I believed my father was a successful “investor” when I was growing up. At least that’s what I told myself. He made a great deal of money, we lived in expensive homes and he always had plenty of cash. He spent money like water.
But in my early twenties, suddenly things didn’t look so good. We had started to have money problems. I came home from college because of money “to wait until his next deal came through”. That is when FBI agents began showing up at the house looking for Dad.
My father was in trouble, but he kept telling us kids it would be alright. “The Feds were after him”, he said, but he would beat them, “they had the wrong guy.” That was his standard response when something went wrong, only this time, something was terribly wrong.
These guys were after my dad and they didn’t think he was so charming. One night we were coming home from Mt Dora and I was driving. My father had a house in the exclusive neighborhood of Sweetwater Club in Sweetwater, Fl. Once we pulled in the gated community a car started to follow us and my Dad asked me to turn left (instead of right) to see if they were indeed after us. I don’t know what I knew at the time”¦only that my Dad had some trouble, but I was not expecting this.
My Dad changed his behavior and he was angry. They tried to pull us over and my Dad told me to keep driving and he wasn’t kidding around. This scared the crap out of me. Here was an undercover agent pulling me over and my father telling me to keep going. The agent pulled in front of the car and my Dad said to keep going forward and around his car. The cop was directly in front of me yelling to stop, hand on his gun. It’s hard to describe how intense this was for me. I was panicked and I chose to stop. I was scared and knew it was the right thing to do. My father was disappointed and he let me know it. I felt like it was my fault he was going to jail that night. Once again I proved to him (and myself) that I wasn’t man enough to be like him, or at least that’s what I thought. He was pissed and gave me a look. The look he gave me was very chilling, one that was usually reserved for the “bad guys” as he liked to call them.
The cops had a warrant for my father’s arrest from Alabama or South Carolina (I don’t remember) and they handcuffed him and put him in the car. This was another one of those moments that I didn’t know how to react. I felt like they were doing the right thing, but he was my Dad, my provider and I didn’t understand what this all meant to me. I felt safer with him in custody, but I wanted my Dad back. These emotions didn’t make sense together. I was scared and confused.
Later, my father attempted to have me shoot him in the buttocks with a shotgun to avoid a court appearance on these same fraud charges in 1984. According to a friend, he took me out in the woods and told me to shoot him with bird shot. He was going to say it was a hunting accident. I was unable to pull the trigger and was treated as a failure by my dad. At that time I still believed my father to be the greatest person that I knew and was crushed by not being able to meet his expectations. My friend said I called crying to tell him of this story. He remembered me as being “devastated”. He and I never spoke of this again and I did not remember the event at all until he told me of it (20 years later in 2004) after hearing the story of my recovered memories about the double murders my father committed. I still do not remember it in detail, but seem to remember my father leaning on a fence post telling me to shoot him over and over again. He was disgusted that I wasn’t “strong” enough to do this. I felt like a complete failure.
These are stories that I never shared with anyone else. It was just too surreal and didn’t make sense so I kept them to myself. Some memories are still vague and others are now crystal clear.
I think this is where the loneliness comes in when entangled with a sociopath. It’s just too exhausting to try to tell someone the story, especially after the experience. Will they believe me was always the first question followed by intense fear of the sociopath’s reaction if he of she ever found out I told someone. I was also afraid what it would lead to. In the case of my father I never really considered this an option for me, but these were my feelings and thoughts.
It’s the feeling of being trapped in something that you know is bad, real bad. The fear of being caught in this is terrifying enough, but somehow the fear of the sociopath’s reaction to you trying to get out is even worse”¦if that’s possible.
In the case of my father I continued to love him and hope that these things would stop happening, like it was a bad dream that would eventually go away. No such luck.
Now I understand the truth, thank God. If you are involved with a sociopath there is only one change possible in the relationship and that is from bad to worse.
Dear Bird,
CONGRATULATIONS! That is the FIRST STEP in the right direction. Believe me, babe, I was sooooooooooo NEEDY I think I was at the point of going down to the local homeless shelter for winos and picking me out a fairly clean looking one and taking him home. LOL I literally would look at guys in the grocery store and think, “I wonder if he’s married?” I felt so old, fat, wrinkled, ugly, unloveable, ya da, you get the idea.
