and cut our mother out from the middle of our relationships.)
— treating their children like possessions. My mother recently flew off the handle and said that her children have sucked her dry. That she used to earn [an exorbitant income] and she has nothing to show for it. This in spite of the fact that all of her adult children are successful (beautiful family for the oldest, high academic achievement for the next, successful career for the 3rd, etc.) which is what *normal* parents consider “having something to show for” their lives!
Anyway, I keep asking myself WHY I end up in romantic relationships with sociopaths (2 now and let’s hope we’re done counting!). I think I may have just figured it out. It’s not that sociopathic boyfriends (or girlfriends) start out acting like they ARE sociopaths! Of course we all know they go through the entire whirlwhind courtship, mirroring and all of that. And let’s face it: When it’s GOOD with a sociopath, it’s AMAZING. Let’s be honest. They make us feel SO special, SO loved, SO beautiful, SO appreciated, etc.
And, thinking back, that’s exactly how it was with my mother. I would be desperately waiting for any crumb of affection or love. And when she had some sort of agenda and felt that acting loving would help her to get what she wanted, man could she talk the talk!!!! It was like the SUN coming out after a long, grey winter!!
So I think children of sociopaths get used to this “all or nothing”, extreme version of hot/cold and…we don’t recognize “normal” (aka: REAL) affection and love for what it is!
I’m just thinking about this for the first time, but I think this may be the key. I know that if a man isn’t immediately enamored of me, just absolutely head-over-heels (or seemingly so), then that’s it. I don’t *understand* steady, normal love… I think I need to get over my psychological addiction to the whirlwind and learn to recognize the actual signs of genuine interest from a guy. That is, NOT interest from a sociopath or narcissist.
Definitely something for me to think about (and discuss with my therapist!). Hope maybe this insight can be interesting to others as well!! Hang in there everyone!
At 28, I have just found out that my entire family except me, are psychopaths. I discovered it because it was literally boyfriend #4 with the same traits I didn’t recognise because I have been trained to view all incidents that happen to me through a veil of self-blame.
My mother and father would be what you’d consider mild psycopaths, and my brother is a violent psychopath. Both of my living grandparents and many relatives are also psycopaths. I used to think my family was intelligent, calm and non-judgmental about appearance, but could never explain their meanness or arrogance. Now I know I was on one side of the window where love existed, trying to reach them on the other side, were it did not.
I survived, as a starving child would, on scraps of what was useful. I developed a self-protection system that involved shutting down emotional expression, avoidance, quick and clever defences for every scapegoating exercise, distracting them with jokes and things they liked, overachieving so they could then take credit and could have no excuse to shame me, and building social networks so I didn’t rely on them. I’m out now and it has been three years since my post-traumatic stress breakdown and shock of about two years. My attachment and psychological damage is still strong. How can I build a self with what makes sense to me, knowing it is one-sided, and the people I loved and based my decisions on reciprocated nothing at all?
It feels empty. Being a journalist, I’ve come to be very accepting of trauma and the complexity of what is possible in life. I view this very objectively (a skill I inherited from the psychopaths) and distance myself from the pain. But being the softie and sweet little girl I am inside, I can’t pretend I have not been absolutely crushed and destroyed from the experience. It is still a challenge to separate myself from the ‘story’ of our family from my mother, and the ‘reality’ of “nobody in this world has got your back” and “none of them truly loved you”.
I based so many decisions on pleasing them and still do. I don’t know if I can change because there is so much about their (fake) values that I admired and live by today. While I became a little (old woman) to cope and took authority, I really just can’t believe my own parents are so ill and should not be listened to at all.
I’m so sad because I love children and want to have my own, but I pray not to give birth to the devil.
I’d like to add that I think psychopaths are underrepresented in statistics. It is not 1 in 25, but many more. Throughout my life I count 35 that I have been very close friends with, lived with or worked with. These people are all ‘larger than life’, you will never forget them and they have inspired me no end. They have made me both stronger in what I do but weaker in how much I love myself and how much I trust in the world.
