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.
Blogger7165,
I agree that it is not compulsory to love, but I do think that consciousy or unconsciously we all seek the approval of our parents especially if that parent is very manipulative as a P, S or N parent is. We learn everything from them if we grow up with them, different if you live apart from them I suppose.
moraira43: I truly believe sociopathy is hereditary. My ex-S’s father was also a sociopath. A carbon copy.
my S has just tried to steal money from our 14 year old daughter, when she said no he became very aggressive and told her she is brainwashed by me. He said from this day they are through and that is because she is a sociopath.
She was getting money out at the cash point, he told her to go in the store to get her things and he would get the cash out, she refused and he took half the money off her anyway. It wasnt a lot as she doesnt have much but that isnt the point how low can you go.
He has since phoned me to put his side and says he was only holding on to it for safe keeping, a likely story when he cleared my bank account last month, now I am keeping an eye on it she is his next option.
BloggerT, I totally agree with you, and am NC with my mother and was NC with my biological father for the 40+ years before his death.
I have had people tell me “you can’t just not see your MOTHER”—yes I CAN just NOT SEE my mother. My mother is TOXIC. It is ONLY since I quit contact with her that I have been able to heal.
Some religious leaders say “Honor they mother and father” and that means (according to them) accepting their abuse. NO, I “honor” my parents (both of who are/were TOXIC) by becoming the kind of person who WOULD BRING HONOR TO A PARENT. I Honor them by being a good and honorable person.
The Bible tells children to “obey your parents in the Lord” It does not say OBEY your parents NO MATTER WHAT THEY TELL YOU TO DO.
My mother is manipulative, she is a toxic enabler, she is a liar, and she has no remorse for the horrible pain and devaluation and discarding she did to me, but now that the rest of her Ps have been arrested, she wants to “let’s just pretend none of this ever happened” and me to go back to being at her beck and call. NOT GONNA HAPPEN.
I am working on getting the bitterness out of my heart toward her for what she did to me, but that doens’t mean I will ever trust her or want to have a “relationship’ with her. I no longer accept her definition of “forgiveness” (meaning I will pretend she hever hurt me, never lied, etc) I will no longer trust her, and the last time I spoke to her I told her that. She was shocked and asked me “Why would you never trust me?” I said “Because you are a liar” She looked shocked again and started to ask me what lie she ever told me. So I told her the lie, and she again was going to deny it, and so I asked her, “would you like to call my son C and ask him if you lied or not?” So her response to that was “You mean YOU never lied to me?” I answered her, “Yes, I did lie to you, when I was 15, and that was 46 years ago.”
Those were the last words she and I spoke, the last words we will speak.
Moraira,
It sounds like you mother was either a narcissist or a psychopath herself, and being the child of a psychopath and a dysfunctional enabler myself, I can tell you, it makes life difficult for us because we are “trained” to accept bad behavior as either our fault, or as “normal.”
Your story about going on holiday with one pair of pants, and your mother ignoring your smell, and your embarassment etc. is truly heart breaking. That is abuse by neglect if ever I heard it. I am glad that your father was a caring man, though, and mitigated somewhat your mother’s neglect.
My step father was a wonderful man and somewhat kept my mother in check so I did have some nurturing, but not from her. I also had a great deal of nurturing from my grandparents and was the only grandchild for 10 yrs so was the “bell sheep” there.
I think the age at which we suffer neglect or abuse (our place in the line of sibs) has an effect on us too. I was an only child and only children have a different response than say the middle or the youngest child. ONly children are more like the older child in a set of sibs I think. Each place though, has it’s own cross to bear.
The thing that we have to do now, is to move on from not only the parental abuse or neglect, which left us vulnerable to the Ps, but to heal from it all. I have found as I have healed from the Ps, the “old issues” of childhood things rise to the surface, and until they do and until you resolve them, you can’t fully heal from the Ps.
