Surviving and Thriving Despite a Sociopath

Avoiding the Domino Effect - safe guarding your children and others'

2011-05-20T11:20:00.000-07:00

To the reader who wrote: "Pretty ironic this is also my first child, huh? Of course I've learned a great deal of patience and my other 3 children are not like him at all, quite the opposite actually."

I reply: It is even scarier when it is your oldest child. Misery loves company and our son did everything in his power to entice his younger siblings (and the neighbor children) to join him. He provided them with substances and other things that would curl your toes. He also constantly undermined our parenting. Whatever we told our children, he'd pull them aside and tell them how awful and unfair and twisted our rules and standards were. His younger brother was very lost for years and we nearly lost him physically because of it. He is finding it a long, uphill climb to get out of the hole his brother drug him into at a very tender age.

It was horrifying to watch the domino effect taking place in our family. We did everything we could, but it wasn't enough. We learned to take a harder line with the first two and have been able to save the younger ones from falling in line. Here are some of the things we learned:

I would recommend that you limit the influence this child has on the others as much as possible. It is not a good idea for him to be sharing a bedroom with a younger siblings where there is too much privacy and opportunity to "indoctrinate" them and share his substances if he is into them. I would recommend a very firm rule about him not being in their bedrooms and vice-versa, especially if you have a daughter! You don't know at this point what his potential for wrong doing is, so better safe than sorry. I wish I had learned that earlier, but I kept trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.
There is much you can do to protect the younger ones without sending your son a message of complete distrust. Rely on your parenting instincts.

I would recommend eliminating sleep overs. Just like with measles, you do not want to be responsible for your sick child infecting your friends' otherwise healthy children, and your sick child will try!

If you have good grandparents in the picture, enlist them to help you. They can reassure the younger ones that big brother is temporarily lost and that mom and dad are not over-the-top in their discipline, etc.

People kept telling us that sending the problem child away wouldn't help because he'd get into trouble where ever he was. This is true, and we didn't have any place to send him anyway, but in retrospect, I know that it would have saved the younger one if we had sent the older child elsewhere to live. We felt like he was our problem though, and that we shouldn't push our responsibilities off on anyone else, but hind sight is 20/20...

If your child has conduct disorder and you can afford it, boot camp or one of the other options for troubled teens is the best place if you have younger children.

On the News- Parents find little help in dealing with psychopathic, sociopathic children

2011-05-14T18:46:00.000-07:00

When a local reporter was doing a story on mental illness in prisons, I followed with interest and then suggested a follow-up on Sociopathy. I was surprised when they wanted to interview me, and agreed only on the condition that it, like this blog, be done anonymously. It was a scary undertaking for my family and I very nearly backed out, but I truly feel that this information needs to get out there to more people because knowledge is power to protect oneself and one's family.

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=15518791

I suggest you also check out the link she shared on sociopath vs. psychopath. This was new information to me, though sadly, not very comforting.

http://helpingpsychology.com/sociopath-vs-psychopath-whats-the-difference

Listen to Your Body Talk...

2011-05-10T13:15:00.000-07:00

You know how your throat tightens up when you are feeling you will cry? When my son was in the throes of self-destructing and taking his younger brother down with him, making the entire family feel like we were being held hostage, the tension showed up in my throat. I often found myself at times unable to swallow even the smallest amount of liquid or food.

They sent me to a specialist and they performed an endoscopy and "stretched" my throat. Unfortunately, it was so tight that they tore it and I landed in the hospital in tremendous pain. But don't worry. My son wasn't concerned. He snuck out of the house and partied that night despite being on probation.

It wasn't till years later when my son was no longer in the home and an immediate problem to us that I realized that it was just the tension and stress. Now if I pay attention, I can see that the problem returns slightly when I am feeling overwhelmed.

My shoulder was talking to me too. After years of bearing the burden of trying to help these boys help themselves, my shoulder just froze up on me and I couldn't use my arm without tremendous pain. It too tries to recur whenever I am overwhelmed and over-stressed or feeling like I carry too great a burden on my shoulders.

Did you know that 90 percent or more of all physical problems have psychological roots? A growing body of evidence indicates that virtually every ill that can befall the body- from acne to arthritis, headaches to heart disease, cold sores to cancer- is influenced, for better or worse, by our emotions.

When negative feelings are stuffed down or ignored and left unresolved, they are still there, affecting you each and every day. Or as I learned from a great book, "Feelings Buried Alive, Never Die".

When you are forced to deal with a sociopath in your life, you are living with turmoil. It's what they do, create turmoil wherever they go. If you are in a situation where you can't distance yourself completely from that person, you must protect your health so that the turmoil doesn't surface as physical ailments.