I try to say, what is, is. It is not personal that this has happened to me but what I do take personally in society’s lack of willingness to educate people. How much of my health and life could have been spared if I knew the signs and had some techniques to avoid taking onboard the destructive beliefs they planted, because I thought they had my best interests at heart. You just don’t expect to encounter this. How could we not be resourced and educated, and if they are worried about being ‘judged’ – accept sociopathy is a reality and these people need assistance?
I am in Australia. As I mentioned, there are 35 in my city and I’m sure many more in the world that are destroying people’s last threats of hope that they wake up and participate in the world with. This is too important to ignore and I hope scientists tackle this and health organisations issue some useful advice.
star_al – Welcome to Lovefraud. I am so sorry for your experience, but very glad that you have finally put the pieces together and realized what you are dealing with.
Coming to grips with the idea that these people exist, and ever worse, surround you in your family, really pulls the rug out from under you. But you can recover, heal and grow, especially if you decide that you will do the personal work to make it happen.
It will take time. Give yourself permission to take the time that you need.
You are right that people need to know about these human predators. Most health and education organizations are just as oblivious to the threat as the rest of us once were. But when you’re ready, as a journalist, you’ll be able to do your part in shining a light on humanity’s darkest secret – that these people live among us.
I am currently 19 years old and have lived most of my life with my Mother, who I now know to be a Sociopath. My younger years were dominated by abusive relationships that my Mum was in, and my teenage years were dominated by a struggle between my mother and I which resulted in me self-harming at one point, moving out/being kicked out of her house multiple times and caused me to almost go crazy at times as I couldn’t understand why my Mum behaved in the manner that she did and why she didn’t care for me or treat me like my friend’s mothers did with them.
My Mother is a successful business woman that has had been married three times, the current marriage is on the verge of divorce, she has boasted to me about the affairs she’s had with other men, done class A drugs in front of me, and exhibited all the signs of a sociopath to the point where I have questioned my own sanity many times. She doesn’t truly love me and will regularly emotionally destroy me just to win an argument. It is difficult to describe to someone that does not know my mother the full scale of her manipulativity and nastiness, because the way she does it is so intelligent and subtle, as I hear is the case with many sociopaths.
I’m writing because, following a lot of Internet research, I have finally identified/diagnosed what is wrong with my Mum and, unlike many people, I have identified whilst I am still under her care and living under her roof. Now that I have this knowledge i don’t know what to do with it. I have considered seeking out a professional psychiatrist but I am a student and that would be costly, and the other option I have considered is putting together a journal of all of the things she does that are indicative of sociopathy as and when she does them, compiling a body of evidence and then presenting this evidence to her in the hope that she may deep down know that it is true and she is a sociopath, even if she doesn’t outwardly admit it. I fear, however, that this will be useless as the delusional aspect of my mother’s sociopathic side wI’ll cause her to simply reject it. We constantly have arguments and it is helpful for me to have this improved sense of the disorder my mum has and how she works in order to combat it, but that still won’t change her and I have younger sisters that I fear may not deal with her sociopathy as well as I have.
I guess the question im asking is: What do you do if you identify your parent as a sociopath whilst you are still in their care?
mallie8 – Welcome to Lovefraud. I am very glad that you have figured out that your mother is disordered. That will go a long way to clearing up the confusion you experienced all of these years.
I recommend that you DO NOT confront your mother with your knowledge. There is no treatment for sociopathy, so she will never change. And if she realizes that you know what she is, her treatment of you may become even worse.
Please recognize that the healthiest thing you can do for yourself is disengage from her. If you are 19, you are old enough to leave the house and go out on your own. If, however, you are attending college and she is paying for it, you have 3 choices:
1. Figure out another way to pay for college.
2. Postpone college and get a job, until you can pay for college yourself.
3. Play the game with her so she continues to pay.
If you feel that you need to protect your younger sisters, you may decide that it’s important to stay in the house. This will mean playing the game with your mother. I recommend that you keep reading Lovefraud to learn as much as you can about the disorder. Start here:
For children of sociopaths
http://www.lovefraud.com/category/explaining-the-sociopath/for-children-of-sociopaths/
This is the key concept: Your mother’s objective is power and control, and she will never change.
