A few months ago, a Florida woman called me about the sociopath in her life. It was her teenaged son.
As she told me of his disrespectful behavior toward her, his acting out in school and his violence, she broke down. This woman could barely speak through her tears.
To me, the greatest pain of any involvement with a sociopath comes when children are involved, especially when the sociopath is the biological parent. Not only has someone been deceived by a sociopath, but the child of the relationship may also become a sociopath.
Lovefraud has had nothing to offer the parents of children at risk for sociopathic behavior. Until now.
Introducing Liane Leedom, M.D.
Dr. Liane Leedom is a psychiatrist, who made, as she calls it, “the mistake of her life.” She married a man who turned out to be a con artist. The man is the father of her son.
Dr. Leedom studied at the University of Southern California, the University of California at Los Angeles and Yale-New Haven Hospital. Still, as I’ve said many times, sociopaths are expert manipulators. The best training in psychiatry had not enabled Dr. Leedom to detect his true character.
The man was arrested when her son was five months old. “When I realized that my son’s father was likely a psychopath, I trembled with fear,” Dr. Leedom says. “I held my little baby and wondered, ”˜What if my son grows up to be like his father?’”
Help for parents of at-risk children
Dr. Leedom spent three years researching the scientific literature. She believes that even though antisocial behavior has a strong genetic basis, there are steps parents can take to prevent their children from becoming full-blown psychopaths, especially if they start when the children are young.
Dr. Leedom has written a book called, Just Like His Father? A Guide to Overcoming Your Child’s Genetic Connection to Antisocial Behavior, Addiction and ADHD. She also has two websites: justlikehisfather.com and parentingtheatriskchild.com.
I am pleased to announce that Dr. Liane Leedom will be posting on the Lovefraud Blog. Her articles will appear every Friday.
I am also thrilled to offer assistance to the parents of at-risk children. It may be too late for the son of the Florida woman. But for the parents of younger children, Dr. Leedom says there is hope.
madi23494
I hate to put it this way but I think I may have to agree with Dr. Leedom I think it may be too late for the woman with the teenage son. I really hope that somewhere there is help and that she can try and do something before her son really gets into some serious trouble. If not my heart really goes out.
All my best wishes and good luck I cant imagine how hard it must be.
mizmarymay
two years ago, my 18 year old son was introduced to a girl named Tiffany. She seemed to be a sweet girl, acting coy, cute, with big wide eyes and a soft voice. Tiffany got pregnant (later she said she wanted a baby so she would have someone who would love her forever) and my son married her. He was so in love with this girl despite our (whole) family’s disapproval. She constantly needed some sort of stimulation all the time. She started calling Boys to go to my son’s workplace and ask my son for the car seat so she could leave with these boys ” for a ride” cause she was bored. She was constantly calling old boyfriends to chat with. My son finally left her. She ran off and noone knew where she was for 6 months. Divorce took a year because we couldn’t find her to serve her papers. They finally divorced, the court gave her custody (Her parents stuck up for her and was telling us they were planning to lie for her against us ) and 3 months later she took off again. So everytime this happens (where she takes off ) her parents bring us the baby.
Just last month, this happened for the 4th time since the divorce this March of 2007. So right now the baby girl is with us. This time my son reported her “abandonment” to Children’s Protective Services. There is a case opened against her right now. She is cute and coy and you would think by looking at her that she was just so sweet; It’s when you watch and notice a disturbing pattern ,not only from Tiffany, but also her parents, that this facade is just that…..a facade. We are hoping to finally take custody of the baby girl some time soon we hope. We are currently waiting for Tiffany to give a statement to the caseworker assigned to this case. (CPS just recently found out where Tiffany is) Tiffany has never taken responsibility for her actions. It’s always someone elses fault. Her parents continually ‘rescue’ her and take her side “because Tiffany promised she would try and she was really crying so hard”………Well this time CPS is involved and it’s not our word against theirs’ . The caseworker did tell us that “Tiffany already has proven herself to be Neglectful of her daughter”.
We are hoping that this all will end son. Please pray for us and that my son will finally get his daughter. We worry about the future of this little girl.
Tiffany’s parents agree that there is something wrong with their daughter but Tiffany refuse to get any type of help. Two years ago she was on Lithium but we don’t know who her doctor was at the time or what the diagnosis was. Tiffany’s parents never wanted to speak about it. I just feel that we get half truths from her paople. We don’t trust her parents anymore. I think my son is going to ask for a psychiatric evaluation of Tiffany …….Tiffany IS ill but we don’t know or are unsure of what this behavior is. This is completely too much and we are inexperienced with these behavioral problems that Tiffany exhibits from time to time.