For me, exercise is essential to keeping my stress levels under control. So is taking care of my spiritual self. Prayer, scripture study, meditation and applying what I learn to my life is very helpful. If you feel the need for more help in maintain peace and tranquility in your life, then you may want to check out this book also. It is one of those that I re-read every couple of years. It even has a guide of illnesses and the probable feelings causing them.

Listen to your mind and body talk. Take care of yourself. You can find peace and tranquility. You can not only survive, but thrive despite a sociopath!

Take Time to Mourn the Sociopath

2011-04-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

Grieving and mourning aren't just for those that have lost a loved one to death. There are other ways to lose a loved one and the pain is just as real and possibly even more complicated.

For us, we lost our sweet little boy to sociopathy. It's not so different than losing a child to cancer, and yet it is, because the child is still around, but in a different form and causing trouble. We don't recognize or like the man he has become. We truly grieve that lost son.

Taking the time to mourn is absolutely essential when you are dealing with a family member that is a sociopath. They are self-destructing and likely trying to destroy the entire family. Much is lost.

As a mother, my grief would build up as I tried to take care of the rest of my family despite what our son was putting us through. I would eventually come to a point where I knew I had to let it out or bust.

I found that the best method for me was to get my husband off to work, my children off to school and take the phone off the hook. Then I would take the time to write, cry and pray and get some mourning done. By the time the family returned in the afternoon, I would have showered, applied make up and I'd be ready to "be there" for them.

Grief is work and must be worked through. Avoiding it or masking it with alcohol or drugs doesn't make it go away, it only postpones it. Grief postponed is grief that is magnified. Get it done as you go. It can't be avoided. You may think you can hold it in, but you can't. It will manifest itself phsically and it won't be pleasant.

More on that next time and in the interim, be good to yourself!

The Spawn of the Sociopath

2011-04-04T15:02:00.000-07:00

"Spawn" is a terrible way to think of any precious child, but it is a good representation of how the sociopath looks upon the children he "brings into this world". (I can't bear to write "fathers" in reference to sociopaths.) Spawn usually refers to offspring in great numbers, and that is what the sociopath tends to produce since they are rarely if ever monogamous and they are incredible risk takers. They tend to sow their seeds everywhere they go.

A recent comment left on this site stated:

"Unfortunately I fell in love with a sociopath, and am now pregnant by him, only to realize he is married with 5 children, and is denying he's the father of my child. He lied about everything about himself, even went so far as to make up a story about his daughter dying. The man shed tears in my presence. Now I'm heartbroken, single, emotionally shattered, and wondering if I have the strength to terminate this pregnancy (I don't believe in abortion). I'm praying I don't have an incurable disease as a result of my interaction with him. My biggest fear is if I have this child, if it will turn out to be a sociopath, because sociopathy is highly genetic."
My reply to her follows:

I'm so sorry to hear this. You have some difficult decisions ahead of you, but thankfully, you've taken that all important first step of recognizing him for what he is.

Yes, there is a chance that the child could inherit it, but there is also a chance that it might not. In our case, only one of our five got the unlucky genes.

I cannot imagine dealing with a conduct disordered child as a single parent though. My husband changed careers once our boy went south because I had to have the mental, spiritual and even physical support at home.

Please, please, please consider the adoption option. Adoptive parents know that just like birth parents, they are taking a chance on what issues the child may have. But they have waited and prayed and prepared for years to have a child and they are equipped to deal with what ever comes their way.
More importantly, if you put the child up for adoption, the sociopath can never return to wreak havoc in his/her life. If you keep the baby, the sociopath is almost certain to never support it financially, and he can return at anytime and haunt both you and the child all your days.

The night our son was arrested, his girlfriend called to tell us and informed us in the same call that she was pregnant. Unfortunately she had already told him. She was a smart, educated girl and my advice to her was to adopt it out, but if not, to at least get him to sign away his rights rather than going for financial support. He'll never pay anyway.

I love, love, love children, but I would sacrifice my relationship with a grandchild anyday if it meant that the child would have a chance at life free of a sociopathic father with two people who are so very prepared and anxious to be parents.

As our son stood trial, the rumor mill spewed out different tales about the now ex-girlfriend. She was pregnant. She wasn't. She'd had a miscarriage. She hadn't. The other girls in "his harem" were mean and nasty about it and we distanced ourselves from all of it as much as we could. The girl had left the state and I suspect that she followed our advice. I pray for her and the child where ever they are and hope that they will remain free of our son's destructive influences.

Trust me when I say that the child will be used as a pawn in the sociopath's game of life. Our son has one child nearby and I've witnessed it repeated over and over in our grandchild's short life as contact with the child was used to try to control myself and others.

