There was a time when mental health professionals were trained to see children as intrinsically good until influenced otherwise. If kids came out bad, the parents were to blame.
That attitude is changing, writes Dr. Richard A. Friedman, a professor of psychiatry in Manhattan. In reality, parents have limited power to influence their children.
Read Accepting that good parents may plant bad seeds, on NYTimes.com.
Link submitted by a Lovefraud reader.
bulletproof
one step
love and light as you heal xx
Ox Drover
BP. One is right, you articulated that very well. Makes sense too. Takes time to learn to trust and different situations. The Love at first sight and jumping in IMMEDIATELY WITH BOTH FEET I think is a big red flag.
Sarah999
I think we expect too much from P/S/N/A’s. Just the fact that they KNOW right from wrong “intellectually” is not enough for them to DO the right thing. They just CAN’T . . . genetically.
By analogy . . how many times have dieters eaten “that piece of cake” or “gone on a binge etc”
They KNEW it was fattening etc. but couldn’t help themselves.
The smokers KNOW they can get lung cancer . .but can’t help themselves.
I think for P/S/N/A it’s the same thing . . KNOWING what is right, is not enough to stop them. Because it’s a compulsion, addiction, obsession & genetic.
I think it is incombent upon US to take action. .we have to remove ourselves from their influence i.e., “NO CONTACT” to the extent that we can. They are predators, and they can’t and won’t change. It’s not because they don’t want to . . . They can’t!
healingfast19
Thanks Ox!
You’re right. I do have to find that lesson for myself. I’ve been doing that slowly but surely. I have also realized that my boundaries are a little too fluid. Frankly, I’m a residual people pleaser. Not as bad as I once was, but still bad enough to allow someone in my life that was abusive. I gave this alien control over my life, because I really wanted to be rescued. I wanted someone else to be responsible for caring for me. I figured this was a result of having to take on too adult responsibilities at a very young age. So I always felt I just wanted to be taken care of. I realize that now. I have to take responsibility for my own life.
Ox Drover
Dear Healingfast,
Yers, and I am finding too that it takes PRACTICE to accomplish. I get to feeling like I am “ALL HEALED” and I jump off and tackle something and lo and behold! I realize I am too confident in my own “healing” and I get my “tit in a wringer” over it. But if we weren’t willing to fall down, none of us would ever have learned to WALK!
We have to learn by doing, and by mistakes, and then do better next time. Takiing time to examine ourselves and the results we get is important. So be easy on yourself but do assess your failures and your successes for some feed back.
Portrait
Not a new concept, but not a currently poplular one. Let’s just hope it forwards a trend in thinking differently from how we have when it comes to nature vs. nurture.
Some people are just born without the nuerological ability to attach to other living, feeling beings. While nurture can influence how it manifests, nature has determined it will one way or another.
It is hereditary and, for now, incurable and for the most part, untreatable.
Portrait
I think of my dear mother, who passed in 2007 leaving behind 2 daughters. Not the perfect parent, but a good & loving woman who genuinely overcame many odds having lived a tough life and still smiling and caring and giving of herself until it hurt, and then some. A very smart lady, but no match for the sociopath whom she birthed in her second-born, nor was I, even though I’m no dummy, either.
My socio sister hoodwinks family members to this day. She has played on complaints our uncles have had against my mother for years, solidifying their belief that their sister was a main root of all the family dysfunction, effectively deflecting responsibility from herself. Looking back, I see now how my sister has been doing this successfully since early childhood.
No, Mom wasn’t perfect. But she didn’t create the sociopath, genes did. And ironically, it wasn’t even her genes, but those of the narcissist whom she wed and who abandoned his family.
Ox Drover
Yea, sib, that is the thing, the N/P is the gift that keeps on giving (genetically) in leaving us children to cope with that have the tendency toward psychopathy. EVen unto the next generation. “The sins of the fathers…. even unto the third generation” but yet, they are not compelled to be evil I believe they have some choice, just like a person who has “alcoholic genes” can choose not to drink and express those genes. It may be more difficult for him than for me, but he still has I think a CHOICE. Same with Ps I think they have a choice how they behave. They have a choice to not express the BAD BEHAVIOR even if they are tempted to do so. They know right from wrong. Just as the alcoholic who drinks his pay check away knows what he is doing is “wrong” but he chooses to do it anyway. Choice may not always be easy, and each of us has our own cross to bear….my drug of choice is nicotine but I finally made up my mind and quit smoking.
Portrait
Hi, OxDrover.
Indeed, they certainly do have choices as to how to behave.
Unfortunately, however, unlike others who suffer such maladies as addictions — who also have choices, as you point out — they have no inherent motive to make “good” or “right” choices.
Therefore, unless & until there is a treatment or cure, it is left to the rest of us to empower & protect ourselves, as we do here on Lovefraud, and as I’d like to see perpetuated in a broad public awareness movement.
Sarah999
For a normal person that has an addiction, his compulsion /addiction/disorder etc. usually hurts themselves (binging, smoking, cutting, drugging) . .as well as other people.
For a P/N/S/A, their addition/compulsion etc to lying, exploiting, raging etc . . . hurts the OTHER person, and BENEFITS themselves. And having no conscience . . what incentive does the P/S/N/A have to alter his/her behavior?