By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
Recently I found a book in a “junk book store” that caught my eye. Its title was I Don’t Want to Live This Life, and it was written by Deborah Spungen. The book is about her family trying to raise a “difficult child,” her first daughter, Nancy. Nancy was murdered by her boyfriend, a “rock star” named Sid Vicious, in the 1970s.
Nancy’s birth was problematic with the cord around her neck, and a rare blood disorder caused her to need a total blood exchange transfusion immediately after birth. From the day that she was brought home from the hospital, she screamed and fought her caregivers. By the time she was 14 she was out of control. By the time she was 17, her parents helped her set up an apartment in New York just to get her out of the house so that there could be some sort of peace for themselves and their other children.
Deborah was at the point of suicide at several times, but with much willpower, stayed to fight for the rest of her family and to try to find some way to reach Nancy. She tried to help Nancy get off drugs and out of the sordid life of prostitution and intermittent homelessness.
Recognition
The book tore at my heart. Deborah and her family suffered terror, pain, confusion and guilt at Nancy’s self made hell-on-earth existence. I read with recognition the confusion Deborah felt in trying to decide how to both protect Nancy and her other children. I too have felt that tearing in trying to give something to one child by depriving the other child of what they also needed from me.
I also identified with Deborah’s frustration that nothing she did seemed to work, so she tried harder to do the same thing. A wise man once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Deborah and her husband Frank turned to the “experts” in medicine from the time that Nancy was a baby. They prescribed Phenobarbital to quite her screams as an infant. Did that drug as an infant set her up later to require drugs to “self medicate” her pain?
They put Nancy into a mental hospital at one point, and got her into methadone treatment multiple times. Gave her food, but not money, paid her rent, but didn’t give her cash. They did the best they knew how to protect their daughter from herself. It still didn’t help, and she stayed with a man who was as disordered as she was, and who was more violent, even after he had beaten her.
After the murder
After Nancy’s murder, and getting out on bail, Sid Vicious overdosed and died. Either accidentally or on purpose, who knows which? Before he died, he wrote letters and called Nancy’s mother vowing his love for Nancy and wanting to see the family and have them validate his love for Nancy, and to receive solace for her loss from them. I can’t even imagine how Deborah must have felt receiving these letters and calls.
The press hounded the family and after Vicious’ death, his mother even had the gall to call Deborah and want to bury him next to Nancy. The press hounded the family even more. The press vilified Nancy, one headline reading, “Nancy was a Witch!”
Deborah and her family eventually got into therapy and also saw a television show with Bob and Charlotte Hullinger, who were the founders of Parents of Murdered Children, to support other parents who had lost a child through murder. At last, Deborah and Frank and their two surviving children were no longer “alone” in their grief. Deborah and Frank became advocates of the group, forming a chapter in their hometown, and becoming very active in comforting others. No longer feeling the shame of their daughter’s life and her death, but finding new purpose in their own.
Grieving the loss
Anyone who has lived with a person who is disruptive, disorderly, and disordered can relate to Deborah and Frank’s pain in trying to deal with that person. When the person is no longer there, either through death or through no contact, there is a loss there that somehow must be filled.
We grieve over the loss of a person who is part of our “family” no matter what the relationship is, mother, daughter, father, son, lover, spouse, or how we lost them, either through death or no contact. What kind of relationship we had with that disruptive person, the person we cannot please, that we cannot save from themselves doesn’t matter. We grieve. We feel the different stages of grief; the denial, the anger, the bargaining, the sadness, and if we grieve appropriately, we eventually come to a state of acceptance of the loss of the person or the relationship. The deeper the love, the deeper the grief.
Shame about the situation
Sometimes, we also feel like Deborah did, the shame that comes when people in our community learn about the disordered behavior of the one we loved. In Deborah’s case, it was nationally public for her and her family. There was even a sketch on Saturday Night Live about Sid Vicious and Nasty Nancy that popped up when their son David was watching TV with friends. And when their daughter’s professor was doing roll call in class and he got to her name he said “Spurgen, no kin to that nasty Nancy Spungen who was murdered.” Their daughter left the class in shame and tears.
Sometimes, we are involved with the justice system, either the criminal justice system, or the “family courts” where we may be raked over the coals by a system we believed would protect us. Or, others who are closer to us do not believe that the disordered person is the one at fault, but instead blame us, shame us, or desert us, leaving us to feel even more betrayed.
In my own case, for nearly twenty years I felt the shame of my son’s crimes, hid them from my extended family and friends, essentially lied to them when they would ask about where Patrick was living. “Oh, he lives in Texas and works for the State of Texas, and doesn’t get to Arkansas much.” While that is “technically true,” it is deceptive and essentially a lie to cover up my own shame at my son’s failure to be the kind of man he was raised to be.
