Psychopaths

Psychopaths and Parental Alienation (PA) appear to share common threads. One of these threads is “lack of empathy”: both the psychopath and the alienating parent share this common trait.

In the video below, the psychopath is described:

Though I am not a mental health expert, I have often thought my ex-wife is a psychopath. Though she does not fit each and every trait which allegedly describes the typical psychopath in the video above, she does indeed bear many of the characteristics.

Three main characteristics in the video describe her to a “t”: lack of empathy, a desire to control others, and her pernicious lying. Some of the characteristics, though, she does not share, such as the exaggerated hand movements discussed in the end of the video. Neither was she a big alcohol user (and certainly not an abuser) while we were together.

Her lack of empathy was, and remains, one of the characteristics that provide evidence of why I believe she is at least possessing of a personality disorder or something more serious: being a bonafide psychopath.

This lack of empathy is seen mostly in her treatment of our children; she does not express the slightest level of normal concern for our kids desiring to have a relationship with me, especially with our middle daughter, Michelle (not her real name). Though our other two daughters have not expressed a desire to see me in the last twenty years, Michelle certainly has.

And my ex obviously knows this about Michelle, but she completely discounts Michelle’s desire, even longing, to see and have a relationship with me. As I have previously pointed out in at least one other prior post, what normal parent would deny this longing to be with the other parent?

But my ex is relentless in her desire and insistence that our children have absolutely nothing to do with me. She has failed to understand, or even desire to try and understand, that, at least for Michelle, having a relationship with me is important and beneficial for Michelle; this factor alone would, to a normal person, be sufficient for the other parent (my ex in this case) to want this for her own daughter.

But for some reason, my ex either cannot see this need for Michelle, or else she refuses to see. Either way, this is indicative of the mark of an individual who lacks empathy, and when someone lacks empathy for one of their own flesh and blood children, you can be assured this person is not playing with a full deck.

All loving feelings for my ex were driven out of my heart long ago, but, knowing how much she means to my daughters, I would never refuse or discourage them from having no contact with her if the shoe was on the other foot. My feelings for my ex would never come into play when it came to what is best for our daughters; if they wanted to see her, of course I would allow it—even encourage it if they didn’t want to see her, knowing it was best for them to have a relationship with their mother.

But psychopaths and people with certain personality disorders and severe mental illness evidently don’t see things this way. They are so consumed with themselves and their own little selfish worlds they fail to notice the needs of others—even family members, their own children.

But the story gets worse. My psychopathic ex, consumed with hatred and malice for me, has embarked on an ongoing 20 year campaign of enmity directed towards me with the hope and intent of destroying me. And her favorite and most effective weapon in this one-sided battle was our own children. By turning them against me, she knew this would be the best way to hurt me. She was right.

Unfortunately for our kids, and this is difficult for me to admit, they have become just like her, expressing and manifesting in their own attitudes and behaviors towards me precisely like what their mother has expressed towards me. They have become conformed into her very image of hatred, malice, and revenge.

And while my ex sought and succeeded in her removing my kids from my life through her brainwashing and lies, effectively separating us, my children have continued that separation and now willingly remove themselves from any contact or communication with me. The circle is now complete and my ex has achieved complete victory. As hard as this is for me to admit, she won.

This victory, though, has come with a gruesome cost: my kids have absorbed their mother’s pathologies into their own beings, no doubt not even realizing this dark and evil transformation of their once gentle and loving selves, which has slowly been dripped into them, like a hospital IV, over the decades by their mother’s hatred. They are now, more or less, clones.

Again, this is difficult for me to admit, and I honestly hope I’m wrong. The natural consequences which would flow from my assumptions, if I am indeed correct, is something too dark and horrible to contemplate.

When I realized the very real possibility of these assumptions, it was—paradoxically—a step in the right direction for my own inner healing, allowing me to make some almost impossibly difficult decisions for my own self-preservation: I needed to finally say good-bye to my own kids and finally move on from this unwanted personal tragedy.

What helped me make this final decision was the realization I was no longer dealing with the loving, caring, and delightful children I had once enjoyed and deeply cherished. Now, I was not dealing with one disordered personality (my ex), but four. Four people bent on destroying me, in one degree or another, but all of them wanting absolutely nothing to do with me: no contact, no communication, nothing. Each of my children told me they were blocking me from any further communication after one of my many repeated attempts to try and reach out to them. They were parroting the example lived out before them every day by their vindictive, psychopathological mother.

As mentioned in my last post, this is a choice I had to make for my own survival. No one, at least one with my frail mental health, could long survive dealing with family members that exhibited such unwavering malice towards them. Something was bound to break, and I saw no light at the end of this dark tunnel while I lived out the rest of my final years on this earth.

Dennis Prager said something which profoundly struck me in one of his presentations. He was speaking at the Arizona State Legislature on censorship alleging occurring at Arizona State University. Evidently, over thirty professors at ASU falsely accussed Prager of being a white nationalist, a label he strongly and passionately rejects.

In his explanation of why he refutes this charge, he said people on the left “don’t debate—they smear.” This was a profound statement and one that struck me as being true with my family: they don’t debate either, just smear (listen at timestamp 9:16).

What I mean by this is, for going on 20 years, my daughters and my ex wife have treated me in the same way these professors on the ASU campus treated Prager. Instead of sitting down with me in an environment of mutual respect where everyone’s feelings, disappointments, various perspectives, accusations, grievances, hurts, etc. can be discussed, critiqued, questioned or explored in an attempt to understand and explain, they smear me, my motives, my behaviors, and who I am as a father and individual. They do nothing but smear, falsely accuse, and allow no dissent, contrary perspectives, or discussion to their particular narratives of events. They all, each and every one, smear but don’t debate. Such people are impossible to have reasoned and mutually respectful dialogue with.

Finally understanding this and realizing the impossibility of reasoning with individuals with such hostile, narrow-minded, and psychotic thinking, it was long past time to put this 20 year nightmare behind me, bury it, and move on with my life.

It was a simple and easy process to forget my ex; she neither warranted nor occupied any place in my life or heart. Those memories with her were purged out of my mind decades ago. But for my kids, this was unthinkable until I realized, through no fault of their own, they had become just like her and I was no longer dealing with those precious daughters I had once so thoroughly loved and lived for.

I want to only remember the way they were, memories rapidly fading by my own children’s unrelenting abuse, disrespect, horrific lies, cruelty, and rejection of me. Again, I do not necessarily blame them (my children) for such unconscionable behaviors, falsehoods, and attitudes. But neither can I emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, or psychologically endure such behavior any longer directed against me. For my survival, I had to start the process of burying the living dead.

And again, as I mentioned in my last post, I remain hopeful; such hope, though, will not happen in this life.