This semester I am teaching a course on personality and psychopathology to graduate students in counseling. I am very excited about this course and am considering making it available online to everyone. I sat down with a colleague this week and explained the content of the course. During that conversation the topic of gender differences in personality came up. My colleague said something like, “Yeh, we expect men to compete, sometimes act aggressively and to spread their seed, women are biologically preprogrammed to stay put and to nurture.”
I countered by saying , “While that formulation has some truth, we often fail to appreciate that females also have aggressive tendencies rooted in their biology.” For every social mammal there are two opposing tendencies- affiliation/affection and competition/dominance. The manner in which males and females compete and establish dominance may be different, but the drive for dominance is present in females as well as males. Furthermore, the drive for dominance can lead to violence and aggression in females. For example, while female chimpanzees readily affiliate and form groups to go and forage for food, they have to be on guard with respect to one another. Infanticide is not all that uncommon, female chimps will kill their friend’s babies. Scientists say this is their way of reducing the competition for food.
I explain all this to wake you up to the fact that antisocial and aggressive tendencies are part of being female. Females of social species also have to compete for limited resources (food, territory and mates) and sometimes that competition gets nasty. My hope is that eventually the human brain systems involving this competition and aggression will become vestigial organs kind of like the appendix. However for humans today, the brain motivational system that makes us want to compete and dominate is quite functional. It is this brain system that leads to antisocial behavior- behavior that harms others and so disrupts our social order.
Studies of antisocial behavior in women indicate that it has a strong genetic component. Women whose lives are characterized by pervasive antisocial behavior are more likely than men to have offspring with the same pattern. That is true even when children are given up for adoption at birth.
Women have pervasive antisocial behavior when they harm and exploit nearly everyone in their lives. When this antisocial behavior is present in young girls, it carries with it a worse prognosis than it does for boys.
For Driven to Do Evil I put together the following chart regarding antisocial behavior:
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Antisocial Behaviors
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|
| Manipulation | Cheating |
| Lying | Sexual coercion |
| Non-verbal intimidation | Rape |
| Verbal intimidation/threats | Thievery/robbery |
| Coercive control | Assault |
| Social aggression | Murder |
If you consider these behaviors, none of the very antisocial behaviors on the left are illegal or violent. In fact most antisocial behaviors are not violent. Studies show that while there are gender differences in violent antisocial behavior there are not gender differences in non-violent antisocial behavior. A woman who is pervasively antisocial is less likely to be criminal but all of her relationships center around manipulating, lying and intimidating as a means of dominating others. Some female “caretaking behaviors” can also fall under the category of coercive control.
Sexual coercion and rape are less commonly perpetrated by women. However, we should all appreciate the fact that for the victims of these assaults the behaviors are all too common.
This week someone wrote in asking about borderline personality disorder in women and its relationship to sociopathy/psychopathy. My answer is to look at the list of antisocial behaviors above. To the extent that a woman diagnosed with borderline personality has pervasive antisocial behavior as manifested by behaviors on that list, she is also a sociopath/psychopath.
This week I also had the honor of speaking with a man who calls himself BloggerT7165. He is probably the nation’s leading expert on antisocial behavior in women. He developed this expertise through personal, educational and occupational experience. I highly recommend his blog: What about when mom is the abuser?
BloggerT7165 has posted his personal story on his blog. He says, “What about when MOM is the abuser and is a psychopath and malignant narcissist? I ask those questions because that is exactly what my childhood consisted of. I will give a brief background so you can understand where I am coming from and my own biases and experiences.” I’ll let you read the rest of his story yourself. He also discusses cases of female rapists and child molesters.
I told Mr. BloggerT7165 that he is a treasure to me. I hope all you ladies will take note of this. In spite of all his horrific experiences with women my new friend does not believe that “all women are jerks.” He has also had the inner strength to overcome his own genetics/temperament, make good choices and to be very productive. He is a valued worker, cherished husband and devoted father.
BloggerT7165 is a victor not a victim.
