Sociopathy is a disorder that doesn’t afflict a person as much as it does his/her family! Since the disorder is also partly genetic it afflicts the family for generations. This week I have heard many amazing and tragic stories and I would like to share a few of them with you. These stories are about the children of sociopaths.
I am working on a project to document symptoms of psychopathy in accused and convicted con artists. As part of this project I am interviewing the family members of con artists. That is how I became acquainted with the 17 year old daughter of a convicted con artist. She wrote me a nice note saying that if I wanted to know about her father, I should study conduct disorder (CD), because she discovered through her own reading that her father has that disorder. She wanted to know if I had heard of it.
This teenager did what many of you have done. She looked up symptoms of different mental disorders and found CD, she felt it described her father very well. CD is the diagnosis given to children who appear to be sociopaths. At 17, the girl figured out for herself that her father is a sociopath.
Even though this teenager is able to attach a label to her father’s disordered behavior, she is still coming to grips with what the diagnosis means. She is still trying to understand why and how from prison, her father was able to get a “girlfriend” to transfer money out of her mother’s bank account to his prison account so he could buy junk food at the prison store.
Another girl who grew up under the shadow of a sociopath is now nearly 30. She described very eloquently what it feels like to be confused about reality because your custodial parent lied to you every day about everything and alienated you from your mother. She is hoping for a way to heal and to feel she has a place in this world.
I also spoke to a grandma who is raising 3 boys in 3rd and 4th grade, her grandsons. She married a man many years ago who fathered two children with her before abandoning her. In spite of doing her best as a single mom, both of her children became sociopaths and were unable to parent. She is working very hard to provide for the three kids. Her task is made all the more difficult when the children visit with their sociopathic parents. She tried to keep visits limited to supervised visits, but was unsuccessful because the sociopaths “conned the court.” She believes one of the boys was just molested by his mother during unsupervised visitation. She can’t understand why the courts keep putting the children in harm’s way.
Tonight two students gave presentations in the University Child Development class I teach. The first student works for an agency that links female offenders with services to help them get stable rather than reoffend. She said that 75% of the women have young children and that many witnessed the criminal arrest of their mothers. Many also are abused when placed in the foster care system after mom goes to prison.
The second student told her own story. Her niece came to live with her many years ago at age 15 when she was orphaned due to her mother being killed in a car accident. Her niece had two children by two different men one year apart beginning at age 17. She has been very unstable with multiple arrests, is a sociopath and has been unable to care for the boys who are now 13 and 14. My student initially got custody of the youngest boy when he was small, but lost it to the child’s biologic father who is also a sociopath. She believes the father wanted his son because with the child in tow he had access to the homeless shelters for families. At the shelters there were plenty of women for him to pursue.
To make a long story short, my student got full custody of the boys when they were 7 and 8. Unfortunately much damage was already done as both children are emotionally disturbed. One boy has issues with violent behavior, animal cruelty and fire setting. He has been in residential placement for the last 2 years.
What point am I trying to make? Look at all the suffering and ruined potential sociopathic parents cause. On Friday 9/26/2008, 12 noon EST, Robin Hoffman author of I Take Thee, and survivor of a relationship with a sociopath, will be interviewing me on her radio show. We will speak about the needs of the children of sociopaths. To listen visit http://www.rcrn.info/ . You can also call in to ask a question or share your story 303 747-5121, show ID 226305.
ADDENDUMIf you didn’t hear the show you can still listen to it. It can be found in the archives 9/26 see http://www.realcoachingradio.com/node/24Thank you all for commenting and supporting each other. Perhaps what we need is a protective parent’s organization. I have collected literature about sociopaths as parents. There isn’t much. If you would like my file please feel free to write.
Dearest moraira43: The stress and pain is all part of the healing process. You are at the beginning of your journey for a better quality, more loving life. We all wish the best for you and your daughter and know how confusing and gut wrenching this part of the scenario causes in your life. You will get stronger every day as you begin this healing. Trust us, we all know what you and your daughter are living through right now and we are all hear for you. Who ever is on-line when you blog in, write, they will write back to you and help you, like we all helped each other. All our stories are our own, but they are all the same.
Peace to both your hearts and souls during this transition and pray for him so that he can find his way to his own healing process.
