By Ox Drover
A thought struck me the other day as I was musing ”¦ many people today have at least thought about how they want things to proceed when they come toward the end of their lives. Do they want to be “kept on life support” with feeding tubes and ventilators and lying unconscious in an intensive care nursing unit?
Is that kind of “life” really anything but prolonging drying? Or, is it possible that if you stayed there with mechanical life support, that you might actually wake up and heal, and go on and enjoy more time in a healthy life? Many of us have made decisions which we have placed into “Living Wills” and have appointed someone to be our decision maker if we can’t make our own decision at the time. (BTW if you don’t have a living will which is legally valid, your nearest relative or your spouse will be automatically appointed.)
When the time came to make the decision about providing life support for my husband with the terrible burns he had, between the medical knowledge I had about his chances of survival (zero) and his wishes, there was no decision to make, nothing could have helped him live longer, only prolong the unavoidable.
In my career as a registered nurse practitioner I have watched families vacillate over whether to put their loved one on mechanical life support, to take them off, or put in a feeding tube or to take one out. I have seen them cry and fight and have seen childhood jealousies come to the front to make decisions which should have been made by a cooler head.
Life support and psychopaths
As I was musing about these physical end of life life-supports, I thought about the fact that sometimes in my relationships I’ve done the same thing. I’ve kept a relationship that was essentially “brain dead and suffering” on life support, loath to let it die a natural and peaceful death by just not sustaining it artificially any more. Hoping against hope that it might improve if I just gave it enough time and energy. Later realizing that I had expended a tremendous amount of energy sustaining this relationship which only became sicker and sicker, sucked away resources I could have used for other more positive things.
Looking back, hindsight is always 20/20, I can see that I kept my relationship with my psychopathic son on life-support from the time he was 17, and when I went to the local jail to get him, as he walked up to me and my husband he said, “What the f&%k took you so long?” At that time, I said to the jailer, “Sir, there’s a problem, this isn’t my son, because my son wouldn’t talk to me like that, take this young man back upstairs.” Right then I had seen the relationship was dead, there was no mutuality about it, there was no respect for me, or for my position as his mother.
But I couldn’t conceive that my relationship with my son couldn’t be somehow miraculously saved by some magical miracle so that “everything would be all right.”
So because I couldn’t stand the thought or the pain of pulling the rest of the life support for the relationship, I put it back on life support and kept it there for decades after that. Even when it took turns for the worse and he wound up not just in juvy jail, but it big-boy’s prison for a felony robbery, then back again for murder.
I kept on refusing to let myself disconnect from the corpse of our relationship, refused to let it die a natural death , and feel the grief. In my prolonged denial of how seriously flawed our relationship was, I tortured myself with hope. Hope that was unfounded on reality, malignant hope that my son might survive inside this corpse of a soul.
Had to pull the plug
Eventually there came a time when I realized that the relationship was not repairable. I could not, medicine could not, nothing could fix the relationship, and in addition the relationship on life support was poisoning everything about itself—including me. It was requiring all the energy I had to keep it as the living dead. It was a source of contagion that used my energy, infected other relationships around it and me. I had to pull the plug and let it go, in order to survive.
I actually had a memorial service for the boy that was, the little boy I had grown to love so much, oh gosh was he cute, but he’s no longer living, and my relationship with him is only in my memory. Just as my late husband and I are only in my memory. Yet, by letting both of them go, and doing the appropriate and painful grieving, I have released those good memories to be enjoyed and loved the rest of my life.
Nothing should outlast its time. When something is dead or broken and can’t be fixed, it is time for us to let it go. Cherish the memories if we can, but let the rest of it go.
Oxy – excellent analogy … that really hit home for me. I’ve been guilty of preserving a dead relationship – sustaining it by conotributing my own life blood and buckets of energy … and the reality is there was never any hope for it. There were no real signs of encouragment but I kept going anyway hoping for a miracle.
I second the posters who are asking you to write a book! Think it’s about time 🙂
Dear Polly, thanks sweetie, yep I have sure drained my own blood to pump into the dead corpse of more than one relationshit!
