Interview with the mother of a psychopath

In which I interview Tina Taylor about her experiences as a mother of two (Pauleen, a psychopath and Marc, a neurotypical). What she talks about is as interesting as it is important to anyone reading who has a psychopath in the family. The interview was originally conducted last year. 

James Renard: Thank you for agreeing to do this. If I ask a question you don’t like, please just say so rather than making up an answer. Alright, could you briefly state the names and ages of your children, then tell us a little bit about their infancy? 

Tina Taylor: My children are Pauleen, now 25, and Marc, now 18. Pauleen was a very easy baby. She only cried twice her whole life, and never as an infant. I just put her on a schedule for feeding because she might otherwise starve to death without a peep. I thought I was so lucky because of how easy I had it. She didn’t have terrible twos nor terrible threes. She only had one tantrum (because she wanted something in a store) but I didn’t give in. Starting at age two, she said, and did, some bizarre things out of the blue that stuck in my head – saying things such as, “Mommy, everybody thinks that I’m prettier than you.” I guess it was a competition. Other than that, I thought everything was smooth sailing until she hit age 6 when the lying was noticeable. Marc was a handful as a baby. He cried a lot during the first few months. He was very emotional during his twos and threes, but he did not stress me because he was so loving and cooperative. Starting from age two, he spoke truthfully, and I trust him completely. I did notice during their childhood that Marc’s behavior was markedly different from Pauleen’s. Marc was a difficult baby, but grew to be just such a joyful and helpful person. Pauleen was an easy baby but grew to complaining about everything and making offhand remarks.

JR: I can imagine even psychopaths are terrible liars at 6. What was the most outrageously unbelievable lie that sticks out in your mind? Also, would you say that even while they were very young, you found it easier to get on with Marc than Pauleen?

TT: I always had fun with Marc at every age. Pauleen switched from easygoing to impossible at age six. Her first grade teacher evaluated her and she was put on ADHD meds. It only partially helped. She pretended to take the meds and had us wondering why it wasn’t working. Did you know that psychopathy is a form of attention deficit, too? When Pauleen was 4 she said a man came in the apartment and put a knife to her belly. That was the whole story. It was very matter-of-fact, no hysterics, nothing. At the time, I did not know what to make of it.

JR: No, I didn’t know that about attention deficit, and though I’m not surprised there’s a connection, it might be more a case of psychopathic behaviour being mistaken for ADHD.

I’m sure it became noticeable to Pauleen that you were more easygoing with Marc. Do you think she may have ever felt less loved than her brother? Might she have been jealous of your closeness to Marc? So when she switched from “easygoing to impossible”, how did you react? Did you feel positive about your ability to overcome the problem or were you lost? How did the way you treated her change? 

TT: When Marc was just newborn, Pauleen told her grandmother that I don’t love her anymore. Pauleen and I could never develop a closeness because what she did and said made me want to hide from her. Of course she noticed that I was more easy going with Marc as time went by. I was totally lost. I couldn’t understand why. I didn’t even realize how odd it was that she never cried, until she finally cried when she was a teenager and I was dumbstruck. She had never needed comforting her whole life. It looked fake because her face was not stressed, she just had tears. It gave me a weird feeling. The way I treated her was terrible. I could not handle her behavior and I did not know what to do at all. I went to counselling, but I still grew distanced from her every day. We used to sit and watch TV and say absolutely nothing to each other like strangers. This is why psychopathy badly needs to be identified in children. Parents could do a better job than I did at raising a psychopath. Psychopathic adults could advise what their needs were as children. I am very accepting of her psychopathy nowadays, but it is too late. Well, even though I accept that she has a condition that is not her fault, I don’t trust her at all. There is the matter of lying to me and stealing from me that makes me uncomfortable about having her in my home.

JR: What can I say except thank you for having the courage to share that. It does take courage to admit screwing up as a parent. And gives a lot of context to your work and makes it very easy to see the motivation for your work. 

So you were parenting from a position of ignorance, through no fault of your own, but you made those mistakes. That you have raised a well-adjusted son is evidence that you are a good mother, but you were completely unprepared to deal with a psychopath. Looking back, what would you have done differently? More importantly, what mistakes did you make that you would bunch together in a list of “don’ts” for other parents of psychopaths? 

