Editor’s note: The following article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud’s statement on Spiritual Recovery.
My father appeared to be a very successful business man. Our family lived in a home on Biscayne Bay, had money and was very well known. He served as a pilot in the Air Force, was very good looking and extremely charming. From the outside, our life looked almost perfect.
Like any young boy, I idolized my dad. When in his presence, I was almost hypnotized by him. I was extremely attracted to the way he approached life. I guess it’s normal for a boy to want to be just like his father. I wanted to believe everything that he told me. As best I could tell, he treated me pretty well. He took care of me, gave me money, taught me to hunt and spent time teaching me lessons about life.
Unfortunately, these lessons were coming from a different perspective on life than most children are exposed to, from that of a sociopath. For the most part, sociopaths treat their children like possessions, and I was my father’s favorite. He treated me special and I liked it. All of this only added to my confusion as a kid, because much of the time he seemed like a great dad. Still, something wasn’t right. There were conditions attached to his love, and I knew it. This underlying uneasiness was causing me problems, too.
From as far back as I can remember I would have terrifying recurring nightmares. I didn’t understand why and didn’t talk about it because I thought it was a sign of weakness. I would wake up in the middle of the night, gasping for breath and feel as if the weight of the world was crushing down on me. I couldn’t breathe, and would feel a serious and frightening threat that I didn’t understand. This threat was extremely elusive and I couldn’t identify what it was. I didn’t know where the threat was coming from, only that it was close. It was always close, surrounding me on all sides. The dreams felt real. I tried to dismiss them as just “kid stuff”, but I was really scared. I hated myself for this.
I always felt unsettled and frightened. Something just wasn’t right, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It might have been just a small detail, but it felt really important. My mind would tell me that it just didn’t add up or make sense. With no point of reference, the only thing I knew to do was to let it go. Whatever the conflict, I was not able to reconcile the problem or rationalize what it meant to me. Consequently, I would bury it. What I was seeing was so frightening that I didn’t want to know the truth. A lie was more acceptable. I lived in this confusing space.
On the outside I probably appeared to be like any other kid my age. I made good grades, was fairly outgoing, had friends and tried my best to fit in. It helped that I always had nice things and could afford to do most anything that my friends did. My dad taught me to be respectful and to say yes sir and no sir when addressing adults. They liked that, and I was typically a favorite of my friends’ parents.
The problem was that while my father was teaching me some of the right ideas his behavior was offering a different point of view. This was my experience with my father, and it happened often. His behavior was raising questions that I could not answer. I can see them now, but at the time, I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing or feeling.
Being raised by a sociopath creates its’ own set of issues that must be dealt with in order to break free from the suffering caused by these experiences. Forgiveness is the ultimate goal, but awareness of my own altered view of life also needs to be recognized and addressed to really have any success with recovery.
The result is seeing the world through this distorted filter, virtually altering all of my relationships and life’s experiences. Simply blaming my dad was not going to set me free from the damage done. I needed to acknowledge how and why I behaved the way I behaved.
For me, as many of you know, The Process of Forgiving is what set me Free. But, I had to take responsibility for how I used this experience to harm myself and others before I could stop doing it.
If we continue to harm ourselves with the past, we are, in essence, repeating the behavior that we so despise. At least, that was my experience. As a result, I am very forgiving of myself, and others. I do not interact with sociopaths or harmful people, nor condone the behavior, but I do forgive it. When I do that, I feel peace, and I like that better than nightmares.
The funny part and most rewarding is that when I forgive and let live I stop attracting sociopaths and start attracting people who are kind, loving and forgiving. That, in itself, is a very valuable spiritual lesson. Now, that’s A Miracle!
Thanks for reading this. Hope you experience a Miracle today. Peace.
Henry, I agree with you, I think it is “hysteria” but not necessary “faking” it….it is like the girls that caused the Mass. witch hunts….they are probably just responding to “suggestion” and not sure if the first one was faking, but doubt the rest of them are….it started out as a “group” of girls who knew each other too…and keep in mind how the parents are BLAMING the school…talk about attention getters! LOL But there is always the off possibility that Milo is right with her strep theory…but hope that has been checked out and found negative. If so then….