Not that we can “blame” our parents for everything bad that happened to us, it still had an effect on the way we functioned. Now we can RE-parent OURSELVES and make good decisions for ourselves, and no longer try to please the unpleaseable parent. WE can measure ourselves by OUR own yard stick or ruler, rather than by theirs or the P’s.
Our backgrounds do all seem remarkably similar, it cant be a coincidence. I have come to a place with my mother where it is just better to leave things, she only has memories of being a good mother, a counsellor once said to me that I was letting her off and carrying the burden but it is just easier that way. She still can be totally out of order though, she had one of her tantrums when we were staying at her house on holiday, I wasnt going to put up with the abuse so left and got an apartment for the rest of the stay. She blamed me to the rest of the family and made up a lot of stories, she hates S and said he was the cause of the confrontation to everyone but he hadnt been there when it started. She shouted horrible abuse in front of my daughter, it brought back forgotten memories, she wanted S dead and it would happen within a year etc.
After a few days I felt guilty so I contacted her and agreed that she could see her grandaughter for the afternoon before we left. I thought stupidly that they would make the most of it by swimming in the pool etc. I had forgotten how low she can be, what happended was that she took my daughter into the bedroom where she had laid out all my childhood photographs, she started reminiscing about how wonderful it had been and it would never be the same again because of S. She proceeded to weep and was comforted by my daughter, she told my daughter that it was probably the last time she would ever be able to see her because I wouldnt allow her to go again, it brought back memories to me of being the confidant for all her affairs. I was the one she chose to tell everything to, my sisters were unaware. When I picked my daughter up she was traumatised and wouldnt speak to me as she believed i was stopping her ever seeing her grandma again. I was furious but still not able to confront my mother, I have still not spoken to her about it or anything that happened in my childhood. I thought I had moved on but writing this I realise that it is still there, i need to protect my daughter
Dear Moraira,
Yes, when we start to heal and disengage from the Ps it brings out lots of things from our childhoods and other times that we have “glossed over” and “forgotten”—I guess in order to “keep the relationship intact”—but WHY keep a relationship like that “intact?” DUH! It never crossed my mind that I had ANY options except to make the best I could of the relationship as it was—abusive—I know my mother at 79, almost 80, is NOT going to change, but I do NOT HAVE TO PLAY HER GAMES. Playing her games is PAINFUL TO ME. I refuse to play any more, so the ONLY option open to me is to disengage from the relationship completely. My mother devalued me completely and discarded me in favor of my P-DIL and the Trojan Horse P and my P son. She “traded me” if you will for three Ps, and shortly thereafter the three discarded and abused her–SUPRISE!!!!! Yet, she still “blames” me for what THEY did, even though on my knees crying hysterically I BEGGED her to protect herself from them. She looked at me like I was a pile of cat crap and sneered at me. I cannot PRETEND any longer that she has the least concern for me or my welfare, or the least remorse for devaluing and discarding me—until she lost her “subservient Ps” then she needed/wanted me back because now she has NO ONE. She has devalued and discarded my adopted son D because “he isn’t blood” and her only blood grandson,, my son C feels about her like I do. He keeps limited contact, but he does NOT TRUST HER EITHER.
I know that she thinks that we will “punish” her for a while with NC but she feels that if she just hangs on long enough that we will come to heel and “forgive her”—it isn’t about forgiveness (getting teh bitterness out of my heart–I’m working on that) but it is about TRUST and LOVE, and you cannot truly love someone you can’t trust. Realizing that she does NOT, cannot, love me, and that she would and could lie to me, devalue me, and discard me. I put up with the devaluing for years and when she discarded me in favor of the Ps, that was THE END.
Your mother making you the “confidant” for her affairs is ABUSE, Moraira, of the worst emotional sort. Your sisters being spared that probably makes them more tolearant of mommie dearest, but I can see how it would set you up for being abused yourself by your S/P H.
My psychiatrist, who is also a former work mate, and friend, has an N mother, so she “gets it” about the Ns and the Ps. That has helped a great deal.
