Victims of Psychopaths Community Group
Is he or she a sociopath or psychopath? Think we're only talking about serial killers here? Psychopaths, sociopaths and even narcissists come in every walk of life, every career level, and every socio-economic category.
Oh my God! I have suffered for almost 31 years, had no idea there was a name for this disease. My life has been ruined, all friends and family have been distanced, my reputation has been damaged beyond repair, and lately, my psychopathic son has not allowed me to be near his 2 year old son, my first grandchild. I have never held my grandchild in my arms, except at his birth. My whole family looks at me with suspicion, because these two people have completely presented my personality to everyone in a negative way. I think his wife thinks I have a mental problem therefore, she is also not answering my phone calls and allowing me visits. My parents and siblings see my very Charming and Handsome son only when he visits them overseas.
With his twisted lies and manipulation, he has completely damaged me in every way possible, physically, mentally, spiritually and hurt a mother's feelings to the limits. I am a victim, which nobody realizes. I alone am the witness to the behaviors of two very cunning, manipulative, emphathyless psychopaths, which has basically ruined my entire life. I just learned on March 14th as I was watching news about Donald Trump, in which they were calling him a "Psychopath", when I suddenly realized that "Oh My God, this is my son and his father, my ex". I am certain in my case, it is genetic, both father and son have victimized me for years. I have continuously been crying since March 14th. I just don't know what I am going to do, how to move forward.
My heart is beating so hard thinking, what if my son is hurting his child. If he has absolutely zero empathy for me, when I cry, he laughs, the more I cry and ask him to change his behavior, the more he calls me names and talks about me to people. I am his target. Not sure why I am his main target. But maybe he has many other targets, such as his friends and co-workers. He keeps me sheltered, and away from everyone. If I dared to call his wife or friends, he shows me his anger which is frightening.
I gave birth to a psychopath. I carried the seed of a psychopath. Both father and son have ruined my life. Because I suffered with my son for 20 years (he started showing this behavior at age 15, today he is 35), my pain today is so huge, so very huge towards him that my motherly feelings is not as strong as it used to me. However, the motherly feelings are still very much there, so I am not sure how I will get out of this ever. I think I am ruined until the end of my life. How am I going to tell his wife, who is pregnant at the moment with their second child? But I will have to tell her. Otherwise, she will be so broken like me. How can I know that he is not hurting his own child, maybe he is pinching his child, who knows. My psycho son loves animals, I see him constantly kissing them. He used to love animals as a child, can't hurt an ant, although today I am not sure, after how he has hurt me. What am I going to do. I feel like I am in a daze. My 85 year old mother who lives in New Zealand has been hearing me tell her, there is something wrong with my son. We thought someone had done black magic to him. Now I know what is wrong with him, Oh My God. What am I going to do? Oh Dear Lord!
With his twisted lies and manipulation, he has completely damaged me in every way possible, physically, mentally, spiritually and hurt a mother's feelings to the limits. I am a victim, which nobody realizes. I alone am the witness to the behaviors of two very cunning, manipulative, emphathyless psychopaths, which has basically ruined my entire life. I just learned on March 14th as I was watching news about Donald Trump, in which they were calling him a "Psychopath", when I suddenly realized that "Oh My God, this is my son and his father, my ex". I am certain in my case, it is genetic, both father and son have victimized me for years. I have continuously been crying since March 14th. I just don't know what I am going to do, how to move forward.
My heart is beating so hard thinking, what if my son is hurting his child. If he has absolutely zero empathy for me, when I cry, he laughs, the more I cry and ask him to change his behavior, the more he calls me names and talks about me to people. I am his target. Not sure why I am his main target. But maybe he has many other targets, such as his friends and co-workers. He keeps me sheltered, and away from everyone. If I dared to call his wife or friends, he shows me his anger which is frightening.