I receive many letters from people (primarily women) who are stuck. I try as best I can to motivate them to get unstuck. These victims have a whole host of excuses as to why they can’t function or work on their own recovery. Many women are also stuck in the belief that “all men are jerks.”
If you are stuck, please consider the example of the boy who was raised by an antisocial, psychopathic mother but who still knew in his heart that loving is the source of meaning in human life. He will tell you that overcoming being a victim in order to become a victor takes work. We make a choice to do that work or not.
Choose today to heal your own ability to love and pursue your own well-being. Don’t wait for that monetary settlement, child custody or some other act of the legal system. Start today. See a therapist if you need to. Set small daily goals and a few larger long term goals for yourself. A year from now the Earth will have gone around the sun one more time, and you will have either made progress or not”¦that is up to you!
Dear BloggerT
I visit your blog site but some of the stories were, well let’s just say a bit disturbing…
Well I will read the rest and thanks you…
BloggerT.. sad stories indeed.. but I wonder in this world where natural feelings and common sense seem to have fallen by the wayside, can there be any other prognosis for us than for this horrible stuff to increase?
I know there has been a general consensus in the free world not to legislate morality, but in many of these stories I see anger triggered by the pain of abuse and betrayal.
I don’t want to trigger a flood of comments from my fellow bloggers.. but when someone takes you for a ride, uses the best years of your life and leaves you with a bunch of kids to raise and no money or free time to do it with, just what are you supposed to do with all the rage and pain?
It’s no excuse for innocent children being made to suffer, but it’s naive to think all this pain in a mother is never going to affect her kids. The emotional stability of a mom, dad, or other caretaker is going to have significant effects on the kids that love and depend on them.
DEar James,
I had a therapist once who analogized parenting to a smorgasboard of foods—every parent puts out a smorgasboard for their children. The child then has the choice of WHICH foods to focus on.
Some parents put out a smorgasboard with MANY GOOD THINGS and only a few “not so good” things, and other parents put out piles of CAT CRAP but only a few things that are good. The child then chooses which of the things to pick up.
Even the worst of parents do some good things, and even the best of parents put out a few plates of cat crap.
I have seen a family that keeps coming back to my mind. The mother reminded me of a sow that eats her young. This woman was probably the single most DISGUSTING psychopath that I have ever known, yet two of her children out of 4 physically healthy ones became two of the best, kindest and most loving people I could imagine, and two became just like their mother. One, being mindly retarded and totally under the control of her mother I don’t “count” in this as that girl literally didn’t have “free will”—yet she too was a sweet person, just horribly abused, but in no way “mean” like her other.
That particular parental smorgasboard was 99% plates of cat crap, but the ones that chose only to seek out the “good” things on that board and to become good people, unlike their mother amaze me!
Though my mother was abusive in some areas, and especially with her enabling of the family bad boys, but I did have good things on that smorgas board, I didn’t HAVE to choose the “plates” of her enabling. I could have left them there untouched. But, since I did “learn to cook those dishes” now I am seeing that I DON’T LIKE THE TASTE, and I have changed my own “menu”—-unfortunately, one of my kids picked up that same “plate”—but he too is now learning to “cook other dishes” and we are moving on with our lives. Free of these “unhealthy” meals. No longer accepting them as “just life” or “the way things are”—but broadening our choices to include “healthy meals” and the “water of life” in our diets.
Kat, I have “been in your shoes” with raising children alone, going to college, and at the same time trying to put food on the table and keep a household together. I hear you, sister, it isn’t easy, that’s for sure. Trying to give your kids what they need when you are “needy” yourself is difficult and I know that even though I did the best I could do there were times I did NOT meet their needs because I wasn’t able.
Fortunately, by the time that my P-son became the worst, I had remarried and had some support from my husband. With one of my sons a “challenge to raise” (ADHD) and very upset and hurt about the “desertion” of his beloved biological father. (My ADHD son cried day and night for two years, great wracking heart breaking sobs, and was so upset that he literally stopped growing physically–it is called “failure to thrive” and the growth stopping is caused by excessive stress. In infants it can lead to death). When your kids each need different things and you can’t do both of them, which kid do you give your energy too?
