This is a true story told to me by one of my University students. Marisol describes life with her sister, a sociopath:
My stepfather sexually molested me when I was eight. My sister who was nine, was also molested; I know because I saw him go to her. We never talked about what happened. When she was 20, I asked her and she denied it then admitted it happened to her when I said I saw him. My father was shot and killed when we were very young. He used drugs and had a bad temper, so someone shot him. My sister was always wild when we were growing up. We fought a lot and there wasn’t much affection in my family.
My sister has been sexually promiscuous since her teen years. I never had any friends because if she would find out that I had a friend, she would have sex with that friend’s boyfriend. My mother would say I had to stick up for my sister. But, my sister has sex with nearly every man she knows. When she sees a married couple, she wants what they have, so she sleeps with the husband. When he leaves his wife to be with her, she grows tired and drops him. My sister has been with all kinds of men, black, white and Puerto Rican. She becomes whatever that man is. When she’s with a black, she acts black. She’s white when she’s with a white guy. I don’t think my sister ever uses protection when she has sex, look she had a baby a year ago. I don’t know how she can do this to herself”¦all those men. According to a friend of mine, the men in the barbershop even talk about my sister. They have all had sex with her and think she’s good.
I left home when I was 16 because my sister convinced me that my mother didn’t want me. She often told me that my mother didn’t like me. My sister told me a lot of things my mother didn’t really say. My sister has two children that I worry about, especially her son who is seven. She switches men every few months, each time there is a new guy she says to her son, “This is your father.” Then when she gets tired of the guy, she gets rid of him and her son never sees the man again. She left her son’s father when he was in jail. Her son’s father has 8 kids and he only cares for two of them. My nephew has problems and my sister just ignores him. She is into her baby now. The baby girl is one. I don’t think she knows who the baby’s father is.
My sister spends all her money on the men in her life, while her children go without clothes and doctor visits. She never pays any of her bills. She has furniture from Rent a Center, she never paid then moved away with the furniture. She doesn’t feel she should have to pay any of her bills. She has a job. She keeps it because she lies to her boss and makes her feel sorry for her. She tells everyone that she is a single mother and that she has no family. She is a single mother, but we want to help her. My sister is not sorry for any of the bad things she has done. Instead, she lies to cover things up. It seems she believes her own lies. I can’t believe how much my sister lies. She doesn’t tell the truth about anything. My sister is beautiful and very nice. I keep thinking she is a good person, then when I think about the way she treats my nephew, I get mad. She says she doesn’t want him, but she won’t give him to us. She wants to be in control.
I keep thinking that my sister acts this way because she was molested. My mother says she has always been wild and difficult. Even when my father was alive, she was oppositional. I remember she did everything he told her not to do. Although my sister does not steal from my mother, she takes advantage of her. If my mother has a boyfriend, my sister will call him behind my mother’s back, and ask him for favors, even if he and my mom aren’t that close. Although my sister doesn’t admit to having any problems, she blames my mother for everything. My mother never showed us any affection. In my culture we believe that holding babies will spoil them.
Discussion of this Case
I believe Marisol’s sister qualifies as a sociopath because she has a pervasive pattern of disregard for the rights of others that has been present since early childhood. She lies and is financially irresponsible. She is sexually promiscuous and has failed to care properly for her children. Her reported non-use of protection is evidence for her recklessness. Although there are no reports of physical fights, there is considerable relational aggression, which is more common in women. The presence of all these behaviors within the context of a life pattern of harming those who are closest to her defines her sociopathy.
My student’s story shows us the inability to love and power motivation of women who are high in sociopathic traits. She fails to bond with any of the men with whom she has relations. There is no compulsion to be with a specific special other; this compulsion is a necessary part of love. No one in her life is particularly special. She does get pleasure from affection and from babies. Unfortunately, her son at age seven is too old to be a source of pleasure and has been discarded. Her relationships are all about power and control. She uses both sex and money as tools for power and control. She doesn’t spend money on her children because this is caretaking. She instead spends money on men as a way of asserting power and control.
This case illustrates the many factors that create sociopathy. Poverty may have been an issue in this family. There is clearly a genetic, temperamental risk here. My student’s father was also a sociopath, and my student’s sister had all the temperamental traits at risk children have. The cultural practice of not showing warmth or affection greatly increases risk for some but not all children. My student asked me if I thought the molestation caused her sister’s problems. I think the molestation may have contributed to the sex addiction. My student asked me if there is any hope for her sister. I said that her sister would have to admit her sex addiction and her destructive patterns of behavior and work on change. My student replied, “She lies too much for that.”
