By Ox Drover
I was led to believe as a child that we should “love unconditionally” and that we should “forgive unconditionally.” This was the rule around our house. I did start to notice, though, that while I was to apply this “unconditional forgiveness and love” to others, those same people did not always apply it to me.
When my children were born, I felt the first real and true “unconditional” love I had ever felt for anyone. I would gaze into the crib and watch my child sleep, little fists curled up, ten perfect little fingers with ten perfect little finger nails. The warmth of this truly “unconditional” love swept through my heart and made my eyes tear up with joy.
Even when my two-year-old son poured a full box of fish food into the aquarium and I had to clean it out and change the water the second time in a week, I did not stop loving him or hold a grudge against him for his behavior. I took the responsibility for his actions because I had left the fish food where he could reach it, and he didn’t know any better. I laughed as I cleaned out the aquarium that I would be so dumb to leave it where he could reach it a second time.
As my children grew and became more independent and self motivated teenagers, I would occasionally become quite frustrated and even angry with them for some of their behavior, especially defiant behavior, but it never dawned on me to not forgive them, or to hold a grudge or to stop loving them, no matter what they did, or even to fear them. I had no concept at that time, that one of my children might actually wish in a long term continuing way to do me harm. My love for them was, I thought, absolutely “unconditional.” Just as my love for my mother, I thought, was unconditional. No matter how angry I got, I knew that I loved her and no matter what she did that upset me or hurt me, it never dawned on me that I could ever stop loving her or that the things she did actually came from a deep down desire to control me, even if this resulted in my harm.
Though there was somehow a difference in how I was required to give her “unconditional forgiveness” and forget about anything she had ever done to me, while she would frequently and critically remind me of things I did as a defiant teenager, I still believed I loved her unconditionally, just like I loved my kids unconditionally, no matter what they did or said.
Throughout many years I held on to this belief, which, I am finding out now, is a fantasy. There are behaviors so heinous that I can no longer love someone. So, in truth, my love for my mother and even my love for my children is not truly “unconditional.” In truth, forgiveness does not include trust and a resumption of a relationship with that person if what they have done is so heinous that you fear them.
I realized that fearing a person precluded me from actually loving them. When you love someone you trust them. When you don’t trust someone, you can’t really love them. WOW! What a revelation for me! If I am afraid of a person, I cannot truly love them. I can be angry with someone I love, I can even be furious with someone I love. If I am afraid of a person, can’t trust them not to hurt me intentionally, how can I love that person at the same time? For me, it was impossible.
I might love the “fantasy” of them, but not the actual scary person that is the real them. When I realized, finally, that my psychopathic son wanted me dead and I began to be afraid of him, I realized the man sitting in a prison cell was truly evil, malicious and dangerous. I also realized I was a fool if I did not take the threat seriously. Then the “love” I had felt, that I had believed was truly unconditional, seeped out, and one day I realized it was gone.
My other biological son, who was at that same time married to a psychopath himself, had distanced himself from me, disappointed me, and to some extent devalued me, which saddened me, but I still loved him ”¦ because I was not afraid of him. In spite of everything, I realized he would not ever deliberately hurt me, or want to deliberately hurt me. Yet, I realized that if he became dangerous to me, or I started to fear him as well, that I would not be able to continue to love him either.
When my “good” son’s wife (now ex-wife) tried to kill him after he found out about the affair she was having with a psychopath, his “unconditional” love for her also evaporated. He started to realize that she was dangerous. Before the attack on my son with a gun by her and her boyfriend, my son had found out about the affair and offered to “go to counseling” and to “work it out” with her. He loved her, and her affair was not something that made him afraid of her. It was only his fear of her after the attempted murder that made him able to detach from his love from her. His love that he had thought was unconditional, his commitment to the marriage that he thought was total, was destroyed by the fear for his life.