TT: Looking back, had I known that Pauleen had psychopathy, I would not have taken her biting remarks so hard. I would have seen her differently. For the most part, I believe I did a good job of making her mostly prosocial. I always believed in the positive reward system for children instead of punishment, and I did my best to do that. Pauleen especially was more motivated by rewards because the threat of punishment meant nothing to her. I hear now there are studies in the prisons on that philosophy for psychopathic antisocial criminals. I would not say that my son is well-adjusted. He has been living with his psychopath father since he was eleven. His father does rotten things to him and my son is a doormat, just like how I became from being raised by my psychopath father. I am not going into detail about why he lives there, but at the time he started living there, we only saw the mask of Harlan’s good-guy act. A list of don’ts is only one thing – don’t let distancing set in. I would say primarily to parents of psychopaths: Understand that your child is stuck at age 5 emotionally. This means that when the psychopathic child acts selfishly or impulsively, try to remember that it’s their permanent neurological condition.

JR: No matter how much in the dark you were, there was another person in your daughter’s life who should have understood her better: her father, a psychopath. Were there any signs that he recognised what Pauleen was and had a better idea of what he was doing with her?

TT: Both Pauleen’s father and step-father are psychopaths. (They are completely different from each other.) Pauleen’s father refused to have anything to do with her until she was 16. That was after he had a stroke. Maybe it changed something. Harlan is Pauleen’s stepfather, and he oddly made her the scapegoat and butt of his jokes. At the time, I thought he was unkind because she was his stepchild. I subconsciously made excuses for him because I was raised in the same type of environment. I did not realize what a dysfunctional family I had until it was too late. Harlan told me, after our separation, that he could not recognize others like him. That was probably a lie.

JR: We’ve clashed on this 5 year-old thing before (though I think last time you said 2 year-old, so it looks like I’m winning, forcing you to concede years of development!). But the essence of what you’re saying about the permanence of the state is excellent advice. Furthermore they should, as parents, accept and love their child regardless. Everyone else gets a choice. If your friend, colleague, brother, girlfriend etc is a psychopath and you want out, you know where the door is. If your child is a psychopath, tough. You stick with them for as long as they need you. Anyway, since I’ve gone all Fox News and am moralising at the interviewee (I’m thumping the desk as I type), let’s move on…

TT: Your lack of empathy is quite apparent. What you did is very FOX, in that all of their employees are psychopaths, right? Telling me about how people should stick by their children no matter what is bizarre since you have no frame of reference. It would be considered abusive – it is called shaming. Psychopaths are famous for it. On top of that, you can’t possibly know anything about sticking with someone. You drop people all the time. I’m sure parents give their kids over to foster care all the time because they can’t deal with them. Your lecture on human behavior holds no water. I can’t be shamed anymore. If someone doesn’t like how I do things, that’s their problem, not mine.

JR: You keep saying “until it was too late” as though someone went on a murder spree because you didn’t act quick enough. You’re not in that shitty relationship anymore, you’ve woken up to reality and nobody’s dead (I assume), so it’s more of a victory for you than some terrible defeat.

TT: I said it’s too late for 2 reasons: If I had known about the psychopathy at the time that I was dealing with it, I would have tried different things. My daughter had a few neurofeedback sessions to treat her ADHD and that worked very well for improving her self-control. I would have had her continue the sessions longer, and made it a priority in spite of the hardships I was having at the time. My daughter and I might still have a relationship today. Secondly, if I had known about the psychopathy at the time, I would not have felt so bewildered and off-balance by my husband’s peculiar words and actions, and I would not have gotten divorced. I would have dealt with it differently and the kids would not have had to suffer the consequences. Those are things that can’t be undone.

JR: “I believe I did a good job of making her mostly prosocial.” Tell me about that. What makes her prosocial? And how do you reconcile this confidence in your success with the complete lack of trust in her to not steal your belongings? 

Pauleen is mostly prosocial. That is a contradiction of sorts because really no psychopath is truly prosocial. You all make your own rules and only pretend to be a part of society. I guess Pauleen plays her part, she works, she goes to college, and she is not a jailbird. But, she has lots of secret antisocial parts, too.

JR: Don’t we all.

Thank you, Tina, for taking the time to talk to me. I’m sure the readers will agree you’ve given a fascinating insight into the mind of a psychopath’s mother.

The Cult of Beyoncé

Beyonce: Psychopath? Narcissist? Either way, she has a massive cult of personality.

Tablefor9

**DISCLAIMER: This is not a specialist work on music, or on Beyoncé, it’s more about cults of personalities I guess…**

I’m not the biggest Beyoncé fan in the world. Of course not, who could lay claim to such a title! The person who founded the Beyhive? The scores of superfans who buy tickets to her every concert? Jay-Z? No, I’m not even close to being Beyoncé’s biggest fan, but I, like most people, quite enjoy her work. And I always know when she’s got new work out because I find out, not through the radio or TV or magazines, but through other people. Ever since social media hit it big way back when in 2006, I don’t think the woman has had to actively promote a single thing that she does. Which leads me to hypothesise: is Beyoncé a genius?