I may get around one of these days to writing a book. It is easier to post the truth here on line though behind the “face” of The Ox Drover rather than put my NAME on the cover. LOL Maybe it’s that little Scots-Irish voice in the back of my head that says “what would the neighbors think?” LOL I keep telling it to shut up, but you know it is difficult to teach an old dog new tricks! LOL
Anyway, glad you enjoyed the article…it sure FIT ME I can tell you that! I’m like Cleopatra— DE QUEEN OF DENIAL!
Ox,
Yes. I agree a test during pregnancy for ASPD wouldn’t be very helpful to find out, unless there were methods of treatment for this disorder. I can’t imagine having to deal with that knowledge during pregnancy, as I would not choose to end my pregnancy.
I agree that with better knowledge and diagnosis, it would be a good idea to quarantine sociopaths.
I hope (this is a fantasy here) that one day there will be options for people and families suffering with this disorder. I hope that they find a successful way to medically treat and rehabilitate these people – offering some sort of happy conclusion for humanity. *Note this is a fantasy* Haha. But, you never know, it could happen…
Today, I was feeling my usual “down and hurt” inside, until I had a long discussion with my hairstylist. She bragged quite a bit about her husband, until she revealed that he was a womanizer, but she had “tamed” him.
Then, she continued on, that while she was 4 months pregnant with his “first” child, she recieved a phone call from another woman… this other woman had been carrying on a relationship with her husband (knowing fully he was married) and was 6 months pregnant with his child! He was also involved with ANOTHER woman, too. Burn. Burn. Burn.
This stylist then went on to describe their subsequent relationship problems, while I cringed in bitterness and pain, thinking about the effect this must of had on her – and at the fact she is still with him, believes he will tell her the truth in the future (even though he compulsively lied and tried to cover up the truth about the other women).
She’s my age, and I told her that I’m glad we shared stories, because hearing about what other people are going through, has a very healing quality of reminding us that we’re not alone! These empathy-impared socio’s are everywhere.
Dear Purewater,
You know, you just talked to a woman who is married to a psychopath and she is in DENIAL….she will STAY in denial as well because to accept the truth she would have to leave him and she doesn’t want to go through that agony.
I’m sorry for her because I know she must hurt, her denial doesn’t really keep the pain dampened down for long…he will drag it back up. She is more “Alone” than you are, and she has HIM to deal with on a daily basis.
It does help us to see other people’s stories too…kind of the “I cried because I have no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet.” you can at least realize you are better off than she is, you are on your way to healing, and she is still living with it.
You are right, they are everywhere.
One Step,
I agree that creating a DNA database is a good idea. I also agree that more needs to be done to protect the public from sociopaths.
Yeah, I did feel a tinge of happiness that there’s some sort of distance between me now and then. I feel safer, but proud that I got up and on with my life – made the choice that I did to get away. It wasn’t easy, but it was the right choice 🙂
The problem with the hoping for a test to see if someone is born with it is that this assumes that all people (who have it) are born with it and the evidence continues to mount that it is both environmental/genetic and the interplay between the two. Not only that but there is no one single gene involved here but rather numerous ones which can all be different at different times.
And the myth of ASPD (which is different than psychopathy) not being treatable is just that, a myth. Just because some won’t and don’t change does not mean they can’t AND there is research showing that treatment can be helpful (as this .pdf file shows). https://webfiles.uci.edu/skeem/Downloads_files/IAFMHS_2008.pdf
A big issue with treatment is that the person who is getting it has to want to sincerely want to change and make the effort to change. They have to make a choice to overcome the genetic/environmental piece or make a choice to not do so.
You have genetics, environment, and the third piece that can (in some situations) trump both of them is choice. It is not like there is some genetic piece making them do hurtful things to others. It is a choice and it is easy to see it is a choice by watching them make a choice not to do so when it is in their best interest.
Ox Drover
What a timley post for me. It speaks to me right now as I consider each relationship in my life, and what a unique metaphor to check it against.
I can feel the prolonged agony of hope…hope that they will turn around and love me, accept me for who I am and give me unconditional love…and that’s my parents I’m talking about! even at 50…( them in their very healthy 80’s) I still turn up with my little tiny squeeenchy begging bowl hoping for a scrap of approval or affection or a decent conversation!! but I inevitably go home feeling empty again and it’s a constant disappointment…
The realtionship with the P can go…let it go..no problem. I do not want him in my life.
unfortunately I believe in the astral level, I know we have auras and energy fields and the cords of past relationships attach there and will be there until we decide to cut them. what ‘s in these cords is all the toxic crap that suck energy 24/7…my memories of the P suck the life out of me in flashbacks and I am finally learning how to deal with the cord on that level and it is exactely what you have done..albeit a little different…it’s the same thing.