I had always thought my loyalty and commitment to my family members and friends was total and unconditional. When I started to experience true fear of some of these people, it made me realize that the only unconditional love in the universe is God’s. The Bible tells me to “love” my enemies and pray for them, but the “love” commanded in the Bible is not the feeling, in my opinion, that we normally call, in English, “love.” The “love” commanded for our enemies means to do “good to them” rather than seek revenge, but it has nothing to do with the “love” we feel, that “squishy” feeling I had leaning over my infant’s crib. It was not that loving commitment to my child that meant I would have thrown my body in front of an attacker, freely giving my life to save my child.
On a thread on Lovefraud some time back, a blogger (whose name I no longer remember) wrote that it is noble of us to throw ourselves in front of a bus to save our loved one, but not when the bus is being driven by the psychopath we are trying to save! I can’t think of a better analogy that this one.
In the end, I realized that no healthy love is truly “unconditional.” I also realized that boundaries are healthy, and that I needed to learn to set boundaries. I needed to protect myself from attacks, and that my fear or distrust of someone precludes me from having a relationship with that person. Fear precludes me from loving them.
For most of my life I tried to live up to the fantasy of “unconditional love” for those in my family, even those in my family who were psychopaths. It never felt right to me, but at the same time, I was committed to this stance because it was what I thought was “normal” and “expected.” When my family devalued me, when the “unconditional” love from them depended on controlling me, using me, abusing me, and then instilling fear into me, I finally “saw the light.” I realize now that real love is kind, love is caring, love is respectful, love is many good things, but it is never about control, never about punishment, never about deliberately inflicting pain or fear. Healthy love is never completely “unconditional.”
advice
Thankyou Witsend!
I was hanging out for a response to this one and your response is perfect, because I agree totally. He already knows I don’t like her and that I think she is a psychopath. But I promised him today I would try to love her for him.( These were Oxy’s words that I stole and it worked a million times better than I could ever have imagined! She sure knows her business that Oxy!! And she was right I nearly puked at that part…lol! And I said that I won’t criticize his girlfriend to him and I would be nicer to her. So I am going to do an “Oxy”, ( i.e. so sweet that butter won’t melt in my mouth)However, I said that I will have to stay no contact with her mother “unless it was a wedding”. (GOD FORBID!!!). He was so happy with all of that!
I know the mother is capable of murder. She doesn’t have any feeling in her at all. Its like looking into two black holes. She scares me to death and I’ve seen the worst of them. I honestly don’t feel safe within a million miles of her. My son lives at the mothers house with all the dysfunctional family.
But I don’t know how psychopathic his girlfriend is yet. I pray that someone with money and looks sweeps her off her feet very soon. As that is what she goes after.
PPS: He said he spoke to a psychiatrist about it (he has to see one by law for his car accident), and she said that all I am doing is projecting my “madness” and fear onto him! She told him his girlfriend is not a psychopath. She has met his girlfriend for ten minutes once!
Its true what he said about me calling Brad and Angus narcissists. Brad isn’t ( I was paranoid). Angus is. But the P girlfriend has stopped any danger of him getting close to my son. She has enmeshed and isolated him and is waiting for his big pay out from the car accident.
I read this article when first posted about unconditional love and found myself re-reading it again today. Unlike Oxy I don’t believe I was “taught” unconditional love when I was a child.
I believe I first experienced it when I had my first dog. I always wanted a dog as a child and my mother “pretended” to have allergies. Being that my father was alcoholic and my parents argued alot, as an only child I spent lots of time “hiding” in my room. I wanted a dog for company. Come to find out my father wanted a dog to. When I was 14 yrs old we got a dog. My mothers allergies mysteriously vanished.
When I had my children, I found a new dimension of unconditional love. Wow. That instant bonding between mother and child. Unlike anything I had ever known. When I looked at my infant wrapped in my arms I wanted to protect him from all the evil forces in this world.
Today I am conflicted with so many things. I love my son. There is no question there. I want the best for him. I am willing to fight for whatever I think is right for him.
But I also see a side of him that no mother should see in her own flesh and blood. That in itself is creating turmoil within me. Sometimes I wish I could be in a state of denial.
I see mothers all the time, in complete denial. “My “Johnny” is not at fault, he would never do that”.