I gave birth to a psychopath. I carried the seed of a psychopath. Both father and son have ruined my life. Because I suffered with my son for 20 years (he started showing this behavior at age 15, today he is 35), my pain today is so huge, so very huge towards him that my motherly feelings is not as strong as it used to me. However, the motherly feelings are still very much there, so I am not sure how I will get out of this ever. I think I am ruined until the end of my life. How am I going to tell his wife, who is pregnant at the moment with their second child? But I will have to tell her. Otherwise, she will be so broken like me. How can I know that he is not hurting his own child, maybe he is pinching his child, who knows. My psycho son loves animals, I see him constantly kissing them. He used to love animals as a child, can't hurt an ant, although today I am not sure, after how he has hurt me. What am I going to do. I feel like I am in a daze. My 85 year old mother who lives in New Zealand has been hearing me tell her, there is something wrong with my son. We thought someone had done black magic to him. Now I know what is wrong with him, Oh My God. What am I going to do? Oh Dear Lord!
I SO feel your pain. I'm going through something very similar with my grown child as well. It feels like I'm in mourning, even though she is still on the earth physically, the person I thought I knew is gone, and never really existed to begin with.
She has been trash-talking me to her friends since she was around 10 yrs old. Now at 21 years old, she is doing it on facebook to family and mutual friends. I feel so helpless and angry, and at the same time I'm in mourning for the daughter I lost. She never was the person I thought she was. She faked it all her life. She was very affectionate with me all of her life, even into her young adult years, hugging me, telling me she loved me, and how important I was to her. But behind my back, she was telling people that I was abusing her, demeaning her, giving her low self esteem, and an anxiety problem. I found a facebook message she had left up a couple of years ago, and she was talking to her best girlfriend, in the conversations she referred to me as a "cunt" and said that she felt matricidal. I chalked it up to her just being mad at me for something. I always brushed things off thinking she would outgrow it, or thinking she was just rebellious, but oh my god, no, it is much much darker than that.
The last 2 yrs shes been hanging with this loser guy who has been the "triangulation" person for her. She would bitch about me to him, tell him stories, embellish things, exaggerate arguments, and make up complete lies about me. He too, would act all nice to my face, but he recently admitted (while they were packing her things and moving her out of my home) that he had been telling her to get away from me for years. Both of their masks came off that day.
Quick background: Lies, drug abuse (heavy stuff, not just pot) manipulation, stealing, law-breaking, since she was 9 years old. Went to a therapist in high school because they required it after she got caught high on opiates while in class. She always just explained it away as self-medicating because school and people made her nervous etc. But the problems continued even after high school. I tried to convince her to seek out counseling...they have free services at her college, but she wouldn't do it.
Every week she was caught in another lie, or driving my car while drinking, or snorting drugs, or caught talking about shop lifting, or getting moving violations in my car and not telling me, etc etc...the list is never ending. It was just one thing after another.
She is a full time college student and was living at home being fully supported by me until a month ago when she got fed up with me "taking her freedom". The rules of the house were: Don't drink and drive, don't drink before going to work (part time job), no staying out late on week nights (last semester two Ds and two Fs on her report card) no heavy drugs (heroin, oxycontin), and no more lying to me, or stealing from me. She couldn't take it anymore, in her own words it was like "living in prison", so she moved into a trailer with this loser guy, who works for wawa as his career (and who, according to her, steals from the cash register too). So definitely not a good influence.
As if this bs isn't painful enough for a mother, she is on facebook trash talking me to my family and friends telling complete lies from "I needed medical attention when I tried to leave" to "my mother is withholding my mail" etc etc. I won't stoop to that level and put drama on facebook, not even to defend myself, so I'm just letting her run all over me. I feel like I have no recourse.
Like you, I didn't know there was a name for this, I didn't know it was a personality disorder, so I am now in the throes of educating myself. Meantime I'm in so much pain that I feel like I'm going to split in half. I have no idea how I'm going to live with this for the remainder of my life. It's been a month now since she left, and I haven't gotten any closer to coming to terms with any of this than I was the night she ran out of here after I caught her sniffing drugs up her nose and confronted her.
I have no where to go with this. It's so crazy that no one would even believe it if I told them that my child is on the sociopath spectrum. I talk to my mother about it, and she is a good listener, but I can't bother her every day. This is literally killing me.
I hope your son isn't hurting his child and hopefully there would be signs of that, and his wife would step in if that becomes a problem.