Some kind of peace
I’m glad that Nancy’s family has finally come to some peace, and that her parents have found a cause that they can focus on to help other families who have violently lost children. For those of us on the “other side of the coin,” though, who are the parents of the murderers, we also have “lost” sons and daughters by the crimes they have committed. While Nancy was indeed a troubled soul, she did not deserve to die violently at the hands of her lover. Her parents suffered in a futile effort, trying to save her from herself, and they suffered again because of her murder.
Like Deborah, I too, do not want to live that life. I do not want to live in self doubt about why my son became what he is, or why he killed Jessica Witt. Though my son still breathes, he is as dead to me as Nancy is to Deborah and her family. As I work on protesting the next parole hearing for Patrick, I have reached out to the group Parents of Murdered Children to assist me with that protest. They have warmly received my request and have put me into contact with people who do understand even my position as the parent of the murderer, and are willing to help me.
While Deborah never gave up on her daughter Nancy, and spent 20 years in trying to deal with a person who was unable to attach normally to a family’s love, now that Nancy is gone, Deborah can move on.
We must disengage
Many former victims of people who are unable to attach normally, such as psychopaths, also spend decades trying to save that person from themselves, and to save themselves from more abuse. There comes a time, though, when we must disengage from those people in order to save ourselves and to save our children from those disordered persons. It isn’t easy. I’m not sure what would have become of Nancy’s family if she had not died that day, but in the end, Nancy’s death may actually have been the salvation of the rest of Nancy’s family because her disruptive presence was removed from the home. Though her family did not want to lose her, they couldn’t save her, but after her loss they were able to save themselves.
I didn’t want to “lose” Patrick either, and I held on to him with denial for many, many years even after Jessica’s murder. It was only his attempt to have me killed that shook me loose from that denial and made me face the truth that he is truly, as my attorney said, “a baaaad man.”
OxD,
I am going to look up Sid Vicious as his name is bugging me badly as if I knew him or he’s from here or something.
It must be tremendously difficult to live through a crime committed by our offspring. Heck I am embarrassed if my child doesn’t mind her manners or has a momentary lapse and does something unbelievable. I can only imagine the intensity of the shame. I have attempted to look through the eyes of my spaths parents and have seen them handle their sons without much difficulty but I would bet it’s much more difficult than I know. The big problem is whether or not they’re ready to deal with it,, they know I know.
I would imagine it would be a relief when Nancy died. A friend of mine was murdered. His father was his best friend and told me at the funeral he was relieved. I saw the pain in his eyes when he dared speak that. As an oriental man, the first born son is spoiled. My friend, had gotten into drugs and was just not getting on track no matter what. His deep worry every day and night for his son made his death a relief. I totally understood and he knew that.
When your child is alive, I think it’s much harder to accept our own feelings. I have a similar problem with my parents.
I have the utmost respect for those who put all else aside and admit what they know intelectually and call the duck a duck. It’s a respectable position. I don’t believe any normal parent takes it lightly. I sure do respect it though.
As Donna has said, it does seem, sometimes that our lives are impacted by past lives and we come into this world “preprogrammed” to do the same things over and over.
Poor Nancy began life with a cord around her neck and a needle in her arm. Right out the gate, there was trauma and drama.
Hopefully, we can eventually recognize the patterns we are stuck in and choose a way to get out of it.
Skylar, I wish there was a “like” button here.
I can’t tell from the book whether Nancy’s parents realized that there was TRULY nothing else they could have done to have “saved” her…I am not going to try to make a “diagnosis” on Nancy’s “condition” other than to state the obvious, “she was a substance abuser and she was a troubled person who engaged in self destructive behaviors.”
The man who killed her, a self-styled “rock star” without any talent, I do think was high in psychopathic traits…as evidenced by him calling and writing Nancy’s mother AFTER he killed her. I think Sid’s mother had little understanding of what went on by requesting that Sid be buried beside Nancy! WTF?????? That would like if Patrick died and I called Jessica’s mother and requested that they be buried next to each other???? WTF??? again.
I do know that there are people here on LF who are dealing with their own versions of “Nancy” and even some that are raising “Nancy’s” children and trying to protect those children from “Nancy.”
I think this book would be a good read for those parents with their own versions of “Nancy.” But the reason I wrote about it is so that the identification I had with Nancy’s mother, and though my “Nancy” is not dead physically, he MUST BE dead to me emotionally, and I must DISCONNECT and come to ACCEPTANCE and complete the grief process.
All of us grieve the “loss” of the one we loved, be it child, parent, sibling, friend, lover or spouse who cannot love us back. We must come to acceptance and let go of the shame, which is NOT our shame for what they have done or are doing.