Sometimes I felt like I was in a river, drowing, and couldn’t save both my kids at the same time, much less save myself.
AT one point I had $1.87 left to my name and I went to a guy’s birthday party with my male friend, and “invested it” in a penny ante poker game BECAUSE I NEEDED THE MONEY, and I won about $20 for groceries the next week. Kat, sweetie, I DO know how it is to live hand-to-mouth, and to tell your kids “I can’t afford it honey.” I used every money-saving tip in the world.
One year when they were big enough that they could understand, their christmas boxes contained only photos of what they wanted, and we went shopping the day AFTER christmas at the sales so I could afford the things they wanted, which I couldn’t have if we had gotten them before Christmas.
But you know what, my son C told me the other day that he knew and appreciated that I had done the best I could and that his childhood was pretty nifty, that I TAUGHT them things, and that we did things together, like camping, that I had provided them with good mentors since they didn’t have a father figure in their life other wise, that they had a full and good life as children and that those years were good memories to him. So, I must have done something right. Heck, even my P son spoke well of those years of poverty and hard work. So hang in there Kat, stay in school, and just do the best you can for you and your kids.
During those years I dated, but NEVER really got involved with a guy and did not live with any guy, or let him live with me. The focus was on my children and me and my education. I didn’t have the energy left over to have a real “relationship” with any guy. I’m not sure why I did it that way, but I did and it turned out to be the right thing, because when times got better after graduation, I married my late husband and he was sure a “good pick”—I look back at the guys I dated then and none of them would have been a “suitable” match for me in any way. Waiting paid off BIG TIME in the end.
OxDrover
I understand what you are trying to say. But still we all have chooses no matter what type of family background you came from. Rich or poor. Educated or not. These are handicaps but not walls to stop us.
Case in point:
I know a friend of my whom I should call A. A is involved with the same program that I am. One, which helps those that came from dysfunctional relationships such as but not, limited too. Abusive (physical) relationships. Emotionally abusive ones. Partner who suffers from chemically depended additions. Sexual abusive relationships both with partner and/or children. It is a great program. I am with their help getting my life and the life of my children back on track because of their intervention. I am now working and getting back that was once lost due again to this program. A isn’t. Why isn’t she?
A little background on A to begin with. She is “still” married to a husband who suffers from a chemically depended addition. What kind? Well I don’t believe that matters. She had 5 children with (we will call husband J) her husband who would leave the home for days. Not support her or her children with food money in short basic needs. J cheated on her (something she still denials today) many times. Refuses to stop using drugs for the good of their relationship children or even him. She has filed for divorce many times but never does she follow up on this threat. Yes reader a threat because I don’t believe she will ever divorces this loser. As I stated my life in back in order and for this I Thank God each day! But for A? Today she lives in an apartment with no electricity and just recently called me to help her out with food for her children. She had a job but due (this is of course according to her) to her children being sick lost her job and is now in jeopardy of losing her funding. But still J comes to see his children and pays I guess what he can. Let me tell you a little about J. He works outside the system (tax system) as a Mechanic working on people cars by driving to them and then gets cash money for his work. Lost his license and then started using his brother’s identity when stop by the police. Comes to visit the “children” and her but tires to stay there knowing that if the program personnel would find out that would end her housing subsidies. J knows that both A and children live this way but does nothing to help her children? Yet she tells me over and over again how much J makes as a Mechanic but still is today living without any electricity in her apartment! Each times A calls me it is for something. Money food and/or use my phone (oh forgot to tell you her phone was disconnected too) and computer. Each time she calls me she wants something!
Well I am done with her or anyone that refuses to help themselves or children because she I believe is only thinking about herself. Not her children and believe it or not, not even J. Because maybe if she would divorce his sorry ass. Maybe then he would get help. But really I wouldn’t even count on that!