It breaks our hearts when this child talks about dad and how he's in prison, but even more, we dread the day our son will get out and return to this child's life. The child is a clone of him, and yet one time he claims the kid and the next time he is denying paternity and wanting us to get DNA testing done. We were there at the birth, we've been there for birthdays and Christmases and mom and dad going in and out of jail and prison. We will not deny this child nor be a part of our son doing so.

I will keep you and your health and the well-being of the child in my prayers. Remember that the most self-less, loving thing you can do is to give this child up. It would be the very hardest thing you would ever do, but you would bring incredible joy to not just the baby, but two parents, four grandparents and countless aunts, uncles and cousins in the new family that you would help create. God bless!

Ignorance is NOT bliss

2011-03-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

Some cannot handle facing the fact that their loved one is a sociopath. Others simply don't care, because for the time being anyway, the sociopath is feeding their ego with delicious proclamations of how they are their whole world, they couldn't possibly live without them, and they are the most beautiful creatures on the planet.

Outsiders can see these for what they are, simply ways to control and manipulate the victim, but for whatever reason, the victims shut their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears and sing loudly whenever anyone tries to point out the truth to them. And thus, they remain victims.

Ignorane is NOT bliss. Ignorance is setting oneself up for heartbreak and disaster and allowing oneself to be used and abused.

On the other hand, understanding is recognition, the first step in protecting oneself. Understanding and acknowledging is initially painful, but ultimately freeing. It empowers one to leave the victimhood behind and move on, a stronger person.

"There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it is senseless. " -W. Somereset Maugham

I know that I will not in this life time understand my son's evil ways. I have learned that to ignore it or chalk it up to 'boys will be boys' is foolhardy. I have also learned that to dwell on it or fret about "where we went wrong", allows him to retain power over me.

All those that over the years have chosen to support him are not just his victims, but his accomplices. Someday they may have to answer for their part in the damages he has inflicted upon others. Ignorance is not bliss!

You wouldn't know that by the people that have turned so viciously on us when we have tried to warn them. I will forever be persecuted by him and his kind for calling them on their crap, but even if I should die at his hands, I would not regret taking the brave stand and "outing" him in my efforts to minimize the young lives he tries to destroy. Now if only his harem were brave enough to take their fingers out of their ears...

"Meetup" with Other Survivors of Sociopaths

2011-03-08T11:00:00.000-08:00

I learned something new today!

Meetup is the world's largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face.

Meetup's mission is to revitalize local community and help people around the world self-organize. Meetup believes that people can change their personal world, or the whole world, by organizing themselves into groups that are powerful enough to make a difference.
Learn more on the Meetup HQ Blog.

And guess what? There are listings under Sociopath!

If you live in Arizona, this group may be for you.

In Florida, they have a group that meets via telephone for safety reasons.

There is also a group for New Yorkers.

And of course, Texas is also represented by a group.

If you know of a support group for survivors of sociopaths anywhere in the english speaking world, let us know about it! We must help each other heal and remember so that we are never sucked back in again.

Held Hostage by a Sociopathic Child!

2011-03-03T11:35:00.000-08:00

The first time I shared this blog with friends, I got a reply back almost immediately from an old friend who lives in another state.

"Your son is MY daughter. I am not just saying that. Between her domestic violence charges for attacks on me, to her being picked up smoking drugs. It is soooooo hard to deal with. I am to the point where I am literally counting the days until she turns 18. In fact, there are 118 days for me to remain hostage in my own house with this terror."

I'm sure that my friend, like me, had no idea when she held her sweet little baby in her arms of the utter turmoil that child would eventually throw the entire family into. That is the nature of this disease.

I think that it is important for others to realize the horrors of being held hostage in your own home by your own child. This girl has threatened to kill her mother while she sleeps! If anybody else in the world had done that, there would be serious repercussions. If older, it would qualify as punishable under Elder Abuse laws. But when it is your own child, you are legally required to keep them in your home.

I'm a pretty stoic person, but I remember hours spent sobbing on the phone, with various social workers and agencies trying to no avail to find help protecting my other children from our son.

We well remember a time when our son had been a runaway and then we got the call in the middle of the night that the police had picked him up for urinating on a playground. We had no desire to pick him up and bring him back into our home, but we also didn't want to face charges ourselves or risk having our other children removed, so we put him in the van and headed for a local youth facility that gives parents and kids a time out from each other after a counseling session.