We all want our children to be a good example, to show the world that they are wonderful, smart, good, kind, loving…because we love them, but also because of the accolades that it brings to us for our children to be outstanding. That desire for our children to “Shine,” be it on the sports field or anywhere else…but when they don’t, when they are ultimately “Nancys” we are not “at fault” and we must not feel shame for someone else’s behaviors.
Sky, I do think that there are some children who are almost from birth unable to “bond” to their caregivers no matter what is done for them. Maybe there was some brain damage to Nancy by her birth and the treatment she received shortly after birth for other problems, but whatever it was, apparently she was one of those “unbonded” children. There is no way to say “this caused Nancy’s problems,” or “That caused Nancy’s problems” and it really doesn’t matter, they were problems that could not be fixed even though her parents sought the best available treatments and advice available at the time.
Back years ago when I worked with troubled kids inpatient, I saw some of those kids that at age 8 or 10 were obviously unbonded to anyone, and had that “duping delight” gleam in their eyes. I would not have been able to go to sleep at night with a child like that in the house. I would have been terrified of what they might do in the night “just for fun.” They did, however, usually respond to superior force, but ONLY so long as the force was present and superior, but you knew from the gleam in their eye that you didn’t want to turn your back on them when there was NOT superior force standing by.
My son Patrick was there at that stage by the time puberty hit. He would respond to superior force if it was ON THE SPOT, but once the superior force element was removed, he was right back to his “tricks”—that’s why he does reasonably well in prison, though he tends to break the rules “for fun” he knows that after a stint in Solitary (which he doesn’t seem to mind too badly) he will be right back out into General Population where he can play his games again of “fool the hacks (guards)” and playing games with other convicts. Actually I think prison is the best environment for psychopaths because it gives them so much to keep their minds entertained…there are so many rules for them to break and get away with that they have a continual stream of “duping delight.”
Dear Oxy, everytime I read your story about your son Patric and what you’ve been thru, I’m shocked and I get a pain in my heart of thinking about what you (and others) have gone through. I really can not imagine what it’s like when it comes to your own children or when someone attemts to murder you like your son P. I almost feel grateful that I’ve escaped to easialy than many others here. Many of you who are here, who speak candidly about what you’ve experienced and who have managed to continue with your lives, are a true inspiration.
Sunflower,
My “pain” is not and was not any “worse” than other’s pain. I read a book, I’ve mentioned this many times before, called “Man’s Search for Meaning” written by Dr. Viktor Frankl after he spent YEARS in a Nazi prison camp doing slave labor and as I read his book I FELT BADLY for hurting so bad because I HAD NOT LOST NEARLY AS MUCH AS THAT MAN HAD–but then I read a couple of paragraphs that he wrote about PAIN.
In those paragraphs he described pain as “acting like a gas” If you remember your 7th grade science you will recall that a little bit of a gas put into a large container EXPANDS TO TOTALLY FILL IT, and if you put a LOT of a gas into a small container it will compress, but still TOTALLY FILL the container. Pain is the same way.
A baby who drops his passie feels that he has LOST THE ENTIRE WORLD and cries and cries…now WE know that the loss of his passie is NOT THE END OF THE WORLD, but that child FEELS TOTAL PAIN AND LOSS at that moment. So EACH of us feels TOTAL PAIN AT THE LOSSES WE HAVE EXPERIENCED.
EACH of us has the pain that TOTALLY FILLS us whether we lost a child, a parent, a friend or a lover because they were a psychopath. My pain was total, and your pain was total. Neither one was bigger than the other.
I know, I’ve read that book. Sometimes, it just helps to find what I can be greatful for. At least it was only six months, not twenty years and two children later, but I understand your point.
Eralyn:
Sid Vicious sounds familiar because he was a bassist for the punk rock group the Sex Pistols. There is actually a movie about his and Nancy’s relationship called, “Sid and Nancy.”
I think it’s too bad that no one is really acknowledging what a tortured soul that Nancy must have been…such a pity. With all that happened to her at birth, I don’t see how SHE had a choice. We know people have choices, but she was damaged and I feel sad about that life she had to lead and then ultimately be murdered. SMH.
Louise,
Yes, I looked him up. It said on Wikipedia, he got released from jail or prison and was sober and there was a party for him and his mom was kind enough to get him high with some heroin and he died that night!! WTF?!
Thanks MOM! Now maybe we know why she thought they should be buried together. I don’t know if above is true but that’s what it said and then Oxd, said above so………..
Never ending WTF? moments for me lately. Can it be true? Only in the real world…..
Eralyn:
I read that, too. Crazy, just crazy.