Chooses people! It always comes down to our own personal chooses….
Blogger is right. Insomuch some people just don’t want to change. But then why in my Lords name do they expect us to help them when we know they are a lost cause and refuse to help themselves?
Thank you all for your responses. I want to say something really quick to make sure I am not coming across wrong or being taken the wrong way.
It’s not so much that some, I stress some, people don’t want to change, its that they, for various reasons, are not willing or able to do what is needed to change. Are there a few people out there who resist change for the sake of resisting it? Sure. With 350 million people in this country you can find almost anything possible. Psychopathic individuals are one example of people who do not want to change period.
And please understand I am not talking about people that are in an abusive relationship but rather one’s that have broken free and are out of them.
I once had a mentor tell me something that has stuck with me to this day. He said that we are all human and part of the the human condition is pain. We will all experience pain in our lives (to varying degrees) and that is beyond our control. How much we suffer from that pain in something that is in our control totally.
Dorothy Day opened homes of hospitality- she accepted people wherever they were and loved them whether they changed or not. She’s in the process of being canonized.
It says something about ourselves when we CANNOT detach from controlling others lives and be there for them in their distress without complaining, judging.
Step away if you think you are being used, but often our frustration with others is OUR problem.. For example, when we tell someone to stop crying—that’s not for them, that’s because we are uncomfortable.
By refusing to help, we help no one- “they don’t learn a lesson” but they will suffer and most likely the children will too. Sometimes we must give and let go and God.
BloggerT7165
“I stress some, people don’t want to change, its that they, for various reasons, are not willing or able to do what is needed to change. Are there a few people out there who resist change for the sake of resisting it?”
This I too understand but still it leave me wondering why?? When I see those that can and should be helped and then don’t benefit from the many supporting and loving arms around them, why? From some people all I get from them is word salad lip service. Agreeing with me that there is a problem, but then do nothing to help themselves, Why? I just want to know why? I can’t walk away from A. I know next times she called me for something because she has children I will help her albeit money food. Still I care for these people and feel they should care for themselves and thier children. It just break my heart when I see something like this. What am I missing? What can’t I understand? Why?
I think you can be there for someone in a supportive role encouraging them to seek solutions to their problems. But I also think you have to get a handle on what is being supportive and then what is being enabling behavior that may actually result in them remaining stuck.
A self-help program I used to be involved with, called Overcomers Anonymous, had a list of various levels of denial in the front of their handbook. They went something like this:
1. Complete denial: “I don’t have a problem”
2. Denial of severity: “I know I have a problem but it’s not that bad”
3. Denial of accountability: “My problem is not my fault”
4. Denial of necessity for change: “I know it’s a problem and it’s my own fault but there’s nothing I can do about it”
5. Denial of responsibility for change: “I know I have a problem and I have to do something about it.. can you fix it for me?”
6. Beginnings of accountability: “I know this is a big problem and I have to do something about it.. I am not sure how to do this, though.
7. Full accountability: “It’s a problem, it’s my problem, and it’s my responsibility to learn all I can and to work to change it, no matter what anyone else does or doesn’t do.
Kat, that is absolutely great! I will incorporate that into my daily reading!!!! Thanks for sharing.
James, I had a therapist once tell me that the ONLY LEGITIMATE RESCUE is to drag an unconscious person from a burning building.
ANY time we do for someone what they ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR DOING FOR THEMSELVES (meeting their own or their children’s obligations for life) we are ENABLING them.
I too found it difficult to “let the children suffer” because the mother was NOT BEING RESPONSIBLE, and quite frankly that is what she is doing. She is NOT BEING RESPONSIBLE to see that her own children have food, etc.
WHY? Because she is not willing to put forth the effort to save her children from what she knows is a horrible situation.
Will she improve if you don’t “enable” her? Probably not. She will either find someone else to enable her or she will let herself and the children suffer.
BUT WHY IS SHE UNWILLING TO MAKE A CHANGE? My thoughts are that it is FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN.