I think if you’d lock’em up for a while in an inpatient facility without nail files they’d cure quick enough.. LOL
Funny Shalom! You are so cute!~!!!! LOL
MiLo I also respond to the perfumes (chemicals) in many products and have to buy ones without perfumes, scents, etc. or use paper bags for trash and resuable bags for groceries etc.
Not sure how long I have had this problem noticed it with people wearing Avon when I worked in the clinics and spent my days in tiny rooms with old ladies who had BATHED in Avon….and I kept choked up nasally. Thought it was an “allergy” but in fact, it isn’t really an allergy (that can be treated) but a REACTION to the irritant. Since I couldn’t stop the old ladies from wearing Avon and contaminating the clinic (the first one of the day would do it!) I had to figure out how to decrease the symptoms….washing out the sinus and nose helps, with normal saline spray frequently during the day and a Nettie pot in the evening. Washes out the particles that are irritating. Also the cortisone Rx nose sprays help some to decrease the irritation. they have their side effects too but less than the reaction in my case.
While I don’t doubt that chemical exposures can do some strange things, it makes it suspect to me that it is hysterical due to the girls being so close and to have that many reacting to the same symptoms seems suspect more of hysteria than a real chemical reaction. Hopefully we will find out the RESSSSSST OF THE STORY as Paul harvey used to say.
Shalomy, I think I have a mild case of mad cow disease myself..HELP I am twitching and I cant stop~!
Milo, You could be right, and I am sorry you suffer from toxin’s like you do, I know Onesteprs has a lot of chemical reactions. I guess time will tell us if the girls are faking or not. I have seen people with tourette’s, and their jerking and outburst look really uncontrolable as compared to those girls in New York. Anyway we dont have to worry about them getting a date for awhile..I am so bad…..
Oxy ~ I think it would be more telling if there were boys who also had it.
Yep, mine is NOT allergies. It is kind of like what we talk about here on LF, no one believes your story with the spath. No one (doctors especially) believe my story to the extent of my sensativities. If I am having a full blown attack, they are shocked and amazed at my appearance, but can’t help me…… mostly prescribe what I have already taken to no avail. Disgusting. Over the years I have come up with my own ways to avoid and my own remedies, however it really does effect normal, everyday living.
Hens ~ posted over you – Yes, you are so bad, but that is actually why I have to wonder about the girls faking it. Normally girls this age don’t want to do ANYTHING to make them look strage. That’s why they won’t be caught dead, out in public, with their parents. LOL
Hens, I had a MAD COW once, and she shook her head at me, stomped her foot, and threatened to run over me to keep from going into the corral….son D saw what was happening, threw his baseball cap and hit her in the eye and turned her direction just before she hit me. She really was MAD and she really was DEAD later that afternoon, because we had gone out there to drive them up to butcher a young bull, but we decided to DO TWO instead of just one. LOL Funny thing was, her mother had been a cow with “attitude” but I had bottle raised this heifer as part of a female yoke of oxen…(unusual) and so she had no fear of me at all…and she had decided she did not want to go into the corral where you got shots and all that, I had sold off her yoke mate after my husband died, and just turned her out to have calves, but she had become a problem getting her into the corral but this was the first time she had actuallly THREATENED me…but it was the last as well. I should’a known, with a mother with attitude like that she probably inherited it, her yoke mate was a sweetie. Oh, well, the beef was tasty!
Oxy Darlin, If I ever come visit , I will take you out for dinner, I would’nt want you to go to any trouble or mess up your kitchen ..hugz
I too see the definition of forgiveness presented by the original poster as a spiritual one specific to Christianity, and therefor not particularly relevant to non-Christians.