And quite frankly, at my age there are not guys lining up telling me how beautiful I am and how desirable, etc. unless they are looking for a place to life or a sugar mama, and those can’t get passed the locked gate. But at least I am laughing about it now, and I am NOT FEELING NEEDY any more, so I am NOT AS LIKELY to be taken for a ride by another P. Talk about PICKY NOW! YEP, that’s me, Because you know, I am doing okay now by myself, so why would I want anyone in my life that wasn’t a BENEFIT to me?
When you are younger than I am (and gosh I hope you didn’t have the Birdie at age 61 ha ha) there is a good chance you will eventually find a great guy for you and to be a father to the Birdie, but you need to complete your healing first.
Become confident and happy as a single person. Get to a point that you are not looking to ANYONE OR ANYTHING to provide you with happiness. Get out of the mind set that “If I just had a great guy (or __________ fill in the blank) I would be happy” Happiness and security are ALWAYS (or should be) based on YOU and you alone, then you can SHARE happiness with another COMPLETE and good person. When you base your happiness on yourself, no one can crush it, because no matter what happens, you are still YOU.
Things happen, things come and go, life happens, but the happiness and joy we have should be based on ourselves. You have come so far in such a really short time, Bird, and I am so proud of how you have managed, and I do believe it has been a difficult road for you to walk under the circumstances, but you know what, if you could do what you have ALREADY done, YOU ARE STRONGER THAN YOU KNOW.
If I had a daughter I could not be more proud of her than I am of how you have taken the bit in your teeth and had that baby, gotten back to work, taken care of the baby and grown so much in such a short time. I know it probably seems like EONS, but it really is in the long run of things a SHORT time.
“99% of the time” (I made up that statistic) the people I see who get and stay in trouble time after time after tiem are those that jump right back into a “relationship” before they get done healing. It was sure MY UNDOING after my husband’s death.
Hang on, sweetie, you’re already on the way…get your excitement in some other way for a while though than a “relationship”—give my baby Birdie a big squeeze for his aunty oxy! ((((hugs))))
Dear Oxy, Henry and all my pals at LF – I would like to wish you all a really happy and contented Christmas and my best wishes to you all for a good 2009 as well. Love from Beverly
Dear Wini, A very happy Christmas to you too. I have been off the LF scene for a while. Still nursing my health, not quite in the clear yet, January is filled with medical appointments. I have spent alot of time trying to make some sense of all that has happened to me in the last 1-2 years – but believe me, my take on alot of things has changed hugely in that time for the better. The end of the year is always, for me a good time to reflect and get my house in order on all fronts, and that is what I have been doing and now all those tasks are complete, I can focus on what improvements I would like to make for next year – I have a big list. With love and best wishes to you Wini.
My father is a nutter, we all endure him to maintain a relationship with our mother who is now in her 70’s..she still has the odd clout from him..She a sad old dear, toatlly dependant and still under his spell even now…if we stick up for her…he abuses her when he has her alone, so we jolly him along…all through childhood he was sexually abusive, in groping us or talking dirty….he still tries now and then!! You gotta keep him at arms length and never be alone with him…
When as a child i would refuse to give him what he called a feel he would try and make me feel bad saying you cant love me…and even I am your father, I spawned you and get nothing yet you will f*ck some boy one day who wont give you anything…No kids know not to be alone with him, they are safe, they find him creepy anyway so steer clear…still some sides of him I love though..
Dear Muldoon,
I am so sorry for your mother and for you for growing up with such a monster for a father. It seems that the more we have been abused (and that IS abuse) as children, the more likely we are to marry or pair up with an abuser later in life.
I think that is why it is so important to get our own “house in order” after we get free of them and to realize how we ALLOWED this to happen to ourselves. Not that we are to blame, not at all, it is just that we somehow don’t develop the boundaries we should. As children we are compelled to live in this kind of situation by our births, nothing we could do but learn to “cope” but the way we cope as children doesn’t work as adults.
I have a father like yours (only probably worse) and my mother is an enabler (like yours, again, only worse) and you know, I realize now that I was starting to be just like her. Needing the love I didn’t get as a kid, the nurturing and protecting I should have gotten, and didn’t learn how to take care of and value myself. I LET others walk on me. Now I am LEARNING that in order to live, I have to take care of ME, and not let anyone abuse me. It is a long process of self reflection and changing my own ways.