In research done at Ft. Roots Hospital, an old VA facility in Little Rock AR there was some research done by one guy over years and years and the results were known in the 1980s. Can[‘t remember much more about that, but he took a single litter of puppies, bird dogs as I remember, and bred TWO GROUPS, the most aggressive to the most aggressive and the most shy to the most shy and timid. After 20 years and 20 generations, he had two totally different groups, one group would BITE YOU FOR THE FUN OF IT, very aggressive, and the other group would lie down and whine and belly crawl in submission if you even made eye contact with them.
Just as the psychopath is geneticly programmed for aggression, I think there are also people who are genetically programmed for submission.
In studies of wolf packs where the “pecking order” is well established though they have a fairly well organized “family system” to assure that each year’s pups have the best chance for survival, there is occasionally a “Zeta” wolf in a pack, the exact opposite of an Alpha Wolf. This dog is persecuted by every member of the pack, starved, treated horribly, and yet it crawls and fawns and begs for mercy and NO MERCY is extended to this dog by any member of the pack. Eventually this dog either starves or is killed by one of the other members of the pack. Yet around the Zeta the rest of the pack behaves “normally” toward one another, and even if there is a surplus of food, the pack will keep this Zeta wolf from eating, “just for the heck of it.”
If you were to secretly slip food to this animal it would not change its fate, or behavior, because this dog is somehow geneticly or environmentally programmed (or both) to be the “scape goat” and to endure torture for it’s entire life.
The wolf COULD LEAVE THE PACK, and very likely join another pack, if the wolf is female (the videos of the one I saw was a female) it could leave and entice another male from another pack and form it’s own pack—but it never does. It stays in the abusive situation until death of starvation or murder gives it rest.
I see so many similarities between this Zeta-wolf and some humans, mostly women, but it can be males. It is almost like a wolf version of Stockholm syndrome. Of course ANYone no matter how strong can be overcome with Stockholm Syndrome, but I think there are those that are almost programmed by life and genetics to become that “Zeta.”
They hang on to the malignat hope that by doing NOTHING they can appease the “gods” that they depend on.
It is extremely difficult for me to watch a child live in such a home, to grow up with that kind of neglectful parent and not feel compassion and want to feed them. (which is enabling the parent to foist the responsibility for her children off on you) but, the other side of the coin is, how do you neglect a hungry child? No matter WHY the child is hungry.
In this woman’s case, I think what I would tell her is that, “no, A, I won’t give you money for your children, but I will drive them to a soup kitchen, and then we will go to the authorties and tell them that you are unable to care for your children and see what they can do to help you provide a descent home for your children.
I’m not a great fan of children being taken from their parents and given to the state, but sometimes it is better than letting the parent starve them and abuse them by neglect and example.
There has been a group home near me, operated by a church for almost a 100 years. I have helped by both donating to this home, and by tutoring children and being foster parent to some of the children (taking them into my home for various periods of time from a few days to a few months) and I can vouch for the fact that this home provides a sanctuary for many children and has through the years, even sending those that are capable and want to go to college to college, and doesn’t “kick them out” the day they turn 18 unless they are ready and/or want to go. Every year they have “home comings” where hundreds of former residents come back for reunions. Back in the 1950s and 60s it was not unusual for them to get a child as an infant and keep that child until after college.
It was heart breaking that children that were adoptable at that time were still held on-to “legally” by the parent refusing to relinquish the child for adoption. My parents even tried to adopt two brothers ages 8 and 10 that they fostered and were refused by their mother, but the boys stayed there the rest of their young lives. One became a wonderful young man who has nothing but fond memories of the home and of the times they spent with me when I was a kid, and in fact, we still stay in contact. The other brother is in prison. He goes back for the group home homecoming every year.
I had a patient once whose husband was a bed-bound psychopath that had abused her forever, and she was like the “zeta” wolf, even after he had gotten to the point that the only thing he could do to hurt her was verbally rage unless she got within the distance he could throw a metal bedpan (and he was pretty good at aiming it and flinging it) But even with my gentle encouragement for her to set boundaries, she never would even set the tiniest boundary. He was like a two-headed dog that she threw meat to just to keep him from devouring her whole. Nothing she did pleased him, and his greatest joy was in hurting her. It seemed the more she cowered, the more he enjoyed debasing her.