Dear Moraira,
My husband was killed in a plane crash in July 04, and I was present on the ground and my son D was also in the plane and two friends, all three seriously burned, and my husband was burned over 95 % of his body, so I ended up with PTSD and had to retire, I just wasn’t able to keep it together enough to be SAFE at work. Yea, I know, stress at work and stress at home.
I am a basicly healthy person and since the plane crash I have had several SERIOUS infections, hospitalizations, etc etc. and the FATIGUE last summer so bad I couldn’t walk 10 feet without being SOB and heart racing over 100 BPM. I finally realized I was running fever daily and went to the doctor in September, and got treated but the fatigue lasted months and months afterwards. They tested everything but my hair follicles, but they said now I am as healthy as a horse, and except for the usual aches and paiins and grumbles for being 60, I can’t complain except I have no short term memory to speak of now (which had never been a problem before the crash)
I’m improved over all, mentally, emotionally and physically, over the past year or so after the worst of the stress decreased.
You just can’t know how PEACEFUL it is to NOT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE PS AND WHAT THEY ARE UP TO NOW.
I also NC’d my enabling mother as well, and that was the final load off my back. I don’t think I would have ever recovered in any way if I had not gone NC with her as well. She lives just on the other side of the same farm I live on, but as far as I am concerned, she might as well live on the dark side of the moon.
IN the past 6 months or so I am finding peace, PEACE. My Goodness how wonderful it feels. I’m learning to set boundaries with people “close” to me which has always been a problem for me. That was as scary as learning to sky dive and was very difficult for me to do, setting those boundaries, but I’ve got my training wheels off and am peddling right along on that score so far now. There was just a lot of stuff to learn and practice.
Being KIND to myself was the biggest thing. I was so hard on myself, like a slave driver, constantly pushing myself to be better, do more, fix everyone, etc. beating myself up when I couldn’t be perfect. Well, I’m realizing that I don’t have to be perfect to love myself. I can make mistakes and I’m still okay.
From your posts you sound like you have pretty well made up your mind about getting away from him, and if that’s the case it will make it easier, but it will still be difficult. The more resolved you are though, the less back and forth, two and frow you will flop and that will help decrease the stress too.
PS–it is interesting to me that there are many health and mental health care professionals here that are former victims too.
Thankyou to wini and oxdrover for your kind comments they mean a lot to me
I think that health care professionals tend to be a caring bunch, maybe we are programmed to ‘save’ people and that carries on into our private life, personally I have no malice towards people and try to see the good. I suppose when I was younger and got into this relationship I thought everyone was like that I didnt consider that someone close would be deceitful, even now I want to believe that people aren’t bad. i suppose I am idealistic.
Oxdrover Its interesting that your symptoms were the same as mine, I had a heart rate of 130. and a low grade fever followed by chronic fatigue. I’m hopeful I will be well again.
You seem to have been through the ringer over the last few years and you seem a strong person. I find some of the stories on this blog very inspiring. I think this site is very therapeutic and it has helped me to see things more clearly. At the moment I feel that I am taking a lot from you all but not giving much back, in time I’m sure I will hopefully be able to help others in the same situation when I am in that peaceful place. It is strange for me to feel so nurtured as I am usually the care giver,
I totally “get” the bird analogy. I definitely agree that my exsociopath is a coo coo bird. He is totally coo coo!!! lol
Dear Moraira,
Caregiving is nurturing, and that is healthy. However, somtimes we (caregivers) let the care giving turn into “enableing” where we take over and do for someone what they SHOULD do for themselves. Then, we began to resent them for not doing what they should, and they resent us for being “controlling.”
Unfortunately, that is what my “life story” was in that I enabled others. My mother is a “toxic” enabler, and was grooming me to take over the family “role” as “enabler in chief” when she died, but when I declined to assume that role all hell broke loose.
I started to try to set boundaries and that only made the situation worse because those for whom I had “enabled” insisted that I keep on doing for them what they should have been doing for themselves.
Any time I said “no” to any request from anyone I felt tremendous guilt. The thing about the P-experience is that it makes us take a GOOD long and hard look at ourselves.
Not that we are “blaming the victim” in this case, because the Ps have NO RIGHT TO ABUSE US, but at the same time, becasue we ALLOWED them to continue to do it, we need to change our behavior as well.
We gave them the power to hurt us, (by loving them) but we can TAKE BACK OUR POWER.