My daughter always wanted a cat. So we always had one. When one would die, we would get another. We had 3 altogether while she was growing up. In retrospect I wonder if she was hurting them. At the least, they say sociopaths sometimes use animals in various ways, and don't always torture or hurt them. I think my daughter always wanted the cat because it helped her manipulate me. She would act all loving with the cat and we would pet it together and play with it together etc. They are very cunning.
Recently my daughter had gotten pregnant accidentally with the Wawa guy's child. She terminated the pregnancy and I am now thanking god for that.
I am wondering whether your daughter is intelligent? You said she gets D's and F's, but my son also got them the first year he was in college. He was a complete mess and wasted his college tuition which he is now paying back. He met a really nice Mexican girl with high standards in college, and when she was moving to San Diego, and he was being kicked out of SF State, he went with her. Just packed and left, while I was crying my heart out. I put in a lot of love and care into my child, I mean, my complete attention, my life, my hard work. I cried for 2 nights, without stop. Then I wanted to move to San Diego to be near him, but he said if I came there, he would move somewhere else. His girlfriend wrote him a letter, which I have it in my possession, saying that she cannot figure out how he can do drugs and get kicked out of College, but yet talk so badly about his mother. She eventually broke off with him.
I will always regard her as the angel who intervened in my life, to save me from severe torture. I would have probably died of heart break, if he had gone to San Diego alone. I felt her loving touch on him, and was able to at least function somewhat. When he was arrested, he was charged with a felony of having possession of 1 lb. of marijuana in his college dorm. He was also selling marijuana from his dorm room. Oh my God, he had a notice in his room, which 10 things the buyers could not do. That list was a list from hell, it was telling the buyers what they cannot do, but the language was as if it came directly from Hell. After he was kicked out, he was not supposed to be seen near the college, a certain distance of the college. I went to pick him up, all by myself, I had no one, I was all alone. How do you describe such things to other people, it is impossible. My family to date has no idea what I went through, because there are no words to describe it. And whenever I have tried to describe it on the phone with my overseas family, my mother belittles it by saying "what is wrong with this boy?" I want her to say "what is wrong with this Monster?". To me when she says "boy", it is insulting to me, because he is not a boy, but a complete monster. Once I saw his face, it seemed to have no conscience, no conscience at all.
My son has come much further along than your daughter. What you are currently going through, I went through that in 2001 and 6 years prior to that. From 1995 - 2001. In 1996, I sent him to a school in India, an International School. My other spiritual friends were taking their children there, because they were also facing crises from children. I have some fuzzy memory here. But during the first 6 months that he was there, he contracted hepatitis, so missed some portions of the school. Then he came home for a break, he had lost 40 lbs, but had survived probably death. I did not go, because I was very naïve about this disease, did not realize that he was that sick. Later when he came home, I was devastated, hugged him a million times, and thanked God that he had survived such a serious illness. He had jaundice also. Anyway, since he had to go back for another 6 months, otherwise, he would ruin his year, I sent him back. I am not sure in which of these visits, but when I went to pick him up from the airport, I realized that he did not recognize me. It was so shocking to me that he had not recognized me. I think his mental condition had started at my home, and got worsened in the school overseas. Later, the school accepted all the other kids back, for the following year, but they never gave him an invitation to go back. I didn't care, because I wasn't planning on sending him back. The following year, the senior year of his high school, it was a nightmare for me. I don't know how he managed to sit for SAT, passed with a high GPA such as 3.5 I think, and got accepted at SF State. I filled out all his forms, hired a truck, drove to the college, got him a dorm room because I was the one mother who did everything for him on time. Chose his classes, making sure he got into all the classes of his choice, being first in line.
He got to room with a nice African American boy who came from a decent family. The night I dropped him, the following few nights later, he called to tell me that he was walking to the library and wanted me to know, in case something happened to him. He was nice at that time, so I am so confused. Within weeks of this conversation, he completely changed. He took me out of the list of visitors he could have, his room mate's father called to tell me that he had drug paraphanelia in his room and that I should go there. I went and sat outside, waited for him till 2 am, and when I saw him finally come back from partying, he would not talk to me or care that his mother was waiting outside in the car. This happened several times. I then visited the roommate and brought all that drug stuff back home. Imagine if the police had stopped me on the way, I would have ended up in jail. I have so many stories, so many that it would take pages and pages.
