Editor’s note: A Lovefraud reader, we’ll call him Allen, tells his story of being the child of an undiagnosed sociopath.
I know the story starts way before my time with my dad, so I can only tell you what I saw growing up and what I now see in hindsight.
I think the biggest thing that I see in him is that he takes no personal responsibility for anything. Somewhere in his late 20’s he “found God” — whatever that really means to him — and it was right around the time that my mom finally left him because of physical abuse that he denies to this day. He says that he never laid a hand on her and then when I remind him that I was there that day and saw everything he still denies it. He claims that pushing her over a couch and through a screen door isn’t laying a hand on her.
That day, the day they split up, I spent the rest of the weekend with my dad, where he kept saying how little my mom must have loved me, since she left you with “such a monster.” At nine, I believed him and spent the next year of my life making my mom’s life a living hell. I would torment her, asking her why she was leaving dad and how she must be evil to not love him. A thin mixture of religion over a solid base of fear led me to believe that my dad was the only one I could trust.
My mom was a teacher at the Christian school that I attended and my mom was condemned for leaving my dad by the church, mostly because my dad was playing the victim and smearing my mom as unforgiving and bitter. He claimed she just left him for no reason. Especially when he was friends with most of the pastors at the church. He would go for “counseling” with them. He would read every religious book he could find. He even ended up in the psych ward over Christmas that year. He really made my mom look evil. I was 30 when I finally saw what he did to her. And I and everyone else bought it up to that point. I eye-witnessed it and I still bought it.
In an effort to “re-unite” our family, my mom was told by the church to either reunite with my dad or find a new job. She found a new job. Ironically, her good friend from her childhood taught with her at that same school. Her husband beat the crap out of her the next year, and she had him arrested and he wasn’t as manipulative as my dad. She still works at that same school. It protected her.
Living with dad
This all happened my third grade year. The following year I continued to live with my mom meanwhile going to my father’s every single weekend, and getting my head filled with everything bad my mom had ever done. Every skeleton. I “tormented” her regularly, but I thought I was doing what God wanted me to do, which was remind my mom what God says she should do — at least according to what my dad told me. I knew that God hated sin, and divorce was a sin, and my mom was divorcing my dad on purpose, therefore I thought I was doing what was right. Finally my mom had enough and she let me go live with my dad my fifth grade year. The divorce was done somewhere between June to August, and by September I was his best man in his next marriage.
I moved in with him in July, and that’s when he started beating the crap out of me when I would do stuff he didn’t like and that continues to this very day. I had to call the police on him this past weekend because he spit on me as I walked to my car, ran up and threw me up against the wall and cocked his fist to punch me when I told him he never took responsibility for anything, especially getting real help for his abuse, which he denied when the police arrived and said I came over to pick a fight with him. My brother even told me I should expect to mauled when I throw stones at a bear.
The marriage with his second wife was a disaster of biblical proportions. I had a stepsister my age and a stepbrother my brother’s age — five years younger than me. I was the only one that kept saying they shouldn’t be married and that he was being a bad father, which brought me more and more abuse. I even protested at his wedding, so he told everyone that I had psychological problems. Turns out I was just exhausted trying to have a conscience for two.
He was a doctor. He would buy cars, tv’s, all kinds of stuff and then lie to his wife about it and make me promise not to tell her about it either. When I would say it was a bad idea, I would be told either I was too young to understand or beat up, so I played along. They split up, of course because of us kids not getting along. He forgets that I spent two years locked in my room avoiding everyone that I could from our family. Not sure the fights I started, but I believed him. We, my stepsiblings and I, had to lie about how my stepmom got a black eye one time. A family football injury. Unbelieveable.
Difficult to love
My dad and I moved into a cottage at a Christian community that was a few miles outside of town. We lived there until I graduated from high school. At the time I really defended my dad, believing that he WAS the victim in all this and that if my mom hadn’t left him, none of this would have happened. This made me hate her more. And he kept beating me up too. Said I was “difficult to love”. Same thing he said this weekend — funny. I would go to school with bruises and a swollen nose, fat lips all the time. That’s when I had to lie to the police and tell them nothing was wrong. My mom even got emergency custody of me and tried to have me put in a school for troubled kids. I saw it as evil since I saw her as evil and not able to be trusted. I lied my way out of that school interview. I made it look like she was crazy and that she just had a problem with my dad and was trying to get back at him. She gave me a choice: the Detention Home or a Runaway Shelter.