I feel in some ways like I am going through adolsescence at age 61! I think I might actually be doing some of the “work” I should have done separating from my mother and family of Origin (FOO) back then that I didn’t do. But that is okay, as “better late than never.” LOL
Hi Ox and Moraira, There has to be some connection with genetics. I also agree with you Ox that a environment may play a part.
Ox: My ex S is one of those guys with 7 children from 5 different women. He was not a presence in the lives of any of the children except for the last 2. And even 1 of those he only sees a few times a year. He grew up not knowing his father because his dad also was a S. His dad has 8 kids out there from perhaps 5 or 6 or 7 different women. My ex grew up in the worse neighborhoods you could imagine…the hood in Puerto Rico, Camden, NJ, and wound up in Jersey City until the mom of the last 2 kids kicked him out 6 years ago.
When he was only 15 years old, a gang member picked on him. His uncle drove him to the street where the gang was. He demanded he get out of the car and beat the S** out of the kid. He didn’t want to go but his Uncle pushed him..and pushed him. He swung, and swung. He described how he felt the adrenaline, fury he never felt before. He went crazy on the kid. The kid got beat. Then the next gang member stepped up. He fought him too, and the next. I believe it was at that point in his life, he became an angry f’d up person. His mom couldn’t control him. He left home when he was around 16 and had his first kid around that time. Thus the pattern begins.
I wonder. If my ex-S had a REAL MAN for a role model, would he have taken the wrong path in life? I know my ex-S would NEVER make his son beat up someone. He does not want his 12 year old son to be like him…although I do see is son manipulating and lying already. AND the son has seen how the dad jumps from woman to woman’s house to live for free. AND sees how the dad abuses women. One time the ex and I were fighting and my ex spit in my face. I looked at the boy and said, “dont EVER grow up to be like your father.” DONT EVER spit in a woman’s face. When his dad would lie to me I would say to the boy, “do you think it’s nice that your father lies to me?” “He replied, “no.” One time the boy was in tears because the dad was on the phone verbally assaulting his mother. I stopped that one too. I looked at the crying little boy and told him try not to get upset. Your dad is just not right. I turned right around to the S and said, “That’s his mother! No matter WHAT you think of her, she is still his mother. And he loves his mother! Never do that again!” I hope and pray this kid makes it.
One thing positive though, my ex is taking the boy to church on Sundays and brought him his own bible. Also, he’s back on track with school. He failed the 4th grade 2 times so we took him in my home last school year and he finished with A’s & B’s. He may skip ahead a school year if he does that good again this year. When he was living at the mom’s, he maniuplated and lied to her constantly. He wouldn’t go to school faking he was sick. He wouldn’t do his homework because he kept telling her he didn’t have any. He tried to pull that crap on us the first few months and then realized he was not getting away with it. We also helped him with his homework and gave rewards for doing good. I also gave him an allowance for chores. Do you think there is hope for him?
I have always being told that I need to leave things alone by my sisters, everything is brushed under the carpet. they dont want to discuss it, happier just to go along with her and keep her happy with presents and praise. I sometimes think they dont have any understanding and dont think about things as deeply as I do, maybe thats my downfall, I dont know why I was chosen as the confidant, i was the 3rd child, i suppose I was young enough to mould when the affairs started. i was quiet and less confident. I suppose the perfect victim. Its weird that I dont feel malice towards her but I yearn for real affection. Apparently I was what she called very clingy, she used to laugh about it with her friends, she told me recently when I was on stage doing irish dancing when i was about 10 years old she was laughing her head off at my bony legs. I remember the performance and I had been so proud that my mum had attended because she would normally says she was too busy. It cut me to the quick even as an adult that it was a joke to her and I grieved for the child.
Oops, I think my post went off into cyberspace.
Moraira,
We have learned that facing truth hurts, and your sisters have chosen to “pretend” things are okay in order to keep from facing a painful truth. “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” That is a qyote from an article on here and is SO TRUE.