They are very intelligent, very cunning, very manipulative. Your daughter sounds like like him. However, my son changed at 15, prior to that he was a sweet, lovely child who used to write me letters of love. I have copied everything about him, and have a huge folder on my computer. You should do the same, however, I think that maybe now that she has taken everything of hers with her, you may not have all her records etc. My pain was so huge that I wanted to make sure this was really happening. Therefore, I started scanning everything and noting it down. And all this I did after he was already married. I gave all his boxes to him, all his school stuff, etc. Then one day as I was watching his dogs, I brought his college box back home, because I didn't want his wife to see the bad things. Thank God I did, because his disease has progressed so much more after his marriage.
This poor girl, who is not only beautiful but such a bright young woman, with a masters degree, fell for him, for a sociopath, just as I, also a beautiful and bright woman, had failed for his father, a sociopath, years earlier. Right now I am more concerned about his wife and children, than I am of him. My feelings for him have lessened, although I know I will worry till the end of my life. I am feeling so ashamed and scared that his name might appear in the newspapers and I will die of shame, from my colleages, and co-workers. Our last name is very unique, not many in the Bay Area, so he is caught in a crime, it will be devastating.
My dear MarieToo, let me please just say this to you. Please don't beat yourself up too much, keep on trying to be the nice person that you are, because each person is God's child, let God take care. And listening to my story, have some hope that with your prayers, she will meet an angel soon, who will take her out of this. I don't promise that they can ever get healed, no way, ever, I don't believe that, but maybe your problem could be taken over by her angel husband, just like in my case. I have had a nice few years, these past 2 years, because, he kept me away and I thought, that is fine, as long as he is okay with his wife. If they are both happy, then I am fine. I am a very spiritual person and visit India go to ashrams and am with holy good people, so it is okay, I spent my time in these things. However, after his child was born,and he distanced me to this degree and his wife stopped talking to me over one incident, I realize that the devil is still very much alive. To the world, he looks very handsome, very charming, absolutely stunning and earns over $100,000, but to me, I know what he is. He is a monster, that can hurt to an extent, where the person he hurts can die a million deaths, which he did to me. I am not sure what he must be doing to his wife, but I can see the manipulation in her behavior from far.
I feel your pain absolutely, because you are going through it at the earlier stages than me, which I was going through in 2001. You are luckier than I am because you know there is a name for the disease and there are others like this out there. I did not have this knowledge. Just keep on praying every day and surrender completely to God to take over her life. Best Wishes, Love, Hugs!!!!! Keep the Faith. God's Love is greater than anything in this world. With God, Everything is Possible, including a cure and a turn of events, keep this faith. I am keeping the faith that one day my son will call me Mom, and his brain scans will be normal. By the way, right now I alone have diagnosed him with Psychopathy, as I am certain 200% that's what it is. However, I would like a brain scan to confirm that and I am not sure how that can be done, maybe a court order, although I am not sure how that can be achieved. How will I fight in court when I have no money and he has all the money. Devil at its best, isn't it?
MarieToo, I was listening to this guy on youtube what he was saying. Said he has studied psychopaths for 20 years. Had some pretty good insights as to the origination. You are a young victim at this point, since your daughter is in her early stages, I have been a victim for 31 years, therefore, I have had lots and lots of time to think what is happening, why it is happening.
You know how it has taken many many years for people to finally understand that there are various types of people, not just males and females. There are gays, bisexual, gender ....... etc.
This man was saying that psychopath are basically animals in human bodies. I feel the same way. They have absolutely no compassion and no empathy and are ruthless. However, I had noticed that my son had a bit of love for me, a few times during these crises. And I had also noticed that he only responds to love and love alone. If I call him with a lot of love, he understands it a little bit, and we have some love between us. Oh dear, I miss that so much. What if I die of a heartbreak.