Mallie-
If you are in college, you may qualify for low cost student insurance that will enable you to seek treatment. It would be helpful for you to have someone you can trust, and who comprehends what you’re dealing with, on your side.
Stay as clear of your mother as you can. Try to placate her rather than locking heads with her. And make a plan for how you can leave.
Hi Mallie8,
Well done on working it out at such an early age. I played the game to get through my college degrees. While I worked out many successful strategies for avoiding the pain, nothing changed. Here is what I recommend:
Don’t blame yourself that your family is not like others’. What is happening is no indication of your worth or what you deserve.
If your mother has done her deeds, you are doubting your own strength. She has probably put catastrophic thoughts in your head and made you feel like her behaviour is because of you. It isn’t. You don’t need her to survive. It sucks not to have a mother to depend on, but better to accept it now and look at your own positive qualities.
I would say the longer you are around her, the more you are used to psychopathy and live on false hopes. This happened to me, and in the outside world, I bonded better to psychopaths to try to be “understood” and “fix” my messed up history. I would get out while you can.
Get some help from people willing to believe you. If you can get out of the house now, don’t panic, and work out a way to survive, that’s what I would recommend. Otherwise you will confuse yourself on reality. Your mother is not living in reality.
Tell your sisters that your mother is not who she says she is, she is very sick, but she will be hurt if confronted. Sociopaths have huge egos and need to be adored at all times.
The bottom line is (from my life experience) the more you obsess about how to deal with a sociopath and change your life, thoughts, beliefs, self-image and behaviour around controlling them, the more you lose. That will lead to energy-consuming changes and you’re not being yourself. Get out if you can.
The second thing is, don’t take what they do seriously. When I’ve asked them a lot of questions about why they do certain things, it turns out later they just don’t care. She doesn’t truly mean any of it. She is just acting on whims, self-indulgent, and totally devoid of what you have. So take care of the effect she’s had on you, but remember her behaviour is totally meaningless.
Good luck and I wish you strength and peace.
Mallie-
I agree with Donna about your options. but want to add a couple of other things.
You should document how your mother behaves. Not because you will want to discuss her behavior with her, but because you may have to step in to protect the other children in the family by seeking outside help. Be sure to keep this journal somewhere she will not find it, preferably, out of the house.
You will never convince your mother she has a problem. In her eyes, everyone around her is the problem. Antagonizing her will do you and your siblings no good.
Since you are a student, you are likely entitled to secure medical coverage for students at a very low cost. Doing so will enable you to cover the bill for therapy. Here in the US, your parent no longer has control of your health needs when you turn 18. Since you used the word “whilst” I assume you are not in the US. I advise you to find out what the cost of coverage is, and the necessary information that applies wherever you live.
As a person who knows the difference between right and wrong, you can understand when your siblings suffer harm. You, however, are not their parent, so do not blame yourself if they begin to emulate the patterns of your mother.
You did not indicate where your father stands with this and whether contacting him may be another option.
Wishing you all the best-
Joyce
Firstly wow, reading those comments made me feel surprisingly relieved, it feels really nice to know there is support out there and to talk to other people that understand and have experience what I’m going through. Since I left my comment I have now moved out/been kicked out of my Mum’s house and am living with my Dad. It is not ideal as my Dad is poorer than my Mum so I feel like I am burdening the household and have to sleep on a mattress on the floor, however it has really helped being around and being part of a proper, functional family that love and care for each other. My dad is the absolute polar opposite of a sociopath, he is empathetic and selfless and he also understands exactly what my Mother is, so he has supported me a lot in this whole ordeal.
In response to Donna, the rational part of me agrees that confronting her would be useless and trying to reveal her as a sociopath could potentially make things worse. However, this is part of an ongoing battle with my Mum that has lasted for years where she has manipulated, blackmailed and bullied me and has always tried to portray me as the bad guy, always tried to blame me for the bad things. The irrational side of me NEEDS to tell her, because if I can make a convincing enough argument then it will be a small repayment for her actions, a sort of ‘I told you so’ as I am still filled with so much hatred and anger for her.