“My boy would never do drugs, someone ELSE put them in his locker”.
Is denial a place to stay to avoid the pain of the truth? Or is it a place to stay when you can’t deal with the the truth?
My mother in law is in COMPLETE and utter denial of her sons alcoholism.
She once told me that her son NEVER drank alcohol until he met me! (Mind you he had already had 2 DUI’s WAY before I ever met him in his 20’s.) In the same breath, she told me that when he moved out of her house she found OVER FIFTY empty bottles of vodka HIDDEN in his tiny bedroom.
I couldn’t help but be sarcastic in my reply….Well (DUH) who do you SUPPOSE drank all those bottles of vodka?
She looked at me as if she REALLY couldn’t connect the dots?
Dumbfounded. Like what was I implying? HOW SICK IS THAT?
On the police report of my husbands suicide it clearly states that a near empty bottle of vodka sat on the kitchen table. (MY husband commited SUICIDE in his parents house not in our house & used his fathers gun) She denies that he was drunk when he killed himself.
She NEVER ONCE expressed the HORROR of the fact that my son (her grandson) was with his dead father for all those hours before I arrived from work. Almost EVERY single person (and there were hundreds, AA, co workers,) who came to my husbands funeral talked of their dismay for his young son being with him in the house afterwards. NO ONE could wrap their brain around the fact that he suicided with his young son in the house.
Is it possible to be in such a state of obliviation? Does she escape the excruciating pain by staying there? Maybe. How I wish that somedays I could hide in a cloud of obliviation.
Today my inner turmoil is with the fact that the very evil forces that I wanted to PROTECT my son from seem to stem from within him. He seems to BE the “evil” force. How do I protect him from himself?
Here I am his mother trying to get his therapist to “GET IT” and his counscelor is just now trying to teach us to comminicate. EIGHT friggin months into his therapy, my sons ANGER level is so high…..His anger takes up so much space it is like another “person” in the room. And this guy thinks we should learn to talk to each other……I’m thinking, this might have worked WELL when my son first came to see him 8 MONTHS ago but right now, things have escalated to the point of BIGGER things. Lets deal with the anger first. BEFORE someone gets hurt.
Finally, today after approx 18 months of talking to MANY, MANY people (ALL of whom have disregarded me and talked down to me because of their “positions”, in the school, mental health, & finally the courts) I think I have found someone who “gets it”. I do NOT know to what degree she gets it. Obviously she hasn’t diagnosed him. But she “gets” the fact that I am being shoved around in the system and I need HELP.
She is the at risk counscelor at school. She KNOWS PERSONALLY everyone INVOLVED. Including the pros. att., the lady who gives me the run around in the pros. att. office, she knows my sons therapist at Riverwood, she knows the director of the program Parents with Love & Limit. ALL OF THEM.
She said that my son NEEDS the LIVING HELL SCARED out of him. I AGREE 100%. If it is POSSIBLE to do this my son might be open to help. IF NOT…Well then, at least I know. That my deepest fear is true.
She told me that the program he is suppose to attend is a good program. BUT the director of this program….That is HIS JOB to PROMOTE it. It cost several thousand dollars. And if I have to pay for it, (without courts approval) I can’t afford it.
And she also “implied” (WITOUT saying directly) the director of this program might have “swayed” the courts away from the incorrigibility petition.
She did say POINT BLANK that I NEED to get him ON informal PROBATION. Which is what the incorrigibility petition that I was DENIED would do. She said a probation officer coming to the house on a daily basis MIGHT SCARE the HELL out of my son. She even knows the probation officer assigned to these kids on informal probation.
Because my son hasn’t stepped out and actually broken the law yet (as so many kids do) and all of what he is DOING in his “acting out” seems to be either DIRECTLY or indirectly “against me” she seems to feel this is the best course of action.
Guess who she said I NEED in my corner? This lady has alot of influence on the pross. att. & is 2nd in charge.
YEP, the lady who gives me the run around in the pros. att. office.