Of course, once away from the police, he was vicious and belligerent. I remember the ride there vividly and the fear that he would either grab the wheel from my husband and cause us to crash or that he would use the seat belt to strangle me. My husband later confessed to the exact same fears running through his mind. I kept thinking about us leaving the other children orphaned in our attempts to appease the law with this child.

But guess what? The facility didn't take him because we didn't say that we were within an inch of strangling him. It didn't matter that we feared for our lives.

My friend is still a few months from her daughter's birthday and I worry and fear for her daily. I know the nightmare she is living. We can only pray that the child will run away for the remainder of that time.

I know we are not alone in this! There are other parents out there in our shoes! Where is the logic? Should there not be laws in place that protect parents from their dangerously mentally ill children?

Sociopaths in the Prison System

2011-03-03T10:24:00.000-08:00

I appreciated the KSL news story last night on the mentally ill in the prison system. It is a sad situation and something must be done.

Along the same lines, and yet not so much along the same lines…

I'd really like to see the media tackle the issue of sociopathy.

Anti-Social Personality Disorder is a mental illness, but there is no cure and no treatment and they are a danger to their families and everybody else. Our son held his own brother up at gunpoint.

His incarceration has allowed us greater peace and we dread the day he is released.

I would love to hear the experts weigh in on this issue. When a sociopath’s time is served, everyone knows they are a danger to society, but they are released anyway. We are blessed to live in America where everyone is innocent until proven guilty of a crime, but where does public safety come in to play?

I am always searching for answers on this, but so far what I find always boils down to this: Just get the toxic person out of your life.

That’s easy to say when it’s a boyfriend, but we know that if it’s your own child or the father of your children, it’s just not that simple. Even NAMI has no support groups for Anti-Social Personality Disorder. Of course it’s not the sociopaths that need this group, but us, the families and victims of them!

I wonder if maybe sociopathy was the real reason that the British shipped their criminals off to Australia back then…

What are your thoughts on this?

The Best Revenge Against a Sociopath

2011-02-28T16:50:00.000-08:00

What do you think is the best revenge against a sociopath?

One can lay awake nights plotting and planning the ultimate revenge, coming up with many creative versions of delicious fantasies, but in the end there would be no satisfaction in bringing the plan to fruition. Instead, one would only find themselves reduced to being on the sociopath's level, and that is a place none of us want to go!

Revenge won't bring closure. Revenge keeps you stewing in your juices and that is right where the sociopath wants you! Why drag it out? Why continue to be a victim by letting the sociopath remain in your thoughts?

It would be so much sweeter to make a clean break and move forward, but you cannot move ahead if you are busy getting even.
When I worked with a group of girls that had recently been removed from an abusive home, I repeatedly counseled them as to the best method of revenge.
As Arthur Schopenhauer said, "We can come to look upon deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success."
The best revenge against someone who has worked so hard to derail you and destroy you? A life well lived. There are few things they hate more than to see someone happy and that is just what you'll be if you put all of your energies into living your best life.

How have you moved ahead and lived your best life?

Forgive and forget a sociopath? Are you nuts?!

2011-02-18T08:44:00.000-08:00

I believe in forgiveness. Yes, even for a sociopath. I do not however, believe in forgetting when it involves a sociopath and I don't believe that the Lord would want us to. Forgive them and move on? Yes! Forget and be a repeat abuse victim? No! Never.

Now let me add that forgive and forget is perfectly sound advice when dealing with healthy people who may hurt or offend you. I want people to both forgive and forget the mistakes I've made and I certainly want the Lord to do the same for me, so I must offer that to others as well! The rules are different when you are dealing with a sociopath, however, and only because you must defend and protect yourself and your family.

I saw on Facebook where a woman, trying to heal and move forward asked how she can forget the sociopath. She was wisely advised not to. While continuing to dwell on the sociopath and the havoc he wreaked, will only empower him or her, it is very important for us to always remember the lessons learned.

She also asked how she can forgive herself. Come again? She was a victim! There is no forgiveness of self required unless she continues to remain a victim.

One way to pave the road toward forgiveness is to remember that the sick, evil games that sociopaths play can and will be played on anyone and everyone. It's not about you, it's about opportunity as they see it. You are just a game piece in this game they call life. You were merely an opportunity to attain something they wanted.

Don't take it personally. Easier said than done, right? It is tough to do for me as a mother, but I recognize that my son would hate anybody that had been his mother. He would hate anybody who stood in his way and called him on his crap.

It is a proven fact that forgiveness is good for you. There are definite health benefits such as lower heart rate, blood pressure and stress levels resulting in lower risk of depression for you, the forgiver. Many find that once they forgive another, that many of their health complaints are relieved. It is true that feelings buried alive never die- they just pop up in the form of physical ailments! So do it for you. Find forgiveness in your heart, but don't ever forget lest you be victimized again.