You might be wondering about my student. Is she normal? She has the same genetics, the same mother and also was molested! My student illustrates the workings of the inner triangle. The inner triangle is ability to love, impulse control and moral reasoning. Marisol has had two long-term loving relationships with men. She also has a 10-year-old daughter whom she is very devoted to and cares for. So, unlike her sister, Marisol has ability to love. Marisol does have issues with impulse control. She has been arrested for fighting and states, “I have a very bad temper…I just explode”¦ I have had to train myself not to do that”¦I don’t want to explode in front of my daughter.” By her own statements, Marisol demonstrates her moral reasoning ability. Impulse control can improve when a person is motivated to try. Love and morals provide this motivation. My student also has a desire to better herself. She is getting a bachelor’s degree because she wants to achieve and have a career her daughter will be proud of. She hopes her daughter’s life will be better and easier than hers has been.
Thank you for sharing your story. Parents who do care should need to be aware of the trauma caused by a sociopathic sibling. There should be a zero tolerance policy regarding sibling abuse. When parenting experts say that parents should not insert themselves into a sibling conflict, they are not talking about a pathological situation where one of the siblings is sociopathic.
Liane, you are definitely right about the inserting yourself into a sibling situation when one is a Psychopath, the problem is KNOWING what is going on…when my kids were little since there was only 17 months between them, and the younger one “caught” up quickly in size etc. by the time they were 6-7 or so there was a fair amount of sibling scrapping going on. Because we had temporaarily moved into a smaller house while waiting a new and larger home being completed, due to the smaller size of the house, I could over hear more of their interactions, I caught on to the amount of scrapping going on, and realied that my P-son was “provoking” his brother unmercifully (the ADHD one) and took action. It stopped the apparent squabbles by telling them that I didn’t care who took the first swing, that they would both be punished for any fighting between them. My non-P son says that they actually cooperated more after that and there were less problems between them until puberty of my P-son.
In situations where there is multiple Ps in a family, and general dysfunction like the above described family, it is amazing to me that anyone can come out of that situation with a conscience and a caring spirit, but I have seen it before. One particularly horrible family situation where 2 out of the 5 kids came out wonderful people with a P mother who reminds me of a sow that eats her own pigs as they are born, and a chaotic lifestyle with a new “daddy” every few months, great physical violence against the children, etc. One child was profoundly retarded, but looked “normal” and the mother would have her dancing naked at “men’s clubs” and even sold her to several men as a “wife” until they could no longer give money to the mother, in which case she would convince her daughter to leave the men and come “home.”
I know both of the “nice” chiildren very well, and am still amazed that ANYONE could endure this kind of childhood and still have a heart, a conscience, and a soul when they grew up in such pain, misery and chaos. Two of the children in that family are 24-carat-gold-plated Ps just like mommie-dearest. What makes the difference? The environment is pretty close to the same and the genes are close as well, but maybe just enough difference in the genes and environment to make a difference. One of the two “normal” children left home at 13 on her own, and the other at 16, driven off by the violence.
Their lives are a vast improvement over their P siblings, and they are both married in long-term relationships that are healthy, after a false start by each of marrying someone that was a P as well at a young age. But both of them have literally pulled themselves up by their bootstraps emotionally, and financially, and are “successful” human beings with good hearts!
I look at my own two biological sons, one is a Psychopath of extreme violence, and the other a good man. I wish I KNEW what made the difference in the two men. (shaking my head here) but I can’t find much difference in the environment that they grew up in. I can only see that there must be some genetic quirk that the probably multiple genetic differences had something to do with it, just like they are not “identical” in facial features or eye color, something in their genetic make up tripped the trigger one way or the other.
I had a cow once that had 10 calves by 4 different bulls, and she was a KICKER, and 9 of her 10 calves would kick you just for the heck of it…the 10th calf and last calf, never tried to kick. I don’t know what genes make a bovine tend to be a kicker, but whatever it was, her calves with that one exception had it.
I’ve seen other behavioral things in animals even of the same breed that seemed to be passed from cow to calf, including the tendency to be alpha to other cattle, more aggressive, or less aggressive in SPECIFIC WAYS. Though in cattle there are some LEARNED aggressions, the behavior seems to be static even if the baby is not raised by the mother, but bottle raised instead.
Nature vs nurture again…but I agree with Liane, an aggressive sibbling should not be allowed to abuse other sibs. When there is no nurturing parent though (as there didn’t seem to be in the above situation) that becomes a really bad problem.
Dear Free,
It is so sad when a child is not protected from any kind of abuse, but especially sexual abuse from a parent or other relative….who should be protecting you themselves. I am sorry that this happened to you, and it does have an effect on your feelings and concepts, especially of safety.
I think bringing it out into the open, into the light of truth, and working through this trauma is important. The way you were abused by your sister, your grandfather, etc. and not protected by your mother is bound to I would think have had profound effects on your views of the world.