I now need to redirect my energy on the lady in the pross. att. office who TOLD me that my son was mentally ill and belonged at Riverwood that was not the same as incorrigible. Yeah maybe so, but he has been at Riverwood for 8 months and what KEEPS escalating is his acting out behaviors.
The at risk counscelor at the school told me almost EXACTLY what to say to this woman to “appeal” for her help because she knows her well.
Please keep me in your prayers. I need some support in this so desperately. The school year is over in just days and I am going to loose the ONE person who seems to “hear” me.
Dear Witsend,
You are in my prayers. Im gald she told you exactly what to say and how to appeal to the new contact person…Sounds like it might work since she knows her so well!!
Take peace and comfort that you are finding your own course and direction and betterment for your son — you are not living in denial — unlike your MIL’s choices for and in her own life.
Im proud of you and your never-ending devotion to your son in your efforts to get him the best help possible. Stay strong…stay positive…stay focused…
Something good will give…stay positive as possible..easier said than done…but makes all the difference in the world… Good luck with the new contact person…if she is not the one.. but I hope she is! 🙂 ..there will be more to come… hang in therexoxo
Dear Witsend,
For what it is worth and I know it IS WORTH A LOT someone at LAST HEARS YOU!
Your son has CONTROL and knows he cannot be “made” to do anything by YOU. that is a FACT. You are accepting that FACT. So you are NOT in denial–and yes, to answer your question, DENIAL is a total UNBELIEF in what is right before your eyes. Your MIL is in DENIAL because to accept the truth (she knows it though) would be so UNBEARABLY PAINFUL that she emotionally “thinks” she could not handle it, so she is DENYING waht she even sees. IF YOU ADMIT there is a problem, you MUST TAKE ACTIONS, taking actions takes WORK and PAIN and for some people who have been programmed to DENY problems exist as a way of COPING, can stay in this mode forever.
My own egg donor is in as COMPLETE A DENIAL AS YOUR MIL. My own egg donor was trained from BIRTH that DENIAL is the way the family handles problems, and because she handles problems like this, she will NEVER TAKE APPROPRIATE ACTION.
Her denial (my egg donor’s) has cost her contact with her only family (me and my son C) but she is so invested in it, that she continues to “believe” my murdering psychopathic son is “reformed” because he tells her so and that is what she WANTS to believe. To ADMIT that he is beyond repair would be so painful to her that ANYTHING that allows her to stay in denial is preferable to FACING THE TRUTH. She has become, in the process a “Psychopath by proxy” because she is willing to give him the tools (money) which he will use to attack us again and possibly kill us.
NO AMOUNT OF EVIDENCE will make her give up her denial. It is too TOO painful to her, because she would have to ADMIT that not only is her Grandson a monster, but that SHE HAS PARTICIPATED IN HIS DEEDS by enabling him. SHE CANNOT DO THAT.
AS PAINFUL AS IT IS, YOU ARE NOT IN DENIAL. You still have some HOPE that there is something that can/may/might be done for your son, and you are trying the best you can to DO IT. You are taking ACTION. YOU ARE FACING THE FEARS, THE PAIN AND THE LOSS OF YOUR “sweet baby boy” and facing all the horrors a parent has when something like this happens.
IT IS ALL YOU CAN DO. YOU ARE DOING YOUR BEST. You may NOT win this “battle” but you are giving it your best shot. We don’t always “win”—let’s say your son had “cancer” and it might be “terminal” and it might be “cureable” or at least “treatable” you don’t know which is the outcome, so you fight it head on as best you can, as hard as you can. You do everything possible to “save” your son, but you do recognize that HE HAS SOME KIND OF “CANCER”— your MIL saw the cancer in her own son, and for reasons of fear, she kept telling herself HE DOES NOT HAVE CANCER. He died of his cancer and she still denies he had cancer. It keeps her from self destructing mentally and emotionally to DENY the truth that SHE DID NOTHING to help her son except deny deny deny that he had anything wrong with him.
You are also in my prayers, but I think that you are doing what is the only thing you can do, being REALISTIC about the problem and being HOPEFUL IN A REALISTIC WAY.