"Being mistreated is the most important condition of mortality, for eternity itself depends on how we view those who mistreat us."
- The Peacegiver

Sociopaths Lie Even When the Truth Will Do

2011-02-15T11:55:00.000-08:00

Have you ever looked at your sociopath and wondered why they would lie about such simple, unimportant things? They'll lie about what they had for lunch even though it doesn't matter. The truth would serve quite sufficiently, but they'll lie anyway. You will notice that they don't even seem to be able to tell the difference between fact and fiction anymore as they have lied to themselves so extensively.
They'll even lie to you about you. You know perfectly well that it's a lie, but they are so persistent, looking you in the eye and "swearing to God" that it's the truth, that pretty soon you are questioning your own sanity.

Our son, as he worsened, lied both to us and about us. He told the neighbors, his friends, extended family members and all kinds of other people all kinds of horror stories about us to gain their sympathy and their support. We would meet people for the first time and they would look at us like we were monsters. We only learned later about how we had kicked him out, given him alcohol in the home, abused him, etc. They were all lies, but convincing sounding ones coming from his mouth.

It's a wonder that they didn't come and take all of our children away. That was one reason why we corresponded so freely with his counselors and probation officers. I didn't want to be a pest, but I wanted to make sure our side was heard, not out of revenge, but protection for the family.

If you have a child with conduct disorder, I recommend that you stay in close contact via email with teachers, attendance clerks, counselors, etc. And make sure your e-mail is highly secure!

We are still healing wounds our son created with extended family members. They heard so many lies about us over the years from our son through his grandparents who were total suckers for him, that they were convinced of our insanity. Now that the grandparents are gone and our son is in prison, they are very, very slowly realizing that maybe, just maybe we weren't the crazy ones.

To this day, I dread any conversation with our boy and get no pleasure from reading his letters because everything he says, we automatically doubt. It is a horrible way to live, but we have to protect ourselves by not believing him. We can still be victimized by his lies to others about us, but not by his lies to us.

We can minimize even that victimization though when we recognize that it is not personal. Lying and smear campaigns are just what sociopaths do. They are severely handicapped by their missing emotions and the mental illness. He's not doing it because he hates us personally, so much as for the roles we fulfilled in his life as his parents, especially as parents with the guts to call him on his crap and try to warn his prey. For that we can be proud!

The Sad, Sad End of a Sociopath

2011-02-11T08:37:00.000-08:00

Search Amazon.com for narcissismI just returned from quite a bizarre trip.

An old family "friend" died recently and since she had burned bridges with every last friend and family member except my sister, she got to take care of all the final arrangements. I have maintained for years that this woman is a died-in-the-wool sociopath, but I don't think my sister quite believed me. I believe she does now.

This woman went out in true sociopathic style, having not taken responsibility for her own final arrangements even though she had been wanting to die for at least a year. My poor sister had to jump through all kinds of hoops to get the legal okay to get the arrangements taken care of- at her own expense!

A return trip had her and I trying to clear her condo upon the landlord's request. We held an estate sale to try and recoup the costs of the cremation and the travel. We had one and half days to sort through and "stage" the condo for the sale including four dressers, two walk-in closets and an armoire of clothing and we worked very hard and got very little sleep and began to get a little "punch drunk" because of it. It was getting quite comical towards the end as every time we thought we were done displaying something we'd find another drawer of that same item.

Calls would go out across that apartment, "Make that 66 purses!"

"Now we have 50 saleable shoes!"

"Hold on, here is another drawer of clothes!"

"A-n-d... we have another pair of glasses!"

Sadly, she had once been a very wealthy woman and we sold many items far below their value because we had to clear it out in a hurry. Those who came got great deals and the sale netted only a few hundred dollars. A whole life for a few hundred dollars.

She had two albums of family members, two of her dog and over 30 of her, her, her. I don't think she ever had an outfit she didn't get a picture in. There was shot after shot of close ups of her (quadruple prints) and an entire album of pictures of her possessions and homes.

It was absolutely tragic to sort those dozens of albums, pull out a few pictures and throw the rest away. With each hefty volume I launched up and into the dumpster, I reflected on what an empty life she had led. Sure she traveled the world extensively, but she did it alone or with someone else's husband. Now there is nobody in the world left to treasure her memories. What if she had gone on humanitarian trips instead? Imagine the improved lives she could have left behind.

As a pastor hauled off her clothes to an inner city ministry, my sister found herself saying, "Well friend, at least your clothes are going to a good cause." She said she heard the friend's voice reply in her head though, "To those filthy drug dealers and prostitutes?"