I know you are in the middle of a night mare now but you have made the crucial first steps of saying NO MORE. No more for me,, and no more for my children.
I am not going to lie to you, it will be difficult, but you see the light now and you will do it. Hang in there, and come here often, as often as you need to. We can’t do it for you, it is something that you must do for yourself, but everyone here on this blog has been through a night mare of their own.
LEARN, read every article here. KNowledge is power, and you have to take back your power from him. It is probably too late for your mother at this point in life, because taking back your power, facing the demons can be painful and some people never develop that strength because it is less painful (THEY THINK) to just “go with the flow” and take the occasioal clout, but IT IS NOT LESS PAINFUL, it only delays the pain a while. ((((hugs)))))
You are right about abuse in childhood staying with us and affecting the boundaries we set if we indeed set any at all..My mother had a terrible ife and in his way my old man is a victim too…his mother took her sons to bed and had sex with them!!! I try to bare this in mind when I think of my old mans traits…my husband had a awfull childhood too, partly that is what kept me forgiving him…but I now see, someone got to break the mould, i dont want my girls being abused later in life because they see abuse as love or ok because I put up with it.
When my mother was young it was ok for men to beat women, the police seldom acted…she had a tribe of kids, not sure if there were refuges then…
Its funny my life was sh*t nut its made me needy and too daft with lovers…yet some men abuse us and have gone the other way because of abuse, perhaps we are stronger than them in our own way.
I think now how dare he give me hell when I have always been good, kind and loyal, my life been crap but I dont go around causing misery to others, the opposite in fact.
What percentage here of people had a crap childhood? is that the link?
Muldoon, my stepfather who raised me was very abusive as well, and my mother neglectful and enabling. The worst part of it, though, was not being allowed to say “no” and to stand up for myself. This trait has haunted me throughout my life and I still struggle with it sometimes. I don’t think I went through anything as bad as what you went through. But I grew up pretty depressed and hopeless and tried to commit suicide at 14. When I didn’t die, I lived in mortal fear that my stepfather would find out what I did and try to kill me. It’s hard to say how much of that is involved with my attracting the sociopath last spring. He claimed he’d had a hard childhood too, and clearly the fact that we both knew pain in our lives was the initial connection. However, this guy was extremely clever and pretended to be the very opposite of an abusive person.
I have never seen or heard of the bizarre gaslighting of a sociopath till I met the S in April. It was a real education for me. He is like no one in my past, and I hope to God I never meet anyone like him again.
Donna, do you know why is it that there is more known about personality disorders in America, that people are more aware and, why it should be that people are more ignorant of it in London? People everywhere should be educated, I feel like screaming of the lack of education!
Can anyone enlighten me???
post a comment
where to even begain lie steel anything for drama
cost me so deeply can not even come close to matching wits with a con artist of this calbaber
fred
Not everyone here (or all victims either) have been abused as children, and not all of the psychopaths have been abused as children either.
It is frequently the case though that since there is a genetic link that a psychopath gives birth to or sires a chld who will grow up to be geneticly inclinded to be apsychopoath and then because the parent is a psychopath (therefore unable to be a good loving parent) the child gets the DOUBLE WHAMMY, of genetics and environment.
Of course there are children of psychopaths who are NOT psychopaths. I am a child of a psychopoath, but I am NOT a psychopath, yet, my P-son is a psychopoath and has 2 grandfathers that are Ps. My son’s bio father was dysfunctional and mentally ill, but not mean at all.
Bi-polar is genetic, and bi-polars are frequently (about 1/3) psychopaths I think the statistics are, and some ADHD kids become Ps as well, so if you add in the OTHER mental health (and inheritable) issues, you can get someone who is bi-polar, ADHD AND Psychopathic—wow, what a night mare! Any ONE of those disorders is a problem in itself, but with all of them factored in, plus, maybe an abusive childhood as well and you have the prescription for a monster.
Some people respond to being abused by becoming abusers, and some respond by becoming victims. I kind of wonder if the person who doesn’t get the gene(s) that tend to push toward P-hood, and are abused by the family psychopath learn to survive by being a victim, then takes that victimhood and survival skills into adulthood where they are NOT really functional. My mother was a victim of her P-brother, and her mother was an enabler/victim, my mother is an enabler as well, but more punishing of people who don’t go along with the “family script” to protect the family psychopath from consequences.
