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

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!

Take Time to Mourn the Sociopath

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! 

"Meetup" with Other Survivors of Sociopaths

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!

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?

The Best Revenge Against a Sociopath

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

My Secret Truth- Confessions From the Mother of a Sociopath

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.

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. 

How do you maintain your sanity? 

How do you not just survive, but thrive despite the sociopath in your life?