Her paperwork was left in complete disarray too, requiring many hours of work to sort through. It also left a trail of proof as to her sociopathic ways. Paper after paper revealed falsehood after falsehood and laid evidence of the web of lies that was her existence.

Most entertaining was a letter she'd written to her most recent ex-husband who she had been married to for only a very short time. A millionaire, or at least that's what we'd always been told, he had been trying to get out of paying her so much alimony and she was berating him. She had written a long list of problems in her life (many of them falsehoods) and after each one, she wrote "YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

Amusingly enough, she accused him several times over of being a sociopath, even listing off all the traits and characteristics of one. We couldn't help but wonder if she recognized herself in them or if her lies just ran too deep to do so.

She lived a selfish, self centered life, never taking responsibility for her own actions and died a sad, sad person who will be remembered only for the comedy of errors she left behind.

Oh, and when packing her urn for the trip, which is, quite simply, a crock from her own kitchen counter, my sister couldn't quite resist labeling the wrapping, "YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

Why break with tradition now?

Sociopath, Psychopath or Anti Social Personality Disorder? Which is it?

2011-02-04T08:18:00.000-08:00

So is he/she a "sociopath", "psychopath" or do they have "Anti Social Personality Disorder" (ASPD)? You pick, because basically, they're the same thing, particularly since few are ever officially diagnosed.

Calling someone a "Psychopath" tends to instill undue terror of those with this condition. This term usually instills thoughts of psychotic serial killers and so in the 1930's, authorities changed the term to sociopath.

"Sociopath" still carries weight and forewarns those who could be victimized, for even if the terror they inflict is merely emotional, it is terrorizing none-the-less. Once again, the term became synonymous with serial killers though, so the powers-that-be changed the name of the condition to ASPD.

Not only is the term "Anti Social Personality Disorder" long and ungainly, but it is too light and too benign or innocent sounding to protect the innocents that these people run across. All need to understand the gravity of the condition.

You will find that most people who write about the condition prefer the term sociopath, while those still caught in the midst of the terror lean towards psychopath. I prefer the weight of the name "sociopath" and will use it in my writings.

Somewhere, I heard that there are no degrees of sociopathy, that all are equally dangerous and that the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath is merely opportunity. Chilling.

In my experience, there are "higher functioning" sociopaths that maintain jobs and at least the facade of a marriage and family.

My son would be an example of a "lower functioning" sociopath. He couch surfs when not incarcerated, because he can't hold onto a job for long, and therefore a place to live. He simply cannot hold onto any relationship for long due to his inability to remain faithful and non-violent. He abuses substances and lives a life of crime.

Call it what you want, but learn and protect yourself. If you have anything else to add that would help others protect themselves and move on, please share.

How to Love a Socipath

2011-02-01T09:54:00.000-08:00

How can you love a sociopath?!

When my children were young, I learned that if someone did something nice for my children, they did something nice for me. What can I say? I loved my children more than life itself. My world revolved around them.

And so similarly, if one wanted to hurt me, they need only hurt my children. Those mother-bear instincts run deep. When my grown boys were in self-destruct mode, I still loved them, but I didn't LIKE them. They were hurting my children!

From the time they were conceived, I sacrificed to give them the best of everything. I gave birth naturally when C-sections weren't required, spent my summers teaching them to work and providing them with home-grown organic vegetables. I cooked from scratch, took them to church, had family prayer, weekly family nights and family scripture study. I nurtured my marriage so that they would have a two-parent home and I was at home for them each day. I studied child-rearing books and volunteered regularly in their schools. We made sure that we were teaching by example how to be a good upstanding citizens and obey the laws of the land... and they were throwing it all away and destroying their own lives, not to mention taking down their siblings!

With our sociopathic son, we love the boy he once was. We love the man he is now too, but mostly feel pity for him. This illness has cost him everything. We hate the horrible things he has done to us and we mourn our losses as well as his, but we don't hate him. We love him enough to not support him in his destruction. We love him enough to not rescue him from his mistakes.

We love him from a distance. To protect ourselves and the family, we keep the contact to a minimum. We write to him in prison and send pictures, but we receive no joy from his return letters as they are full of lies and manipulations and of course, multiple requests. He feels the need to keep someone jumping through hoops for him in order to maintain some control.

If your sociopath is a neighbor, coworker or friend, keep as much distance between you as possible. You can't fix him or help him.

If your sociopath is a boyfriend, run! Get far away as fast as you can and whatever you do, don't make children with him, or you'll be tied to him for eternity!