The FRUSTRATION I experienced in trying to continue to “fix” the situation, along with the stress of losing my husband, losing my beloved step father 6 months later (I had cared for him the last 18 months of his life with cancer), had a brief “fling” with a psychopath 8 months (for 8 months) after my husband died, and stress upon stress. By the time I finally realized my life was in danger from my P-son and fled my home I was a FLAMING NUT CASE.
What I am hearing in your posts is that you may be “weak” from illness, and tired of all the crap, but that you have got your head about you. That is a GOOD THING.
Don’t feel like you can’t take all the “nurturing” you need from this blog, you feel free to take all you need, because I guarentee that you will be back here helping others before you know it. That’s what is so wonderful about this site is people come here just like me “a flaming nut case” and before you know it, you have “got it all in one sock” and are back here helping others.There are lots of sites about Ps and lots of blogs, but to me, and I ‘ve seen a bunch of them, this is the best, the sanest, and there is less “junk” on here, and absolutely no flaming. The information presented here is good information and the articles are superb.
Learn as much as you can absorb, and there are several books that are excellent too. Dr. Robert Hare’s “Without Conscience” and “The Sociopath next door” and “Sharks in Suits” are some that are good. One that I absolutely got a great deal of emotional support and nurturing from is Dr. Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” He wrote this after being in a Nazi death camp for years. It is the emotional diary of how he coped and found meaning from the suffering in the camps. How he felt and thought, and the spiritual quest to find meaning in that suffering.
To me, “spiritual meaning” is important to healing–I am a Christian, but to me it doesn’t matter if you pray to the North Pole, as long as there is something spiritual in your views, something above just being “biologically a mammal.”
To me, the Ps are Ps because there is NOTHING SPIRITUAL in their make up, nothing outside of themselves, nothing bigger or more important than their immediate needs and desires.
There is a scrap of poetry I read when I was a kid that has stuck to my mind.
A mother starved for her brood,
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
Jesus upon the rod,
The millions who,
Humble and nameless,
The stoney hard pathway trod,
Some call it consecration,
Others call it God.
Hi Moraira I have been reading your post. When you logged into LoveFraud – that was the beginning of your healing. This site and the places it will take you are your salvation. I would like to recommend a book you should read asap “Meaning from Madness” by Richard Skerritt and he has other helpful books as well. You will have too order it online and they are very affordable. Please read that book. And some of the LF phrases and Qutes that have helped me and stuck with me are “This is a Life Lesson _ Don’t Fail it” and “The Truth Will Set You Free – But First it Will Piss You Off” and give your self time – time – you will get there…….one day at a time….
Hi Henry,
You’re late tonight! Where ya been? We had great weather here today and I piddled around outside all day till my legs were TIRED. Got a lot done on just little odds and ends of projects. I’ve decided to name my “studio” the SOW’S EAR STUDIO, cause that was what that old trailer was when I started working on it, a sow’s ear! It’s still a ratty old trailer but I have it so cute and neat now (outside painted) new shed roof over it, and 3 rooms inside done and decorated, that it still isn’t a “silk purse” but it at least is a CUTE “sow’s ear” LOL
I think I missed my calling as an “interior decorator” —it is so much FUN to do things when you are not hurting! Not crying! and when there is no one to tell you how rotten and mean you are! It is amazing what a CHANGE OF ATTITUDE will do for how you see things.
BTW, I threatened to BOINK Kat with the skillet tonight if she doesn’t quit telling me how I am so much stronger than she is, ya da ya da! We’re all as strong as we THINK we are. Remember that little book we all used to read to our kids about “The Little Engine that Thoght he could?” and how he chugged up the mountain saying “I think I can, I think I can” and he DID it because he believed in himself.
We’ve all been told how we are not worthy, not good, etc. and now we need to THINK WE CAN and then WE CAN BECAUSE we think we can. We are as good as we think we are, and as strong as we think we are!
oxy design, interior and exterior have always been my passion, I should of followed my passion when I was young and I would of been the Nate Burkus of the 70’s – but being a decorater back then had that “gay’ stigma attached too it, so instead I worked in the oil patch and got married and had children “That was the best time of my life” being married – kid’s, funny how life play’s out. I need to figure out what it is that I want, before it will ever find me. I seem to be wanting something – but not sure if I can put a finger on it. The weather has been absolute perfect for me. i have been so busy with work. I hope to stay home the next 2 days ajust work on my stuff…so don’t call me to come help you… I need to paint my house -yuck…….yes Kat kinda remind’s me of me kinda hard on herself but she is on the right path and some day she will arrive. I bet she would be a ton of fun at our get together…she has made me smile and giggle many time’s – she still has her spirit…..