Not facing truth is not as acutely painful as facing unhappy truths, but it is a CHRONIC pain that never goes away to pretend that all is well when it isn’t. Facing the truth is acute pain, and I have faced some very acutely painful truths in the past year or two. But for the first time the chronic pain level is GONE, and the acute pain is subsiding, so all in all, I am better off now than I have been in my entire life as far as the level of pain is concerned.
I realize that I do NOT have to have these painful relationships in my life. I HAVE A CHOICE and I choose to NOT associate with people who do not love me—no matter who they are. I will not let others guilt me into it either.
The old “if you love me you will let mom abuse you, because it will make me unhappy if you don’t let mom abuse you”
My mom used that to get me to have Christmas and other holdiays with her brother “Uncle Monster”—for years, to the point that I would go out of state to have the holidays with friends instead of stay home. To this day I don’tlike Christmas because of that crap she used on me. “Have holidays with uncle monster or I will cry and you will feel guilty.” CRAPPOLA I do not fall for that black mail any more.
I can understand you grieving for the child you were, because you were not nurtured as you should have been and even the things you thought she did to nurture and please you were FAKE. Just because your sisters can’t or won’t face the truth doesn’t mean that your truth is not valid. Accepting MY truth as valid was another thing I had problems with.
If I don’t validate myself, who will? I have to be able to validate my own truth. My own perception. It may not be the same as yours but that doesn’t make it less valid.
I’m glad you came here Moraira, and glad that you are working through these things. I promise you that in the end you will be SO GLAD that you have faced the truth, even painful truths, and that you and your daughter can get through this thing and get the Ps out of your life and your souls.
I may be 60 and most of my life is over, but the rest of it, whether it is 1 day or 40 more years will be lived in internal PEACE and happiness and no more Ps in my life.
Dear Iwonder,
The boy has a dysfunctional role model, and a chaotic life style, so it is an up hill climb for him to turn out to be anything except like his father. There is always a chance, but he has the “double whammy” –bad genes and a chaotic lifestyle so there’s no way to predict what will happen to him. Even if he didn’t get the genes, he has the lifestyle and role model of a P.
It is a shame that is what happens to the children of these people and why so long people thought it was ALL environmental until some real research started to be done on genetics. I have always thought genetics played a big part in it, but environmental has some impact as well.
I know I must have the P-genes, or at least some of them, or I coldn’t have passed them on to my P-son, but how the are expressed in me (if they are) I don’t know because no one can truly know what it is like inside someone else’s head.
Not everyone perceives an event the same, or reacts to the same event the same way emotionally. We try to convey to others how we feel and think, but language is a poor conductor of emotions, just like wood is a poor conductor of electricity. There is proof now that genes play a big part in our over all personalities, and in our status and desire for control or submission. So those genes do play a lot in our lives and the decisions and actons we make. They make some impact on how we “turn out.”
I know you can take an animal that is born to be alpha and kick it enough times that you can make it subservient, and I know that you can encourage an animal that is born submissive and make it somewhat more aggressive, and you can semi-tame some wild animals, but genes do play a big role. That is why some breeds of dogs are aggressive and some not, though there IS some variation in individuals within the group, but as a group the Spanish fighting bulls are much more aggressive than other breeds of cattle, for example.
I culled my herd of cattle for aggression and any aggressive animal was sent to slaughter. Period. My herd of cattle was exceptionally gentle. I started with a gentle breed and over the years culled out any animal that was aggressive or showed excessive fright of humans. One cow I had, one of the first cows I bought, was fine herself, but ALL of her ten calves except the last one were KICKERS. They would nail you good, I never kept any of these calves. I do still have her last calf which is NOT a kicker, as one of the three “pet cows” that I kept just for family meat and because I like to look at them and pet them.
I hope and pray for the boy’s sake that he can overcome both his genetic predisposition and his terrible environment, but it will be an uphill battle for the boy.