If he is the father of your children, get your education and work with your family so that you can be financially independent. Most sociopaths want power and control, but not financial obligations. He may be very willing to sign away his parental rights if it means he won't be held financially responsible for the children. This is a best case scenario, because no child benefits from having a sociopathic parent. They are better off father-less, as you will have no control over what happens on those weekends they spend with dad...

If he is your child, sibling or parent, then it's a whole lot more complicated. As Dr. Laura teaches, you will still be an honorable child if you send your parent a card on all the important occasions, but you don't have to make a phone call or visit if you know you will be abused.

You don't have to let the sociopath turn your heart to stone. They can be loved, but it needs to be done from a distance!

If I Had It All To Do Over... Raising a Sociopath

2011-01-28T07:42:00.000-08:00

The thought of living our sociopath son's teen years over again is absolutely horrifying. They were such a roller coaster ride of emotions with a lot more time spent down that up. Our home is generally a very peaceful place to be. When he was home though, it was the opposite.   It was like he sucked the peace right out of a room upon entering and spewed forth negative energy. We walked on eggshells, forced to be suspect of his every move. We had to safe guard our wallets, purses, vehicles and younger children. We felt like prisoners whenever he was home.  It is was like having the enemy in our camp and being powerless to evict him! Why secure the house each night when the one we feared most was within?

I ask myself frequently what I would do differently if I had it to do all over again. At that time though, we didn't know how dire his diagnosis was. We had hopes of saving him from himself, so we kept plugging away. As a consequence, we lost our next oldest to drugs, alcohol and crime for quite some time.

I don't know what we could have done differently. We hung in there. We tried it all. We listened to every professional and tried every technique and method suggested.  We read and studied and fasted and prayed and tried to love him through it all. I was blessed to be a stay-at-home mom so that I could stay on top of things and my husband changed careers so that he wouldn't have to leave town.

In retrospect, knowing what I know now, that we were fighting a losing battle, would I have done anything different? The only thing I can imagine is that maybe I could have gotten a high enough paying job to be able to put him into a military school. He went through several fabulous state-sponsored rehabilitative programs, from Therapeutic Group Homes to Detention Facilities to a Wilderness Trek, but they were temporary and I fear he just corrupted the other boys and manipulated the adults, especially the female ones. What we needed was a place where they were paid to keep him, but it would have had to have been a high security facility and those don't come cheap! All I've ever wanted in life is to be a full-time mom, but if it would have meant saving my other children from his influence, then I suspect that my returning to work for a few years might have been worth it.

So there you have it, but I have to chuckle, because being a mother, I realize that had we done that, I would probably live in guilt for having "abandoned" him! There is no escaping the mommy guilt! It is our lot in life, but I'll take it, for there is no greater calling in life than parenthood.  Though I'd not choose to repeat those years, I would never trade the education I received. Now where can I go for an honorary degree?

Did you raise a sociopath? What would you have done differently? What advice would you offer?

I'd Rather Die Laughing than Crying- Surviving a Sociopath

2011-01-27T09:23:00.000-08:00

If the first method of surviving a sociopath is to remember that you are not the crazy one, the second must be humor.

While there is nothing funny about sociopathy and the scars it leaves on so many, humor can be found in the audacity of it all if you look hard enough. Laughter is the best medicine and if you can find humor even in the darkest moments of your life, then they won't be all that dark after all.

If you can find a friend that can help you laugh at the bad things that happen, you have found a treasure indeed. The last thing I want is to call a friend for support and have them get all depressed about it and leave me feeling even more down. I want them to understand the gravity of the situation, but then to be able to help me see the levity in it also.

I'll never forget the day that I found myself dusting the chair rail in the big boy's bedroom for the second time that week. I got curious as to why it was suddenly so dusty and started doing some investigating. What I found was heartbreaking, but the irony was too much to pass up, so I took pictures and sent them in an email to my most supportive friends. I titled it:

"I'd Rather Die Laughing than Crying...

and This Weary Mom Needs Someone To Laugh With Her!"

This vinyl lettering hangs in my son’s room

it stands for

‘Choose the Right’.

The picture below that

says,

‘All I Need to Know I Learned in Primary’.

It contains bits of wisdom like

‘Choose the Right,

I am a Child of God,

Honor your father and mother,

Keep the Commandments

and My Body is a Temple’.

Well, you can’t say we didn’t try

to teach them right from wrong.

I found myself dusting the chair rail below the picture for the second time in a week though…

it shouldn’t get that dirty that fast…

hmmm… something is wrong here…

so I lifted the picture off the wall and I found this…

…now we know the latest stashing spot

for contraband.

Oh, c’mon!

I know it’s terribly sad, but

crying gives me a headache

and makes my eyes

all red and puffy.