I realize that I am a “survivor” and in general, I will do whatever it takes to “overcome”—yet, I too, put up with my son abusing me, I also felt so powerless and needy that I allowed a P into my life as a potential mate, I let my mother’s toxic enabling continue for years and threw meat to her just like a two-headed dog that would have emotionally devowered me, just like a Zeta wolf. In other aspects of my life though, I never doubted I could over come.
I was left homeless and destitute by a bitter divorce, due to my mentally ill husband and my P- x FIL, with two kids and nothing else–but I survived! I finished my education and went to work. I never doubted that I would. I depended on myself, and I am proud of how I depended on myself, not on trying to find someone to enable me. I founded a small group of other single parents who were also students, we set up a co-op company of house cleaning and worked together, pooling our resources, skills and time to survive financially and we all did! We are friends to this day, though we are scattered all over the country now. We baby sat for each other, we bartered for services that we all needed from car mechanics to medical care and housing and piano lessons for our kids. We were a FAMILY. We still are, though everyone has gone their separate ways like siblings scattering out as they reach majority.
Some of our kids turned out well, and others didn’t. Some remarried and some didn’t. One of the guys who was in our group didn’t have any children, but he does now and at age 64 is raising his 13 year old and his 18 yr old after a late marriage and children with a P. He lives near me so we are still very close friends and see each other often (as friends only), but he is like a “brother” to me.
I KNOW it CAN BE DONE, pulling yourself up from absolute poverty, getting an education, if you are willing to invest in CHANGE rather than assuming the position of the Zeta wolf. It’s hard work, and scary to be RESPONSIBLE for yourself, to admit that YOU are responsible for whatever situation you find yourself in, if nothing else, by ALLOWING someone to abuse you. None of us had “helpful family”–though I guess my mom came the closest, but even she didn’t support me financially in any way, and the closest thing my parents did to “help” me was loan me some money when I had to put the P son into private school at age 11. I paid it back with more than normal interest, by signing over about $10K equity in a rental property which was my only asset for a $3500 “loan.”
What amazes me though, is why in that time and place I was an ALPHA wolf, and in others I have been the ZETA wolf. If I ask myself “why”—the only answer I can give is that it was for some reason SO very important to me to try to “please” my mother and “rescue” my P-son, that it NEVER DAWNED ON ME I HAD ANY OTHER CHOICE. Now, I KNOW. There is ALWAYS a choice, there is always a “way out” it is just that in order to make that choice, and take that way out, you have to acknowledge that there are some people that you must CUT OUT OF YOUR LIFE and I couldn’t even imagine doing that. Now I know that it is the ONLY way out, and at first it is painful, but as you heal, the PAIN GOES AWAY. Once you realize your life does not end without the P in your life, that the pain DOES go away eventually, it gives you more courage to continue to heal, to grow, to blossom. To learn to take responsibility for yourself and to grasp FULL ACCOUNTABILITY which also equals FULL FREEDOM.
Someone once told me that the most “secure” person in the world is the convict on death row who knows exactly what will happen to him every minute of the day and when he will die and how. You say “How is THAT “security”? Well, he doesn’t have to wonder, or worry or provide anything for himself and he KNOWS his future.
Freedom means “insecurity” because we never know what will happen to us from day to day. We have to be accountable for ourselves, to take responsibility. The death row inmate is not able to change his environment at all, or his fate. We CAN change our fate, but we have to WORK at it. That’s insecurity—if I do X, what will the result be? If I do Y, instead, what will the result be? We have choices to make and we get the consequences. But having freedom surely has its rewards, and I will opt for the freedom to make my own choices and influence my own fate—the joys and the sadness as well. That’s LIFE, A FREE LIFE—depending only on myself and my God.