Joyce you are right, I am in England so my healthcare is free (thankfully) however I’m not sure if that would cover psychiatric treatment as I am not the one with the disorder and my Mum hasn’t officially been diagnosed as a sociopath and neither is she likely to agree to a diagnosis. If anyone in England knows whether I would be covered to talk to a professional on the NHS then that would be very helpful.
star_al you were spot on about being drawn to other sociopaths, my ex-girlfriend of 3 years was the daughter of a man that I have now identified as a sociopath and I was oddly close to him. I seem to be attracted to girls that aren’t particularly nice to me and treat me in much the same way my Mum has treated me, which seems very counter-intuitive. Hopefully the more time I spend away from my mum the less this will be the case.
Basically, I am in a position now where I no longer need to have contact with my Mum except to see my sisters, but I will be financially a lot worse off and feel like I would always regret not telling my Mum about her disorder.
My motto in life is ‘I’d rather regret doing something than regret not doing something’
Mallie-
It is unlikely that you would have to be “disordered” to secure healthcare. A disorder is a permanent condition while depression and PTSD are both mentally debilitating and treatable emotional illnesses.
It is unlikely that you came through a relationship with a disordered person without experiencing either one or both affects.
Joyce
Hey star_al,
Wow, I feel for you, it was just my father who was psychopathic, I can’t imagine what it must have been like to grow up without any sort of reference point for love. I hope you found it in the friendships that you built.
It’s funny to read what you say as I am also a writer and used exactly the same tactics as you to defend my self. High achievement, witty repartee, etc, etc. I also lived at friends houses and was home as little as possible.
My mother also suffers with codependency and gave me some seriously unhealthy messages about love and sex. Sometimes I think that it’s easier to pinpoint the psychopathic thinking than it is to deal with the rubbish in my mind that was put there under the guise of love and care.
Anyway, I digress :). I completely empathise with what you say about developing a sense of self. After leaving an abusive marriage with another psychopath, it took me years and years to develop this. However, I just wanted to say that it can be done. You sound very cohesive to me but I know that the outside appearances do not reflect the emptiness you may feel. When your parents don’t help you to develop a healthy sense of who you are, it feels you are left with a hole where your heart should be. You flip and switch and change, all because you don’t have a consistent ‘knowing’ of what you feel or believe.
You’re likely to have a ton of negative thoughts, fears and anxieties running through your mind. The first stage is to recognise and control these. Meditation helps with this. However, the root cause of these thoughts will need to be explored, probably with a professional to make sure you are safe and not dealing with this stuff alone.
The second is to start to work out who you are and what you love. When you spend so many years pretending to be something you are not, removing the mask leaves a void. I didn’t even know what music I liked! Seriously, we all had dreams once. Even if it was just to dance, or play music. So I started with these things, those that I should have done as a child but was never given chance to.
I’m now training to be a psychologist and will use what I have learned from my family to help others in the situation I once was. At least then it serves some form of purpose, I guess..
In my opinion, psychopathy should be screened for, however, the field is unlikely to shift in this direction, so like you say, the only way to move forward is to raise awareness. I’m going into the research field and want to work to help victims recognise healthy and unhealthy love, removing negative messages and offering healthier alternatives. So, I hope that it helps to know that there are people out there who are trying to fix this.
Good luck in your journey. The sensitive part of you that you were forced to hide is who you truly are. You just have to set it free.
Donna, thank you so much for writing this article. I have been desperately trying to find information on being the daughter of a psychopathic father and it is near next to impossible. I am finally beginning to understand why he is they way he is, however, it is very difficult to accept. I was raised fundamentalist Baptist, with the 10 commandments being shoved down our necks on a daily basis and I must admit I find it difficult to let go and detach when I have been raised with Honor they father and thy mother. Can you help me out with this.
Also, I would love to be in contact with star_al if that is possible.
Thank you for what you are doing to create awareness of this most desperately needed information.