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.

Meet the parents of a psychopath

Since I’ve just spent the week in the company of my parents, and had the intention to write about them anyway, what better time than right now?

My father was one of these.

They primarily came to move some of my belongings home to England (I won’t be here for much longer) but out of that they gained a vacation in France with their beloved son. On top of that, further gains for me were: free accommodation in a pleasant rural setting and free food and alcohol for a week including several restaurant meals, which are unspeakably good round these parts.

As I write, they are still in the country but are driving up to the coast to catch the ferry. They left about 3 hours before the time of writing, and although I spent about 20 minutes mourning their departure, I no longer miss them. Instead, I’m looking ahead to the next month or so and the plans I have.

Anyway, my parents. I still have two of them, though at nearly 60 years old they’re getting on a bit. My mother is a geographer, loves gardening, books and I struggle to think of a third thing. She’s a pushover. My father is a former guard of the Queen, war veteran, and retired police officer. He’s also an alcoholic, a PTSD sufferer and has a very nasty temper. I have a mixed relationship with my dad; we can go from joking to fighting to cold silence in the space of an afternoon. The relationship between my mother and I is much more stable and as a consequence is closer, though I lie to and manipulate both of them equally.

Because I don’t miss them for long when they’re not around, I don’t keep in touch as often as they’d like, in fact one of my favourite games is to set a specific time to call or skype and then not show up, subsequently ignoring all texts, phone calls and emails for weeks until they think I’ve died or am in trouble.

My mother likes these.

 

In general, however, it pays to keep them on my side:

• Parents are the biggest supporters you’ll ever get and perhaps the only people you can rely on to be selfless most of the time.
• They do all sorts of useful favours and jobs and expect little or nothing in return. And they can’t replace me! A psychopath’s dream…
• They teach life lessons. From my mum, I have learned patience, co-operation, negotiation and temper control. Thanks to her, I will (probably) never go to prison. From my dad, I have learned manipulation, persuasion, cooking and all sorts of interesting tips for criminal activity, as well as physical and psychological torture. Thanks to him, I will (probably) be successful in life.
• They give me money, almost without question. And the Bank of Dad doesn’t recall its debts.
• Despite everything, I do love them. Not in the same way as you love your parents and certainly not in the way they love me. While my dad would “walk over hot coals” and mum would “do anything” for me, I would, to quote myself like a true narcissist, “greatly inconvenience myself to save my mother’s life”. That probably doesn’t sound like much, but it’s more than I would do for anyone else. What is love anyway?

P.S. While I was finishing this off, I got a quick phone call to say my folks have arrived at the ferry port. It was good-natured and polite. I lied at least twice in the 2 minutes we were talking. 

How would you feel if you had a psychopath for a son? How would you mould and guide him? Would he make you proud of his success or ashamed of his crimes? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

 

The prevalence of #psychopaths and their power over society

There are many people whose behaviour and perceptions of others places them squarely in the category of antisocial personality disorder but they go their entire life without being assessed in psychiatric units or put in prison. We may live close to them, work with them or see them in the media. Many of us will have a strong sense that their character is flawed, their actions are damaging or their attitude to other people makes them dangerous. However, for a variety of reasons, we may suppress our intuitions. One reason for doing so is, if we were to dwell on these perceptions, it could shatter our sense of security and comfort.

When we live in societies where ruthlessness in business and politics is rewarded and prized, the problem of identifying and curtailing genuine psychopaths becomes more challenging. As our search for the psychopath strays from prisons and psychiatric units to banks, trading floors, media companies and political parties, we become aware that society’s ability to challenge and control them has been limited.

In fact, we may tolerate psychopathic qualities in politicians, television and film stars, sportsmen and captains of industry more readily than we do in our neighbours. Glib charm and callousness can, unfortunately, appear attractive qualities in celebrities, politicians and tycoons. It may be amusing to watch them on the television, but it should be remembered that those people are real when they are off the screen and have real impacts on real people.

It is not surprising that other institutions and society itself struggles to identify them and respond to them adequately. After something terrible comes to light, members of communities often find it hard to accept that someone they liked could have committed such an atrocity. Others will say they had suspicions all along.