Dear Moraira,
I am sorry for the situation of you and your daughter, but I think you can also see this as a chance for her. She is a teenager, I presume, and she just starts to get to know the other half of mankind. If she can draw the right conclusions she will have THIS very important lesson at an age that helps her just in time to develop healthy reationships later in life. She will be able to see the red flags and she wont be so easily sucked into abuse by whoever. My father is a P and my mother is a S and I have learned just now at the age of 46 what they are and how to deal with it recovering from a relationship with a textbook-P (it had to be VERY obvious to get me the clue finally. It was my sister who made me look up “Psychopath” in Google in April 08). I have learned from infant on that I can be treated like s… and be glad and thankful for it because they all said it is manure. I was always very anxious with anybody and in the fog, setting no boundaries, and of course I am in the health care profession too ;-). I always wanted to have a family and children but I was too anxious to go for it because I had a very diffuse fear and certainly I did not want to have a relationship as my parents had. My father was also a big womanizer flirting in restaurants with women on the next table when he was out with the family, and it was all normal (no computers then). I was always very ashamed and felt it was “not right”. My mother did nothing but shouting at home, it had to be “in the family”. I had no clue at all what the reason behind could be. Now it is too late as my biological clock has stopped. I have very nice nieces and I am a godmother instead, and I am very happy with this situation right now. I had a phase of grief over this though some year ago.
I was on a long holiday the last three weeks and I read a very revealing book (unfortunately it is in German and has not been translated). It is from Fritz Riemann, “Basics of fear”. There are four basic fears in life, fear from being alone, fear from being too close, fear from change and fear from “always the same”. The former and the latter two are the opposite of each other, and on this continuum one has to find the balance in every situation. The P are the ones with the fear of being too close and therefore they push away the ones from the opposite. Unfortunately the opposites attract each other, because the lack of the quality of the opposite is felt instinctively. No boundaries meets strict boundaries, so it was with me and my Ex-P. And he was controlling, i.e. fear from change, whereas I was brought up by a very chaotic Italian mother but socialized by a very strict medical hierarchy so I presume I am “in the middle” of this scale. The book gave me much food for thought and helped me sort out where I am right now. I also learned that it is a lifelong continuing thing and that you have to define your position on this scales constantly. There is no “getting over with it”. The aim is to become a caring person that does not neglect the needs of her own, who is open for changement but keeps the good things of the past. Uff! But then: just do it. I wish you and your daughter all the best, my heart is with you. Libelle
Well, Henry, I’m still trying to figure out what I want to be when I “grow up”—got the “play house” 3/5 ths done inside, and done outside, so will take a break from the remodeling and do some artistic stuff pretty soon. It’s been so long since I’ve had a canvas out or done anything like that, since before my husband’s death.
I’ve been living back in the house now for about a week, and it is starting to seem like a “dream” about having been gone and not actually living in my house for 16 months. Even the dog and the parrot are adjusting to being here now. I went back to the RV today to clean and get the rest of the odds and ends of my stuff out and it didn’t seem like “home” there any more.
I’ve been looking around at my house, almost like I am seeing it for the first time or something, and it feels warm and comforting again, not scary at all. Of course this perfect weather when I can be outside is just wonderful too. I am “solar powered” I think and my spirits rise with getting outside in the sunshine.
Speaking of outside, wonder where Bev is? Wonder if she went back to Scotland? That would be so neat to be able to go to Scotland. I had planned a trip over seas this year and to come back through Scotland (I’ve never been there but always wanted to go) but with all the rising prices etc. I guess I can only go in my imagination now unless I win the lotto, and since we don’t have a lotto in my state, it isn’t likely I will “win”–LOL
Aloha hasn’t chimed in lately, and several others too.
Yep, Kat’s on the right track, just needed a little loving skillet therapy! Look what it did for you! LOL Speaking of that, I made a big pan of cornbread last night and a big pot of stew! Had left overs for supper tonight and was better than last night! ALL GONE! Well, I’m up too late, so I think I will turn in, and sleep late in the morning, then take the day off from work and just chill! Goo’nite