I chose the runaway shelter. But when they notified the custodial parent, as my mom only had temporary emergency custody, he came and picked me up at 5 a.m. This really made her look evil and him like the rescuer! “Look! Your mom dumped you off again!” I went into school the next day and had a total and complete breakdown. I told them what happened the night before and coupled with what they knew was going on at home, they excused me from school for the last two weeks. They knew I would never turn on my dad because my only other option was the DH and everyone knew that wasn’t going to help. I even spent a couple of weeks in the psych ward as I was suicidal a few months previous. They even passed me as I was failing about everything in class. It was all because I wasn’t adjusting well to my dad’s new marriage. That may be, but I think that I never should have been there. I should have been protected by my parent, not stepped on to get what he wanted. But maybe that’s just me.
High school
High school went by because I found really good friends. My dad was trying to get back with my stepmom from eighth grade to twelfth grade so I was home a lot on the weekends by myself. Yeah. We partied. They still talk about how many parties I threw in high school. I would make remarks about my dad’s choices and how little I thought of him and his marriage, his wife, whatever. They were “disrespectful” and were always met with a fist fight. I got in a couple of good licks and they got further apart.
After every single fight, he would tell me that God still loved him and that I should forgive him. Truth is, I didn’t have any other place to live, so I tolerated him and his abuse. And sometimes his irresponsibility made him really fun. New cars and things like that made my place fun to live at. He even bough me a car at 15 and let me drive it around without a license just so he didn’t have to be bothered with having to take me places. That made me about the coolest person there was to my friends! I was pretty responsible and didn’t get into any trouble worth mentioning. I was actually one of only two people in my “circle of friends” to make it through school without any police incursions.
I went into the Navy when I graduated as I had a less than 2.0 GPA. It was very good for me. I was in two years and hurt my leg and was discharged. I got married to a woman EXACTLY like my dad. More on that in a bit. During that time my dad and his second wife got back together for about a year. And I was split up with my wife and moved back in for a short time with them. I got back with my wife and they split up a year later because my dad was cheating on her with someone that was going to become his next wife. But don’t say goodbye to wife #2 quite yet. She makes an encore later. I blamed my stepmom for taking all my dad’s stuff because she was “just a gold-digger!” I completely missed the point that he was getting this as consequences to his actions! But hearing him, it was all her fault again. She drove him to cheat. At this point I’m 23 or 24.
My wife was the same
My eyes were finally opened with my wife. Nothing was ever her fault. Perpetual victim. That’s when I discovered patterns! I started seeing things she did to my daughter that my dad did to me. Manipulation of the truth, telling parts of the story, lying, cheating and stealing. But it was never her fault either. She and I would get into a fight and she would wake up our daughter in the middle of the night and take her to her mom’s and say things like “Your dad is throwing us out.” Little stuff like that, when nothing was further from the truth. And her mom hated me! Rightfully so: throwing her and her grand daughter out like that. The only problem is, she never even asked my side. That’s when it hit me that I was her mom when it came to my dad.
Read more: For children of sociopaths
She was always defending her daughter, like I did to my dad. She was always the victim, just like my dad. It was never her fault I was mad (even though she was charging $10k on credit cards in three months). I was the one that was being unreasonable! It finally hit me after 12 years of marriage and a tumor that these two people were identical: Sociopaths!
Beat us with the Bible
At 27 or 28 I finally saw what was going on. My dad was on wife #3, a total and complete psycho. And he was making it worse because he intimidated her too. And bought $120k RV’s, $5k banjos — you name it. Never EVER telling her first. “Screw her, it’s my money!” I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard that saying. My mom, my step-mom(s), even me when I confronted him. He would snap and start attacking us as though we had the problem. First he would puff up and yell. If that didn’t scare us away, he would beat us with the Bible: saying that we shouldn’t judge and how we just didn’t understand “Grace” the way he did and that if God forgives him so should we. If we still didn’t run away he would start dismantling our character with every kind of attack known to man: our character, our lives, my kids, my wife, my relationships, my religion, my work, my work ethic, my friends, my salvation — everything. All peppered with vulgarities and personal attacks. I always blew it off because some of what he said WAS true and I bought into the speck in his eye and the plank in mine, like he was always reminding us of.