I admit that I stayed UN-REALISTICLY HOPEFUL and in DENIAL for far too long. I listened to my son’s words and didn’t observe the ACTIONS for far far FAR too long. It was easier (emotionally and mentally) for me to go along with my egg donor’s enabling and denial than to fight it all. When I finally DID come out of the FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) it was the most painful thing I EVER did, but slowly I am healing and recovering and getting back on with life.
Whatever happens with your son, ,I KNOW that YOU will do your best, do your grief work if you need to, and move on with your OWN HEALING. It is a tough road, Witsend, but I am glad tha tyou have the STRENGTH to not stay in denial. I have seen you move through some of this process and I peronally KNOW how painful and tough it is to keep up hope while accepting the truth. One way or another, this will play out over time, and I suspect that it will play out rather rapidly at this point for better or worse, but you have the tools you need now and are rapidly gaining more, and are garnering your strength for the fight ahead. My prayers for your continued strength for the battle and for your peace in your heart. Love, oxy ((((hugs)))))
Just minutes ago I was put on speaker phone as when I inadvertantly called the at risk counselor to ask her a question she told me that she was CURRENTLY IN A SESSION with my son. She put me on speaker phone so that I might hear his frustration in what he was telling her. He was telling her that I had promised to take him to go to a skate park “camp” for a week in Pa. (this summer) And now I wasn’t good on my word.
HOWEVER he failed to tell her that the DEAL was I would get him there (for free) and I would absorb the cost of the gas (several states away) and MY living expenses for a week (in hotel) and pay expenses to have someone take care of the dogs back at home etc. (ALL OF WHICH I CAN’T AFFORD) My car won’t even make it to Pa. But the deal would have been worth it if he would have “straightened up”.
In turn he in turn had to pay for the camp & PASS AT SCHOOL this year. He HAS the money saved so in his little fantasy world the trip is STILL ON.
Once it was out in the open to her that he did have to “earn” the trip…..Because I told her that he didn’t hold up his end of the deal on speaker phone….(passing at school) she said that seemed pretty reasonable because we all had to earn extra pleasures in life.
HE LOST IT right in her office…..He had been playing the “part” of the poor, poor, boy who had the AWFUL mother who went back on her word. I mean he lost it bad…at first slowly, then quickly.
First his anger came out and he told her UP FRONT that he didn’t listen TO ANYONE, ESPECIALLY his mother. The mask came off very swiftly as he told her that HE WAS SMARTER THAN HER and ME put together. And that was the reason he would be in charge of his life is because HE KNOWS MORE than the rest of us. And he got up and left her office. I heard her saying “***** where are you going?”.
She told me that before I called he was leading up to a conversation with her about how he needed to get away from home where he couldn’t do anything he wanted to do…(and of course right now he is running wild and doing exactly as he pleases)
So she mentioned to him about a program in the National guard that takes WILLING kids…Naturally he refused. AND he told her that HE REFUSED BECAUSE then THEY would
be telling him what to do.
In the end she was SPEACHLESS. because he had shown a side of himself that he had held back in thier sessons. She saw JUST A TINY FRACTION OF what I see everyday.
She told me that he had told her earlier that he would have run away from HOME, except he didn’t want to get in trouble with the “law”. So he had been “painting this picture” for awile with her, about how “rough” his life is.
And ALSO very interesting to note that although he expressed his “hatred” for me about how he needed to get AWAY from me at any cost and GO TO PA for a week, it didn’t seem to dawn on him, that this terrible awful mother that I was…..It was FINE for me to drive him there.
She told me maybe the best thing for him was to run away…..
I think the reason I have been STRESSED to the max these last few days is BECAUSE I feel things are going to blow…And it is coming soon. I have felt it all along.
Dear Witsend,
This is alot of stress for sure…
I think I may know the skateboard camp… Woodward… two of my girlfriends teenage sons attend every summer…It is a fabulous program and outlet for them…my one girlfriend is very close with the directors and has developed a nice relationship with them as she lives out of the country and is only in the states each summer. She was concerned with her son making friends/fitting in, etc. They worked with her and helped her son adjust.