But thank God that you have now come to a healing place, where you can nurture yourself. I am also so glad that you are NC with your sister. I think your friend is right, it doesn’t matter what our BLOOD RELATIONSHIP is with someone, if they are EVIL, then we don’t need them in our lives. I had always thought that it was “family no matter what” but I have finally at age 60+ realized that it is PEACE FIRST, LOVE FIRST, KINDNESS FIRST, and that it doesn’t matter what the blood relationship is, if the person is toxic they are not needed in my life. If you wouldn’t put up with toxic behavior from someone outside your family, why should you put up with it from a blood relative who SHOULD be more loving?
You deserve so much more than what you sister is, or your X, we can’t go back and fix the past, but we can make the future better! ((((hugs))))))
Free, our experiences are, if not on an outward level, very similar in terms of emotional tolls. Abuse by a family member, with the complicity of those who were supposed to be caring for us, leaves such devastation.
For whatever it’s worth, I don’t think what happened with your grandfather would change how your sister was to you. She was how she was because that is who she is .
We have to deal with what happened to us and process it in order to heal. I know that this initial wounding in childhood still colors how I feel and react about nearly everything, but especially close relationships. In some ways, it made me a much better person. In others, though, it left scars.
Free, What an incredible cycle of abuse you have suffered, and yet how beautifully your courage and positive loving nature shines through. It continues to amaze me, how many victims of P’s that post on this sight are able to be hopeful and loving towards others, inspite of their own devestating brushes with “the other side”, the P/S/N’s.
It seems to me the hardest part of finding balance is the tension between chosing to be open and loving and trusting towards others while also protecting ourselves from those who cannot be loved or trusted. And perhaps, coming from disordered families, we chose to be open and loving and honest, we chose to be NOT LIKE THEM in order to move on. But until we have been taught the second part, the part about protecting ourselves from further harm we remain vulnerable. I haven’t mastered the second part yet, but I am determined to do so.
My mother was a foster child in war torn Europe, and sufferred fourteen different households and the constant threat of actual starvation. Altho I hated her during my teens, and she was abusive, when I got older I used to say, “it amazes me that she did not become a phsycopath”, she gave us better than what she endured, and in parenting my daughter I tried to give better again, and now my daughter too struggles to do less damage than what I did to her.
But we still haven’t broken the CYCLE. My daughter is struggling to seperate from the father of her kids, who it turns out is a classic P/S/N. Even with a heroic struggle to do better for her children, she stumbled upon the choice of an N for a partner.
Right now we are both healing together and learning so much from and about each other. Even tho’ we were communicating during our relationships with the Bad Man, it is only now that we are seeing the eerie similaties in the abuse we tolerated. Both of us invested a huge amount in “making it work”. But both of us were also in denial about the fact that we were being abused.
This is perhaps the new power we have, to SEE the abuse, or the red flags when they appear and to protect ourselves. To be aware if we are giving in to someone who tries to dominate and control and to protect ourselves. Maybe that is one more item for the list
I love and approve of myself
I am willing to change
I can make my life better
I can be loved
I can be loving
I can protect myself, by doing all of the above.
Wow! Free!
How life-life affirming that was. It just seems sometimes that God sends us just what we need just when we need it right out of “nowhere.”
The projection we get from our family–like your mom telling you that you were just like your dad (that she hated) and you trying to be so “good” to show her you weren’t. These things can set us up to allow abuse later by others.
Finding out the “whys” of why we allowed ourselves to be abused is definitely, I think, at least part of how we BREAK THE CYCLE. Especially for those of us that have had a series of Ps in our lives in various roles.
In a way it was almost like a “script” that I was trying to live out, to live up to this fantasy of what “life should be”. A script written by someone else.
Oxdrover. How that bit about our mothers resonated with me. My mother said exactly that to me and I used to clean the whole house as a child to win her approval. I constantly used to think about the script, the life that I envied that someone else had and how I found it hard to accept the life that I have been dealt. Perhaps as we get older and as an aid of what we have learnt off the back of the experiences with Ps/N/Ss etc, that we learn to really accept ourselves for who we are and this transistion comes in many disguises.
Dr Eric Berne, explains in his book “Games People Play” and other books about the “games” and the “scripts” that we learn from our parents who are “gods” to us when we are little, and their word is from “tablets of stone” come down from the mountain…we accept these “pronouncements” as “carved in stone” and the TRUTH when they are nothing but our parent’s projections on to us of attributes that for whatever reason they do so. But we, as small children, having no real idea of what is true or what is false, accept these and try to live up to (or down to) these pronouncements.
I remember vividly being told as a fairly small child that I was “lazy” (that was a really “bad” thing in our family) because I didn’t want to go work in the family vegetable garden. I think all my life my “work-a-holism” has been trying to prove this “pronouncement” was WRONG.
