Friday, May 20, 2011

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

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.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

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



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

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Listen to Your Body Talk...

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!