Ok, so I know you just went through a heck of alot…but would you be open to turning this situation around “Creatively” with your son…Totally CREATIVELY… maybe even check with that counsellor…call her back and say…can you help me with this…can she reach out to him and say listen if I have a conversation with your Mom and get her to reconsider her position…what would you be willing to do on your end to help to start to improve things at home? Start a conversation with him that doesnt involve you negating (altho rightly so) but doesnt involve negativity…
Maybe you saying, look son I am willing to work with you on anything as long as you are willing to take responsibility for yourself. Things dont get handed on silver platters in life to anyone…I was willing to drive you there and I was all for the skatecamp SO LONG AS YOU PASSED…
You didnt…but you still feel that you are ENTITLED to go. You are NOT. But because you are having such a difficult year, maybe if we start a new clean slate…and I know how much this camp means to you and that you just need to chillout…but there are things that mean alot to me..such as your happiness and future. I feel like we are losing eachother and I dont want that. But I am not going to let you CONTROL and MANIPULATE SITUATIONS…NO WAY NO HOW…you need to be able to be honest and say you lost the privledge of skatecamp because you didnt keep your end of deal …passing! Had you just been honest with her and she called me I likely would have reconsidered. ITs your choices SON that leave me no choice but to come down hard on you. If you make better choices than your life will be easier for you…not just with me but with everyone. Life is about choices… you arent making choices to be honest or face reality…but you want me to make the choice to let you go to skatecamp and treat me horribly … think about it….lets stop this craziness…. I have no interest in keeping you from skatecamp…but if you make choices to be dishonest or irresponsible than you are the one keeping yourself from going to skatecamp…
TWIST THE INTERACTION…COMMUNICATION…LET HIM “THINK/FEEL” HE HAS SUPPORT WITH COUNSELOR AND THAT SHE WILL “TALK” TO YOU AND TRY TO WORK ON A SOLUTION TOGETHER BETWEEN NOW AND CAMPTIME. Let her hook him in to seeing there is a solution…if he is willing to do things to improve things at home/school…
Dear Witsend,
Do you see how you see the picture of him running wild and doing exactly as he pleases….
And he sees the pict as he cant do anything he wants to do (he mostly likely means without an arguement or price to pay or backlash or slack from you ( teenage terms…not that you shouldnt be doing that…but sometimes these tactics dont work with defiant teens…)
In other words if you already admit he is running wild and doing exactly as he pleases and he feels he cant do anything he wants….to me..in my opinion there is nothing to lose by having DIFFERENT COMMUNICATIONS… the counsellor saying look (your son) you are doing this and that and going here there and not doing this that and not taking trash or lawn or letting your mom know your whereabouts….when in REALITY all you have to do is make the CHOICE to be responsible and respectful…peace is then made with mom and you….she isnt trying to make your life miserable but she deserves respect and honesty and a responsible young adult in her home. And you deserve a mom you can turn to, talk to and to trust she is there for you.
I really feel this is about communication…frustration…and even depression…and I feel he has alot of unresolved issues and confusion leading up to and surrounding his fathers suicide, and maybe even relationships with family/friends. He needs an outlet with SOMEONE HE CAN TRUST…even if he is twisting truthes…he needs someone he can trust… Im sorry but just two years ago he was on a baseball field showing emotion and participating and for past 14 years never showed signs of “S in the making”…. he needs someone he can trust…a middle person…so he doesnt feel he is given all control to you and you dont feel you are giving over control to him….
These are communication issues in my opinon…. is there more than depression..dishonesty and manipulative teen?? I dont know…but the fact that he is willing to have sessions with this counsellor and state what he believes what he feels (Even tho half truth or his view…at least he was talking to someone….she needs to continue and bridge the gap…and Woodward probably has experience with children who lost parents to suicide and might even have counsellors or other children he can room with…… ALL FOOD FOR THOUGHT…and my initial gut reaction…