I was gonna say that maybe our children are not totally human, they are less than humans? I am Indian so I believe in reincarnation. What if they have come reincarnated, from animal to human, and they don't have all the human qualities yet. My son was born in 1980, I thought those were better times for the earth, but I guess I was wrong. The many changes we see today, I guess the changes to earth were already started in 1980, with his birth.
If you can, with a strong heart and belief in God, watch some of these videos to educate yourself. I am trying, after crying. I am alone, no friends, no family. I don't even know what I will say if I talk to someone, so I just avoid talking on the phone or meeting up with anyone. I will begin to cry and then I will have to tell them what is going on. And I haven't decided yet how I will tackle this. First thing next week I am going to see a therapist or psychologist. Should I be seeing a psychologist, therapist or psychiatrist.
MarieToo, have you watched any of the videos of Susan L Brown's videos? They are very educational for us to learn more about this most devastating and horrible disease. I wish they would have a cure. In my opinion, it is the world's worst disease yet. Nothing can be worse than this. I think to me death is more acceptable.
Hang in there! Sorry about my very long emails. Please feel free to write to me.
Oh yes, mine was arrested for drugs (MDMA aka Ecstacy) too when she was 18. We had it expunged from her record, but I fear she will be arrested again if she doesn't start learning from her mistakes. A few months back her guy friend brought a bunch of pot and hash oil into my house where they were going through it, and trying to sell it. It was ALOT....several thousand dollars worth of street value. When I saw that, I told him to get it out of the house. He looked at my daughter and said "see, I told you she would freak out". Again. I'm the bad guy, the person in the wrong because I don't want the amount of contraband in my home that could put all of us away for a decade if caught. These types are risk takers. They don't worry about the law or getting caught, even if it's happened to them before. They don't seem to learn from their mistakes. And everything is always someone else's fault anyway. It's mind-blowing.
I am hoping that my daughter finishes college. When she was with me, she had no financial worries so she was able to fully focus on school. But now that she is out there having to support herself and work 3 jobs while she is going to school full time, I have my doubts that she will be able to continue full time, or whether she will continue at all. The guy that she is with has no goals, makes 9.50/hr and isn't even a HS grad, no GED either and no desire to get one or try to move up. So I am hoping that she doesn't adopt his low standards and lack of motivation, but I guess time will tell.
As for her intelligence...yes, she is pretty smart academically. And like any other student has classes that she is much stronger in and others that she struggles with. However, the Ds and Fs, to her own admission, were from a lack of applying herself. Her guy friend would pick her up from school early, and pull her out of classes, so they could go hang out and drink. She would spend her whole weekend out galavanting with him and neglect her studies. When I tried to negotiate with her about balancing her time management, she agreed that she would go out Fri and Sat but dedicate Sunday to her studies, but that went by the wayside when her guy friend would show up at our house on Sunday with different plans for her. She is weak that way and easily influenced. When I exploded over this, of course I was the bad guy, and her friend started to convince her that she was being "abused" by me since she is an adult and shouldn't need my permission to do whatever she wants.
I am so sorry that you cannot see your grandchild. I would imagine that must be absolutely heart-wrenching for you. It seems that you son may actually be using the child as a tool to hurt you. Of course, I don't know that for fact, but this is what they do. Everyone and everything is used as a means to their ends, even a child or a pet. It could also be his sick way of further causing never-ending emotional pain in your life. For whatever reason, that seems to fill their sails and make them feel very satisfied and accomplished. Eventually the charm will probably wear away and his wife will see him for who he is underneath all the good looks and charisma. As good as they are at their games, it eventually gets tiring for them to keep up the phony facade, then they start slipping up and letting the mask drop off, while their victim gradually sees the curtain begin the lift. Once they can't fool the person anymore, it blows up completely and they move onto to their next victim. How sad. I don't know whether to feel disdain or pity. Most days I feel both, on top of profound sadness.
I have dreams about her that she came back to me admitting that she has a problem and wants to seek counseling and get better, and then I wake up and realize it was just a dream, and my stomach drops again. And as much as this hurts, unless and until she is willing to admit she needs help, I can't have her in my life even if she wanted to be in it, because that opens me up to more abuse and lies that she will make up about me.