Sexual harassment
He really talked the talk, but never walked the walk. And that is what ALWAYS, ALWAYS bothered me. Even in childhood. Always do what the Bible says, unless you are me. It wasn’t until he was sued for sexual harassment that I knew he had a real problem. Having been in the Navy, I was trained almost monthly on sexual harassment. You say “Red Light” to anyone that was in the service in my time and they will laugh. They know exactly what that means. So I told my dad that what he was doing with one of the girls in his staff was beyond a shadow of a doubt sexual harassment. Five times I warned him and said, “Look! You have got to stop! You are going to get sued!” To which he replied “Mind your own business. I’m 58 years old and I’m not going to let you know-it-all tell me how to run my life. Beside, what the hell do you know? I’m a doctor! What the hell are you?”
Let’s just say I didn’t know everything else he was doing to her until the lawsuit was filed. I was shocked this married “Christian” man was telling me he was doing nothing wrong and yet he was still getting sued, even after I warned him about it! He told me “I wasn’t going to tell you but ____ is suing me. That bitch! What the heck is and everyone else gonna think? Their gonna think I did it!” I said, “You did!” He told me not to come around him anymore if I was going to be talking like that. So I shut up for a while.
Wife #3 went crazier. Now I realize that being with a person that thinks and acts like he does will drive a normal person crazy! I thought it was her until a I saw what living with my ex-wife did to me! Months of cover-ups and bashing the character of the sue-er, he narrowly convinced her not to divorce him then, claiming he, again, was the victim
Anger management
Then he punched wife #3 about a year ago and she had his butt arrested. He pleaded “no contest” and had to go to anger management counseling. The next week, after he had to move out, he bought a BMW 740IL and told me, “Now everyone is going to know that no lying b*tch is going to keep me down. I’m still on top.” He swears to this day “he never laid a hand on her.” I asked him if it was the same hand he didn’t lay on mom to which he points out how bitter and unforgiving I am and that he is praying for me to “get better.” She filed for divorce a few weeks later but he didn’t care. Wife #2, who is inarguably more attractive than wife #3, wanted him back. She couldn’t believe all that he had endured and come through. Truth is she just wants security and to not be alone I think.
When I tried to have him arrested this weekend it was me that had the problem again. He lied to police and said he didn’t lay a hand on me and that I, in fact was the one that picked a fight with him. He lied to family, the few that believe him, that I did come over “looking for trouble.” I have for the last year tried to stay away from him but keep getting my conscience turned against me by him because a child should forgive his parent. I shouldn’t be bitter. But he lures you in with a believable “I really am sorry” and a plausible story that it really IS your problem. And he is quick to point that out to everyone I or any of his victims know that he runs into.
And trying to get him help is impossible: He would argue theology with Jesus, and could intimidate Ah-nold. He has walked out of more counselors because they were trying put him “under the law.” Religion is a wall he uses to trap his victims within reach. Anytime they start to get away he reminds them of their obligation to forgive and they come back. It’s like a religious tether. It’s the same tactic my ex-wife (also claimed to be “Christian/religious”) used: bragging she knew she could do anything she wanted because she knew that I would never divorce her because my religious beliefs were too strong. I’m pretty sure that’s not what God teachs.
How should I deal?
There is my story — I’m the child of an undiagnosed sociopath. Use it for whatever you want. Even to convict me if I really do have a problem like he and my ex says. They say I make everyone miserable. My girlfriend tells me it’s them (but she’s a LITTLE partial!) and that if they walked what they talked, it would not be an issue. I just make them feel accountable because I question their actions to their faces, while everyone else talks behind their back. This is uncomfortable for them, thus bringing on their own misery because someone see through their facade, so their slander and character assassination starts on me and their true colors come out.
I would love to know, however, how I should deal with him? Should I stay away? Or should I forgive and always keep him at arms length? What about my daughter and him? He tells her all kinds of things too about me that aren’t anywhere near true. And she is starting to behave just like her mom and grandpa.