The above was illustrated by the case of the disc jockey and serial child abuser Jimmy Savile, who used his larger-­than-­life character to gain entry into the BBC. Savile was already a paedophile before joining the BBC but, once secure within the institution, he was able to amass so much influence over people that he abused children with little challenge. There is even the compelling and sickening suggestion that he managed to avoid incarceration because he procured children for members of the British Establishment.

After hundreds of accusations of sexual abuse of children and hospital patients came to light in 2012, a year after his death, some people attempted to defend Savile’s reputation. Even at the start of 2013 there were still people on social media defending his ‘honour’ and saying that because he could not contest the accusations in court the matter should be dropped. Fortunately, however, we live in an era of transparency, where society and the media are happy to slay degraded ‘heroes’ – and where victims of abuse can find a stronger voice than they had previously.

The Savile case and the resultant splitting of views across society is a vivid illustration of how devious psychopaths operate and how they manage to shield themselves by creating tension between other people. It also serves as a useful illustration of how the personality of the psychopath may be revealed more by their impact on others than what they say.

A forensic examination of the life of a psychopath can be like examining the damage caused by a cluster bomb. In the case of child abusers, the primary harm is secretly done to vulnerable individuals – some of whom may have little ability at the time to articulate what happened. Other abusers are drawn in and become part of the paedophile’s web, while some victims may subsequently and tragically become abusers themselves.

The Savile case also helps us examine one of the key concerns of this book, whether the world we live in has become more psychopathic – more ruthless, cold, exploitative and antisocially individualistic. If so, we have to consider what processes and institutions are allowing and encouraging this to happen – and how we may all be allowing it to happen. The case illustrates how various organisational cultures and society itself can be infected and corrupted by the psychopathy of an individual, or small number of individuals.

It seems quite possible that Savile used charity work as a way of insulating or immunising himself against accusations of paedophilia. Perhaps a shared understanding that accusations against him could harm the income and credibility of charitable organisations gave him power over some of those who felt dependent on his ‘support’. If this is the case, Savile made probably well­-meaning people complicit in his activities.

By definition ‘successful psychopaths’ are people who avoid being identified as such. A murderer or a rapist does not only become a murderer or rapist when they are convicted – and a psychopath does not only become a psychopath when formerly diagnosed. Pathology precedes diagnosis.

When we come into contact with people with psychopathic qualities we are often overcome by a sense of confusion, deep mistrust and also worry about being led astray by fantasies infecting our minds. We may suspect we are being drawn into danger but we may not be sure. Questions like “Did they really do that?”, “Am I being conned?”, “Am I just imagining this?” and “Can they really be that bad?” and “Maybe I am just being paranoid?” tend to flood our minds.

These questions are difficult and divisive enough for experienced psychiatric teams to contend with, let alone family members who need to believe that a person cares about them, colleagues or children in need of approval and safety. It is testament to the persuasiveness of psychopaths and the smokescreens they create that the vast majority of the British public were taken in by a patently creepy man who surrounded himself with vulnerable children.

Whether or not Savile consciously did charity work as a way to shield himself from accusations, the status and work certainly gave him unrestricted access to children. It is well known that paedophiles seek out positions where they have access to vulnerable children, and it becoming clearer that non­paedophile psychopaths similarly seek power. Unfortunately, while psychopaths are imagined as the knifewielding killers of Hollywood, not enough attention is given to the possibility that many more psychopaths quietly secure positions within society where they can exert maximum control.

Studies of prisoners have helped us understand the minds of psychopaths but they do not reveal the predominance of psychopathic traits within the wider population. Psychiatrists cannot simply turn up to banks, parliaments and media companies and demand that people undergo mental health assessments and brain scans. Nevertheless, in recent years good evidence has been emerging that psychopathic qualities are far from the exclusive domain of prisoners and patients in secure psychiatric units. Those qualities are also found among well paid people in positions of power and within key occupations that society depends upon.

Only by understanding how psychopaths operate within various areas of society can we understand how they help to create and maintain what I term psychopathic cultures.

Excerpt from the Introduction in “Psychopathic Cultures and Toxic Empires” by Will Black

photo courtesy of NakedPastor

 

Psychopath TEST Politicians