Like you said, they probably won't get better which I don't understand. If this is a "disorder" why can't it be treated? I have my doubts that it's due to genetic neurological wiring. If that were the case, wouldn't there be a pill for it? We have pills for other mental disorders...whether it's bi-polar, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety disorder and on and on. But sociopathy has no cure and all the articles I've read and documentaries I've watched say that it's very unlikely that they can ever change or get better. I still hold out hope though that lifes lessons will humble her to some extent and that she will come to see that this is no way to treat people. It's so sad that none of their relationships are ever genuine, just by virtue of the fact that socios are not authentic and everyone in their lives is just a pawn in their little scheming chess game. I wonder what it's like to live in their minds. To always be playing, acting, manipulating, taking pleasure in hurting others. Yet they know when to behave themselves when it behooves or benefits them. They also know right from wrong but just don't have a regard for it. I'm beginning to see this more as a set of characteristics of people who simple don't care rather than an actual neurological mis-wiring.
You CAN move on and find some happiness in life, even when estranged.
Best wishes! {{hugz}}
To answer your questions, I knew about the drugs in her system because she had been caught so many times, and ultimately admitted to me that she was using. It started a 9 years old when she stole my prescription meds and started taking them. It progressed to heroin by the time she was 14/15, then onto oxycontin (pain meds) that her girlfriend was stealing from her mother, then onto suboxon (the drug they give recovering heroin addicts, but apparently you still get high from it), then she went to "ecstacy" (mdma) and on and on. She always managed to find "friends" that has access to drugs. She always eventually fessed up to all of it. I found heroin paraphernalia in her room so she coudn't deny that one. I found the mdma pills on her too. And during her sweet 16 party that we had out in restaurant, she was in the bathroom half the time snorting crushed up painkillers and leaving her guests to fend for themselves. The real problem came in when she fell asleep during a class in HS....maybe 10th grade or so, and the school required drug testing. The test came back positive for opiates, and they gave her detention and sent her to the school therapist. The school therapist told me she was self medicating because of issues she had with her father (we divorced when she was 9). She continued to see this lovely woman counselor, but I think she just worked her with lies. I think my daughter has known for a long time that it was more than substance abuse, but she became very adept at bullshitting the therapists. Shortly after that she wanted to get a prescription for her "anxiety". I took her to an outside therapist who was apprehensive about giving her a tranquilizer. Both myself and the therapist encouraged her to get "therapy" instead of a pill to make it all go away, but she was adamant that it wouldn't help and she did not want it. The therapist gave her two months worth of a tranquilizer to help her finish her last days of HS, then told her it was going to be therapy and no more drugs. My daughter dropped her. The next therapist was in college....she *supposedly* went to see a counselor who helps students with anxiety issues and procrastination issues and even drug problems. When she told him that she was basically drinking daily, he recommended that she see the college Psychiatrist. But no. She wouldn't do that either. Bottom line, she has never had an official diagnosis of sociopathy. It was my recent research that brought me to this conclusion. The characteristics fit her to a T, with the exception of hurting animals, and being violent.
No, I have not spoken to any of her friends even though many of them have been in my home and seemed to like me, called me mom, etc. Behind my back she was trashing them to me, so they have a false image of me that she has been painting. They are all similar to her, all have disfunctions of some kind, and I know better than to approach any of them. They are not independent thinkers. They do not have the wisdom to think that maybe there is something else to the story, or maybe their friend has the problem and not her mother. The maturity level is not there yet, so whatever she says about me, no matter how horrific, they take it as gospel and don't consider that there may be another side to the stories.
Like you, I found some good information on Youtube. A Dr. named George Simon was really the first one that said so many things that just fell into place. I'm not sure that they're no thuman, I think they're humans that just don't care, or in more severe cases humans who enjoy hurting others because it bolsters a lack of self esteem.
In an effort to further understand and make sense of all of this, I have a book on order called "The Empathy Trap". It's about character disorders including the types we are talking about here. I will be sure to check out your recommendation of Susan L Brown on Youtube. The only thing that helps me at all right now is talking to other people, and learning as much as I can about this. Sadly, it doesn't look like much can be done to cure this, but having some understanding of what it is seems to be helping me to some extent.