Only by realizing what I WAS DOING that kept me involved in the drama was I able to make the changes in ME that will protect ME. I’ve continued to work on ME, I’ve learned to FORGIVE MYSELF, because Iwasn’t as good a parent, daughter, wife, mother as I might have been if I hadn’t been raised the way I was….and my son C also became a victim of a personality disordered woman, who tried to kill him…so she was pretty hard core abusive. I hope that both of us can come out from this chaos and drama and trauma better and stronger people. That we can STOP the progression of this victim/abuser script and live healthy and happy lives.
Yes, people should be taught what a healthy relationship is in middle school if not before. There is a big push here in the US on NO BULLY policies. When my dog and I went to a middle school recently to do an educational program, I noticed the “No Bully” signs all over the place.
When I was in 2nd grade, I went to a school in which my step dad taught in the higher grades. I had a girl that came to school every day and beat the snot out of me. I for some reason was ASHAMED that she beat up on me. I didn’t tell anyone. Finally when she bonked me on the jaw (and broke it) with a big heavy coke bottle and the injury was visible to the teacher, I was “forced” into confession that she had been beating me every day.
The problem was handled and it was explained to me that she was the 21st and youngest child of a large (to say the least) family and that she was bullied at home and came to school and took it out on me. WHY ME? I’m not sure why she picked me, but obviously even at that age, I had LEARNED how you handled bullies, you were ashamed, and you kept the secret. Of course that diddn’t play well in adult hood and hadn’t played well as a child either. LOL
I did resolve that I would never stay with a man who hit me, and I never had that problem, I did have that boundary, but yet, I allowed my son to beat me and then “forgave” him…DUH? I allowed “friends” to walk on me, steal from me, use me and abuse me, and my P-son.
I won’t allow it again. I will no longer try to “rescue” people fro themselves. I will help people, but walk that line between “rescue and help” carefully.
I took in a couple of horses last spring when their barns, stables and home was hit by a tornado. That was “helping.” But when the owner decided that she had found a cushy spot to keep her horses FOREVER, I had to set a BOUNDARY and enforce it. (One of the horses was a dangerous one, in fact it bit its owners breast and nearly amputated it) OUCH!
Even then, I felt somewhat “guilty” that I was enforcing a reasonable boundary. The boundary being: I will not tolerate dangerous animals on my farm. I am NOT responsible for the fact she had a dangerous animal that she will not control and which could pose a danger to me, visitors to the place, or even her, and if it got out of the fence it would be a danger on a road and there was no way to control the animlal.
So finally I made myself do what I KNEW WAS RIGHT, and I did it. Now that I have had a few practice runs (this was one) of setting reasonable boundaries, I no longer feel guilty when I set a boundary.
What the heck did I even feel guilty for in the first place? Because she loved her horse (which she knew nothing about how to care for or train) or because she couldn’t afford to feed the animal and its ribs were showing? None of that was my “fault” and none of that my “responsibility”—but somehow I had developed this sense of I had to “fix” things that were not my responsibility. I even thought about trying to train this horse myself, until I got to thinking about it and thought “Wait a minute, I am 61 years old, this is a 3 year old 1000 pound animal that doesn’t even know how to lead and is viscious as well, and I am risking my life and limb, WHY?
This horse was the equivalent of a 1000 pound psychopath who was willing to hurt you to maintain dominence over you She (the horse) had already demonstrated that several times. She had no discipline and didn’t want any, you were simply there to serve up her feed OR ELSE. A horse that strikes out at you because they are afraid is o ne thing, but this horse was NOT afraid of you, she intended to dominate you. And, she wasn’t even MY horse. With the price of horses in the pits, even though she was “registered” she was of such poor quality physically, if she had been dead calm she would have been worth $200 total.
What I am trying to illustrate here with this long diatribe is that I was considering risking my health, wellbeing and the risk of bones being broken for a $25 horse that didn’t belong to me. DUH? And feeling guilty because I wasn’t willing to do so? DUH?
But it was a learing experience. I did my “good deed” by taking in the horse left homeless by a tornado=helping. But when it became a situation where the owner wanted to overstep her boundaries and stay here, I enforced the boundaries and then I got over my “guilty” feelings and learned a lesson.
I don’t mind “helping,” but I won’t “enable.”