I am sure there are also other “pronouncements” about my CHARACTER that I am not so consciously aware of that, but they still effect me today.
The “happy respectable family” script that I was handed as a child and expected to live up to, even though the REALITY was that my mom’s brother was a MONSTER, etc. and that the reality of the “happy family” script was that we had to PRETEND IT WAS TRUE IN PUBLIC. We had to cover up any public displays of anything that was not “happy or respectable” and if it wasn’t possible to cover it up or hide it, we then went to “Plan B” which was to pretend we didn’t see or know it…pretend it didn’t exist.
Looking back now, I realize that my childhood centered mostly around this “script” and how to learn how to live it, what role to play, what lines to say, etc. If I stepped outside of this script, I was punished in some way.
I can apply Aloha’s “Informed denial” in so many aspects. It is no wonder that we don’t want to open this “can of worms”–on in my case at least this “can of snakes” and take a look at what is REALLY going on in the situation—or to admit that we have “played along with” this “Informed denial” even when we were INFORMED, and we “knew better” we KNEW it wasn’t right, and I think that is where the “beating ourselves up” comes in, in that I at least KNEW IT WAS WRONG, and still couldn’t and wouldn’t face the truth enough to break out of the cycle. Every time the “punishment” kicked in because I read different lines, I never had the back bone, strength, and fortitude to stand up for very long, but took back my script and started reading the lines for my “role” in this family play.
Sheesh! I’m 61 years old for goodness sakes—and how long have I been trying to twist “reality” to fit the twisted plot of this script.? How much effort did it take on my part to FOOL MYSELF, or partly fool myself, because I don’t think I ever entirely fooled my self, I just ignored ME when I started to see reason, and kicked myself until I quit speaking the truth, it got to the point that they didn’t have to punish me any more when I “colored outside the lines” I PUNISHED MYSELF for any alteration in the lines I was supposed to read.
I know I can’t rewrite the lines they want to say, but I don’t have to participate in the deceptions any more. As long as I am willing to FACE THE TRUTH, however ugly it is, accept myself–both the positive and the negative–and work on improving MY OWN LIFE, and living LIFE, not reading lines from a script someone else wrote…I will be a much more authentic human being rather than a shell of one.
I don’t have to work 24/7-365 to prove I am not lazy just because one day when I was 10 or 11 years old I didn’t want to go work in the garden and hoe instead of play; and I don’t have to let someone abuse me or violate reasonable boundaries because I realize it is NOT a sin to “hurt someone’s feelings” because you won’t allow them to use/abuse you.
HOW LIBERATING THAT IS! “Informed ACCEPTENCE instead of Informed DENIAL” (Thanks Aloha, that was a great one!)
In my morning “coffee drinking and ruminating” time this morning I have been thinking more and more about the script that I was trying to play out…makes a lot of sense about a lot of things, that I kept trying to twist reality to make it fit the “plot” of the script.
In a way it is almost hilarious—the twists of reality to fit the plot–using all the “stage props” of denial, camouflage, fake expressions, etc. sacking an actor who wanted to improvise lines or alter the plot, who wouldn’t take “direction”—I’m sitting here right now looking at my life as this multi-generational “stage play” that started out I think as a farce and has ended as a Greek Tragedy, complete with a Trojan Horse-P.
Free, that was beautiful. It’s eerie how much it echoes my feelings since childhood. I wonder if abuse makes us consider at a much younger age than people raised in more safe environments these matters of our “scripts” and what our souls experience.
To me, I think it is a matter of my trying to process the abuse and put it in a livable context, even as a child. You know, no experience is without its own value — that kind of idea? Since I’d suffered very young, I thought of things much less age-appropriate and more profound than most peers, and returned over and over to the notion of what kind of person is forged from suffering.
An empath is forged from suffering — but, from my limited understanding, so is a psychopath or narcissist, sometimes!
Isn’t that just a terrible and intense paradox – that the same sorts of terrible experiences shared create two different types of people on opposite ends of the emotional spectrum?
The other night, while trying to sleep, I began to realize that we really only have two choices of what to do with extremely painful experience: give it up to God and place it among that which strengthens our endurance and increases our awareness of others’ suffering, or turn to the dark side and become what we witnessed.
And I really did feel, at that moment, the angels rooting for me to go back to who I was before these negative experiences, to heal and love that innocent young girl.
I do not wish to become bitter or evil. I do not wish to allow fear to rule my heart or to damage me, rather than heal. Is it really possible just through changing the script? Each day I become increasingly aware that some sort of therapy might really be necessary to get to the blocked memories I have from childhood and integrate them.
Is that something you did and experienced? Any ideas as to what kind of therapist to find?