It’s re-investing our energy in the here and now, and letting go the relationships that suck us dry…and the psychic residue of ALL destructive past relationships that have attached and still feed at the astral level…in my one opinion…they have to go…be cut…be gone
Thanks Oxy for re affirming and solidifying that whole idea again for me today. It’s a redemption, a purging and no matter how much we hoped for a functioning living relationship with loved ones…we have got to face it…it’s not always possible….and grief is all there is in it’s place. peace, love and lightxx
Purewaters3, if there IS a genetic code that identifies sociopathy, then both of my sons carry it. One son is, indeed, a diagnosed Cluster B, and the other doesn’t fit the profile but presents the ill-effects of having been raised by a spath parent. Would “knowing” this have made any difference? I don’t think so, as the ex spath had an enormous influence on both of these human beings and it’s impossible to say whether either of these people would have developed the same way had I chosen to get the heck out at an earlier point. Had I read the flapping, screaming red flags sooner, the second son would never have been born. Could the spath son have developed into an empathetic human? There’s no way of knowing, and even entertaining that thought is enormously counter-productive, for me, personally. “Woulda, shoulda, coulda” is NOT a welcome signpost on my healing path.
The analogy of Life Support is so appropriate, OxD – that intense desire to not let go, to not “give up,” and avoid calling a spade a spade is so strong in empaths. I honestly believed that I only had to “prove” how much I “loved” the ex spath, and he would have a personal epiphany – “Why, this person has sacrificed so much on my behalf, I owe it to her to straighten out and change!” LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No such words will EVER issue from the mouths of sociopaths! We hear the complete absence of remorse when a spath talks about the harm that they’ve inflicted, “I’m sorry that happened,” rather than, “I’m sorry that I knocked my wife’s teeth out in front of our children.”
Off topic – OxD, I knew that you had lost your husband, but I didn’t know that he had experienced such an excruciating passing. I had to go to my Quaker book to explore human suffering – no need to go into what I read, but I wanted to say to you, personally, that I appreciate your strength to share such a terrible experience with us all in an effort to teach. I cannot – in my worst nightmares – imagine enduring such a tragic event, and for you to recount it to make such a poignant statement is truly brave. You are a hero, and I thank you with all of my heart.
Brightest blessings.
bluejay – many years ago my first girlfriend was raped while we were going out togehter. i shook my fist, railed against and dropped god at that time.
when I recovered my equilibrium, i began to look other places for my inspiration and connection. by nature i am not a theist, so it was good for me to move into other investigations.
what i hear in your post is anger, weariness and wariness. life IS terribly disappointing and trying. and trying to deal with it sometimes causes us to move away from what has given us solace instead of moving closer to it. what that says to me is that we were either in the wrong relationship (with god or…) or that the relationship needs to mature/ grow be understood in another way.
i think compassion for ourselves is THE most important thing. life IS hard, there ARE bad people, seemingly random uncaring crap happens to kind people and bad people alike….the buddhists say, ‘there is suffering.’ it IS a fact of life. and sometimes the suffering is huge, and it bests us. the friends that i lost as collateral damage from the spath experience – they have never experienced something they couldn’t handle in life. they have had trials to be sure – but they have never been laid out. they have NO idea what this is like. and so they are gone. a failing in their compassion, but an honest one – they haven’t had to develop the understanding or depth as life has not asked it of them yet.
in buddism, things are not considered random. but neither are they considered as punishment or in any way personal. ‘karma’ is like a law of physics. it’s kind of like gravity – neither the tree, the apple nor the ground are being punished or tested when the apple falls down. it’s all about gravity. i am not suggesting you give Buddhism a whirl, but am saying these thing s just to show a different view. my shaking my fist at god was about thinking there was an outside authority who had abandoned my gf.
i know now that my point of reference has to be my imperfect self….not an imperfect understanding or spirituality or any imperfect spiritual system, including Buddhism.
you feelings are legitimate and understandable. look at the picture they are painting see what it tells you about your beliefs and needs.
best,
one step