Learn more: How abusive parents affect you and how you can recover
Lovefraud originally posted this article on February 6, 2009.
Understanding trauma, the brain on PTSD, and real options for recovery
Elizabeth: “love is the driving force that pushes people to be better than we naturally are.” You are pointing at the significant element in Liane Leedom’s internal triangle — the side that is damaged or missing in the psychopath.
You are so right.
Here is an excerpt from a post by Kathleen Hawk (I think)
that might be helpful–
As an adult, you are no longer dependent on your father. Your life is about you. And the emotional residue of those years is something that that’s part of your life. You are living with the ways you adapted as a child. Those lessons are embedded in your history, unless you can change the meaning of those experiences for the child within you. It’s very likely that the child doesn’t care why your father behaved that way. That child cares about the unfairness or brutality that wounded him (you).
Focusing on your own feelings is a first step in comforting yourself. You’re already doing it, by distancing yourself from your father’s behavior. But understanding why you’re doing this to stop the emotional battering that you experience is more meaningful than anything about him. You’re taking care of yourself.
One of the ways to reprogram our old coping mechanisms is “trickle-down” approach. This doesn’t require a lot of analytical work. Behaving “as if,” or “fake it until you make it.”
Every decision you make to take care of yourself is one more piece of evidence trickling down to that child that someone now cares about him and will take action to protect him. It may not happen immediately, but over time this may relax the childhood coping mechanisms that don’t work in adult life.
Pearl: As rich and powerful as those words are, we also are dealing with S/Ps who might have been like that regardless of the parenting in their family. Genetics are a major part of this.
Liane Leedom is doing some amazing work in her research and careful consideration of the factors involved. What if you know early on that you’re dealing with a child who has all the genetic risk. Can you parent the child into being someone who relates normally to others? I believe that genetics may sometimes outweigh the best parenting, and poor parenting with a high genetic risk can create S/Ps when those children could have otherwise grown up with love and conscience guiding their actions.
I do think that by the time we tangle with them as adults, there are very serious differences between “Us” and “Them.” Some of “Them,” though, might have been saved through conscious intervention. Us victims have no chance of “saving” them at this point. We don’t have the tools, the authority, the power . . . and their brains may just be permanently wired like that, with no chance of changing short of a lightning strike.
Thank you so much for sharing this with us. I “understood it” and what I found in your writing…
Patterns
Patterns
So many patterns….
Just like the ones I too experienced saw and many times cry about…..
Thanks for sharing………
Which allow me to remember that I am not alone and others as children suffered much.
We may not all had the type of abuse but abuse still it be.
Writer, I believe in NC (no contact) and preach just that to most as well as my self. I first saw it as a choice but now I feel like it is more of a lifestyle. My lifestyle albeit a choice or not. Something I want for me. A life free from all those lies and manipulations I know now that many times the hurt is so deep and when one is sick all the lies and manipulation. Sometimes the only choice we really always had is to just walk away and then close a door….
JaneSmith
“I respect and admire my Mother greatly for all the crap she dealt with from him. I knew she would shoot him if he didn’t leave us alone. He KNEW it, too, that’s why he eventually quit doing what he was doing, cussing at her calling her names even as he speedily retreated from our front door.”
From all my reading and studying this theme has come up more then once..
FEAR….
This is something they can and do relate too (sometimes only for a short time) is fear. In fact from my reading they will confuse fear with love. In short if they fear you they see this is love but when they stop fearing you. LOOKOUT!! Because that’s when YOU may start fearing them.
“And trying to get him help is impossible: He would argue theology with Jesus, and could intimidate Ah-nold. He has walked out of more counselors because they were trying put him “under the law.” Religion is a wall he uses to trap his victims within reach. Anytime they start to get away he reminds them of their obligation to forgive and they come back. It’s like a religious tether. It’s the same tactic my ex-wife (also claimed to be “Christian/religious”) used: bragging she knew she could do anything she wanted because she knew that I would never divorce her because my religious beliefs were too strong. I’m pretty sure that’s not what God teachs. ”
“My mom was a teacher at the Christian school that I attended and my mom was condemned for leaving my dad by the church, mostly because my dad was playing the victim and smearing my mom as unforgiving and bitter. He claimed she just left him for no reason. Especially when he was friends with most of the pastors at the church. He would go for “counseling” with them. He would read every religious book he could find. He even ended up in the psych ward over Christmas that year. He really made my mom look evil. I was 30 when I finally saw what he did to her. And I and everyone else bought it up to that point. I eye-witnessed it and I still bought it.