I myself am an agnostic, but prefer the Judaic/Hebraic definition of forgiveness, which (if I understand it correctly) is more of a transaction or mutually agreed on contract between two people. In order for the transaction to take place, the transgressor must admit s/he has done wrong, express true remorse and ask for forgiveness from the person wronged; then its up to the victim to either grant forgiveness or not.
So if there is no admission of culpability, no remorse, and no request for forgiveness on the part of the perp, there is no transaction or contractual agreement/forgiveness possible
I personally think that what the original poster is describing is simply “letting go” or detaching and walking away from the transgressor. Or, in the case of a highly dangerous spath, running away. Simply detaching and moving on works for me, unless some criminal act has been perpetrated against me; then I want justice in the form of bringing a lawsuit. I don’t feel that I need to grant forgiveness in order to heal and be whole again (or as whole as possible; it is after all an imperfect world.)
And on a completely different topic: If you want to view an entire series about various spaths and their heinous behaviors, with background & psychological commentary, I recommend the series “Wicked Attraction.” Not unexpectedly, most of the perps in this series about real-life serial killers, rapists, torturers, and thieves are designated as spaths by the series-makers and the commenting psychologists, but some are described as having borderline pd and narcissistic pd instead of or in addition to having psychopathy/sociopathy.
This series really makes it clear that the psychopath really does have an alien mind-set, an inhuman way of thinking and feeling that is truly creepy. Shocking and creepy. And that in some cases, these psychopaths did not themselves suffer hideous abuse as children. Some did, but some didn’t. Fascinating stuff.
(Its frustrating to me that the term “psychopathy” is more current and correct, but there is nothing to shorten it to that is as cool and pointedly derogatory as “spath.” Oh well.)
Babs
Well, Hens, my kitchen is always cooking something….right now I am cooking scraps for the dogs…they won’t eat them raw…well, the Jack Russell won’t because the last time I fed him raw meat he had pills in it and they made him sick to his stomach so now he won’t eat raw meat. Just hangs his head like I’m beating him. LOL So now I am cooking for the freaking dogs…..talk about a woosie, pushover enabler…that’s me.
Babs, whatever you call it is unimportant, the thing is that it WORKS FOR YOUR belief system. Each of us must define our own wants, needs and desires, and our definition of the words that represent them.
Yours is not the same as mine, but that doesn’t mean that either of us in this case is “wrong” only that we are different, individual….and that is not only okay, but good. Hearing and discussing each other’s views is a good thing I think. Expands our views of possible ways to cope.
I used to be very pro-death penalty and now I am pretty much ANTI-death penalty in 99.999999% of the cases (those two yo-yos in Ohio that got caught coming out of the house after butchering that poor man’s family is an exception there is no doubt those guys are guilty or that they are monsters of the first order) but recently there have been dozens of INNOCENT men released from prison or even death row due to DNA evidence that at last showed they had nothing to do with the crime.
I have argued and discussed this issue with a friend of mine and eventually he changed my mind….and I now see things totally differently as far as the evidence needed to convict someone and put them on death row. There are a lot of other issues that we have discussed, and cussed, but we have both learned from each other by doing so. That is the point of conversation —a two way exchange of ideas.
I agree, OxDrover; whether its called “letting go”, “detaching”, walking away” or “forgiving”, the point of the exercise is to separate oneself from the spath(s) (buh-bye, spath!) and protect oneself from further harm by the spath(s).
RE the death penalty, I think its actually worse torture to put a convicted serial killer or rapist or violent abusive child-murdering convict in a high-security prison for life without parole, with them knowing that they will never taste freedom again, and that they will die there of old age or maybe of some horrible staph infection or something. So, i’m OK with not having state executions.
-Babs
Babs, me too….but unfortunately they let too many of them OUT eventually, my son is a perfect example. There was a time when it would have “killed me” if they had put him to death instead of a life sentence (there is no doubt he is guilty of a premeditated murder) but now I am terrified he will get out….he comes up for parole again in a little over a year. Ihave to hire an attorney to fight to keep him in prison…and I know that before long he WILL get out.
He WILL kill again!