First, a note. When I say genius I’m referring: a…

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Psychopath's Christmas message

In the wake of yet another terror attack on European soil, and the end of a rather crummy year for anyone framing themselves as any way liberal, progressive (or indeed as a decent human being), it’s easy to feel disheartened about the future, as though there is no hope. Well there is something you can do, and it’s easy.

The Syrian civil war, which has so far claimed almost half a million lives has, after five years of brutal fighting, near enough come full circle this week, with President Assad’s forces retaking the rest of Aleppo that had been in rebel hands. What a tragic waste of life, and what a scandal that this has been allowed (made) to happen under our noses. That NATO and Russia have backed opposing sides and are at this stage fighting a proxy war against each other is no secret. The age of relative peace and prosperity some of us have enjoyed for the last few decades seems to be heading in a bloody change of direction.

Certainly, soon-to-be President Trump’s tweets about bringing back nuclear weapons in a big way is enough to send even a fearless psychopath running to his duvet, as this is surely very bad news indeed for those of us who value peace.

And then there’s ISIS. They, and terrorism in general, seem to sum up this era we’re living in rather well. They’re international, they appeal to the young and disenfranchised, they use social media as a powerful tool of propaganda, and they’re populist.

The stereotypical westerner’s reaction, one of fear, a sense of helplessness and an increasingly paranoid and vicious popular feeling against Islam and Muslims, plays into ISIS hands very well. We also do those illiberal, authoritarian control freaks in governments a huge favour. In our fear, and our clamour for security at any cost, we risk handing over all the reins of power to maniacs who will bring nothing but misery. Oh wait, that should have been last year’s Christmas warning, because in America at least, that horse has already bolted…

But let’s focus on terrorism. The thing about terrorism, what makes it such an effective method of war and why it will probably never be beaten by force, is an individual terrorist only has to ‘get it right’ once. Security forces have to get it right every single time. If they slip up, like they did in Berlin this week, people die.

Against those odds, it is clear that successful terror attacks are inevitable. Even with the very best security personnel, and the very worst draconian anti-liberal laws, an attack will always occur sooner or later.

So if fighting is useless, what else can be done? Well, there’s always good old fashioned fear. But no! We can’t respond to such horror with kneejerk reactions and a fearful outlook on the world beyond our front rooms. We shouldn’t build walls and spurn those who are different from us. We should not react with hostility to refugees, Muslims, or foreigners with suspicion or hatred. All of that plays into the hands of terrorists. Terrorists – and nefarious politicians – don’t want peace and goodwill to all men, they want us to be at each other’s throats – christians, muslims, jews, atheists, rich, poor, right, left, you name it.

The real solution is deceptively simple, but in practise so very complicated.

The only hope of putting a stop to terrorism and, more widely *all* conflict, forever is to embrace peace.

This is the most difficult thing in the world, something which will take generations and centuries to achieve and which has every chance of failing. Why? Because it involves talking to, empathising with and building friendships alongside enemies. As a species, we’re not very good at that, but it emphatically is within our skillset. To use just one example, the Troubles in Northern Ireland didn’t cease because one side knocked the other out with superior firepower. No, the IRA and the British government sat down, around a table, and talked to each other – one adversary to another. They talked, they negotiated and they showed willingness to compromise. The solution they came up with (the Good Friday Agreement) isn’t perfect and doesn’t satisfy everyone’s wishes, but it is good enough that the fighting has more or less finished.

It sounds sanctimonious, and it is. Nonetheless, we have to come together as a species, to love one another, to treat each other with kindness and forgiveness even when we really don’t want to. All of us have to agree that violence, fighting and killing just is wrong, and everyone has to agree not to engage in it, because if everyone (and I do mean everyone) refused to fight, there would be no war.

You see what I mean? It’s so simple, yet it’s going to be practically impossible to achieve. In the short to medium term, the strong likelihood is that we’re going to carry on making the wrong decisions. The way current affairs are going, things could get a whole lot worse before they get better. But that doesn’t stop you or I from individually making the decision to spurn conflict and embrace peace. Every great movement has to start small, so why not you? Why not us? Why not now?

Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, happy solstice, yuletide greetings, enjoy the season – to all and any with the patience to read this post to the end.

Be kind, and love one another.