In an effort to “re-unite” our family, my mom was told by the church to either reunite with my dad or find a new job. ”
This is the part of the story that chills me to the bone. Abusers who contort the Bible to hold their victims prisoner, and the churches that contort the Bible to make the bonds even tighter. The words “I eyewitnessed it (the abuse) and I still bought it (the abuser’s story).
Cluster Bs have a remarkable ability to sway people’s opinions and make masterful use of group-think.
Elizabeth in my work with clergy sexual abuse cases and with the high risk sex offenders in the prison i was often told by the offenders that one of the favorite places to obtain victims was church and christian people. In the book Predators this was also talked about with a few examples here:
One molester, who was himself a minister, said:
I considered church people easy to fool”they have a trust that comes from being Christians”They tend to be better folks all around. And they seem to want to believe in people”I think they want to believe in people. And because of that, you can easily convince, with or without convincing words.
Here is a quote from a predator (deacon in his church) out of the Predators book. What is interesting to note is the predator, Patrick, was being honest and candid about how he would operate within the church. He counted on people going to bat for him, based on his good solid reputation with the church. He didn’t look like a predator; so he must not be one, or so everyone in the church thought. He didn’t have to do too much to convince people he was innocent. Everyone jumped to his defense without him having to lift a finger.
Sometimes the words were not even necessary. Like I said before, they immediately rallied to my defense when I was accused of being a sexual offender. They said, “We know this young man. He has been in our community all of his life. We know his parents, his grandparents, his aunts, his uncles. This is not something that he would do. This is not something that goes along with behavior that we see him in day in and day out,” and that was true because I was very careful that they did not see that behavior day in and day out. Most of my deviant behavior happened at night time and behind the scenes and away and far from my important people who could make those kinds of judgments that yes, indeed, Patrick is the kind of person who would go around molesting children.
Sadly in sooo many cases the same things would be said and used by the offenders and by his supporters. Things like the he who is without sin and of course the whole we all are all sinners and so you need to forgive and various other controlling and hurtful things like that. I recently was in a case where a young teen was raped by her minister in the church when she went to seek help from him. Until he actually confessed months later that girl and her family were treated horribly by a large portion of the church group. And I see that happen over and over again in these cases. Sadly even after the man confessed not one of the ones who treated that girl so bad stepped up and apologized. That too is something I see way to often.
I think my daughter..13 is a sociopath..she is exactly like him, she is unreasonable, without conscience, she is cruel to her younger sister, she is verbally abusive to me and doesn’t care about punishment or consequences.
She comes home from school, causes rows goes to her bedroom and stays there only coming down for food..and every time she comes near the rest of us she causes hell.
This is the price of living with a sociopath, it rubs off on the kids.I have no doubt when she is bigger she will be assaulting me and doing as she pleases.
wanna add..she was a happy child, this has been gradual, but now I look back she has been this way and getting worse over the past three years..I hate him for this, of all he has done, all he has caused, I hate him for this the most.
He texted her the other day, said he would be back in touch then nothing..I hate him
BloggerT7165,
I absolutely understand where you are coming from. The type of abuse you’re talking about is one extreme.
Routine spiritual abuse and exploitation is another. There are Bible verses which are used over and over again to trap sincere Christians in victimhood. It’s not the scripture that is bad, it’s the removal from appropriate context and failure to teach the entire Bible. There are verses that make exploitive, abusive leaders squirm, and they aren’t mentioned in churches where these lessons are most needed.
The fruit of the Spirit is Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness (some translate Generosity), Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. (Who doesn’t want that?) It sounds good, so often people try to “live in the Spirit” without boundaries. These sincere Christians lack the experience and/or education to understand that abuse and exploitation cause misery, grief, fear, and pain to erode Love, Joy and Peace. Only when Christians heed the call to be discerning and firm in the face of misbehavior can we Live in the Spirit consistently.