The irony couldn’t be greater.

Laugh with me!

Please!

Besides,

their dad will be ticked enough

for the all of us!!!

When you are done laughing, please say a prayer for our self-destructive boys and for their parent’s sanity.

Laughter is liberating! It means that you choose NOT to be a victim of circumstances, giving you a sense of control.

Laughter is uplifting! It releases those feel-good endorphins giving you a natural high.

Laughter is courage when you are faced with someone out to destroy you and your world.

Find someone who will laugh with you or come here and share and together we'll laugh ourselves well and whole again.

Now I Understand... Narcissism and the Sociopath

2011-01-25T10:14:00.000-08:00

Along with our son's diagnosis of Conduct Disorder (read young sociopath) as a teen, came a diagnosis of narcissism. Well, I had to look that up and what I found explained a lot.

Now I understood why he spent so much time in front of the mirror a an early age, making sure he looked perfect. Now I understood his shoe fettish!

Now I understood why he quit sport teams where he was very succesful, but not THE STAR.

Now I understood why family and friends had to repeatedly rewind and rewatch footage of him playing sports so that we could all admire his calf muscles.

Now I understood why he was "the bomb" and the absolute best at everything... at least in his own mind. Not that he didn't proclaim it on a regular basis.

Now I understood why when introducing himself to the church congregation, he ended with, "I hope you all enjoy me."

Seriously. He said that.

Now I understood why the boy that can't determine fact from fiction can remember so very well, everytime I tried to warn some girl about him and hates me for it to this day.

Whether the narcissist in your life is your man, your child or your mother, step carefully! Understanding the narcissist is important. How to handle them is even more important.

"Your 'outing' of him or her adds to his narcissistic injury. A narcissist needs to look good in front of others and you gain nothing by proving he is not the best, smartest, wealthiest, most capable person he wants to be seen as."

While this is all rather amusing on the surface, it is truly quite disturbing on deeper levels. Narcissism destroys families, it destroys lives. Learn about it and how to protect yourself and please, share your insights here. Together we can heal.

My Secret Truth- Confessions From the Mother of a Sociopath

2011-01-24T09:31:00.000-08:00

I'd rather my son had cancer, even terminal cancer.

As a mother, I never, ever thought I would say something like that, but it is my awful truth.

If he had contracted cancer as a teen instead of this personality disorder, then it would have been him and us fighting together against the cancer. Instead, what we got was him turned sociopath, fighting against us and all that we hold dear. And he was determined to infect all of the rest of us, particularly his younger siblings!

Even if it were terminal? Yes! If he had died as the boy we knew and loved, we would miss him desperately, but we would be at peace with knowing that he was in the loving arms of our Savior and that we would be together again someday.

As it stands, we desperately miss the boy that was once such an integral part of our family anyway. We don't recognize this man-child that has tried so hard to tear this family apart. We don't know this man that turned my husband's parents so viciously upon us.

If he had contracted a terminal illness, then he wouldn't be spending his days destroying the lives of innocent women and children, commiting armed robberies and home invasions. He wouldn't have pulled his younger brother along with him into a life of drugs and crime. If he had died while he was young, we wouldn't worry over his eternal salvation.

This is my truth. Why would I share such a thing? In hopes that you will come to peace with the awful truths that your sociopath has brought to your life.

I would love to hear from you as we take this journey toward healing together.

I'm not the crazy one! Maintaining Your Sanity Despite a Sociopath.

2011-01-24T08:23:00.000-08:00

I have found that the first step in surviving a sociopath is to repeat the mantra, “I’m not the crazy one!”

Then continually repeating it over and over and over and over… because the sociopath will be trying over and over to convince you and others that you are plumb crazy or the cause of all their woes.

Our son had been in prison for a year before we found the strength to visit. We went with great trepidation for we were still healing from the many wounds he has left us with. We also went with hope and a prayer in our hearts that we would find a boy who was finally starting to take responsibility for his actions.

Alas, we were disappointed once more, as he again laid the blame for his conditions at our feet. I found my stomach was in those old familiar knots and my mind was whirling with confusion. I’d nearly forgotten how he could create such turmoil within.

As we left the prison, we sucked in the cool fall air, savoring the taste of freedom. We sat in the car and began to talk, trying to regain our mental and spiritual footing. We reminded ourselves repeatedly that we couldn't possibly be the guilty party or we wouldn’t be the ones free to leave that place.

We knew we couldn’t go home to the other children in our current state of mind, but we found a little trip to Ikea for some retail therapy and Chocolate Overload Cake worked wonders.

Of course the best way to survive a sociopath is to avoid a sociopath, but that isn't very feasible when it's a close family member.