More on finding fault with the Sociopath’s Family
Yesterday’s post about mothers of sociopaths garnered lots of reaction on this blog and on the Facebook page dedicated to my book, Escaping the Boy.
First, I think it’s wonderful that everyone is sharing their specific experiences and reactions. Doing this allows all of us a greater chance of finding a story that relates to our own, which, in turn, will serve to validate us further and aid us in our healing and recovery.
One thing I did not mention about blame and fault: they are built on the same psychological premise as reward and praise.
The same way we as mothers and fathers can’t take the credit for our children when they do well and succeed, we can’t feel emotionally responsible for our children’s failures.
Do you blame your parents for your mistakes? Do you give them all the credit when you have done exceptionally well in the past?
I doubt it.
The first thing we do as healthy people with healthy egos is thank ourselves or punish ourselves when we succeed and fail.
So why would we blame the parents of a sociopath or narcissist for how they treat others?
Certainly, nurture plays a heavy hand in who and what we become. As parents, all we can do is model care, trust and love in hopes our children will become loving and forgiving adults.
However, nurturing, good and bad, only has so much impact on a person. We are each born as individual humans with the potential to mold and create ourselves in any way we choose.
It really comes down to individual choice: we can continue being a jerk or a good person or we can choose to be something else.
Once we mature, we have the ability to step back, reflect and compare our moral code against society’s and against individuals we admire regardless of our upbringing.
Each of us has the power to be better and do better. We can change!
Sociopaths do not have that power. They are not wired with the ability to step back outside of their material selves and reflect on their core.
And even non-sociopaths, people who remain immersed in toxic relationships, do not have that power.
Think back to how you were in the toxic relationship.
>>Were you able to discern between the fake and the real?
>>Were you able to logically and clearly dissect the chaos and mind games playing out in every scenario?
>>Did you have full and complete control over your own thoughts and actions?
>>Did you love and respect yourself and your ability to solve problems and set personal boundaries?
Being free from the influence of a sociopath and other pathological types is essential for healing and recovery.
The only people who are to blame for inflicting pain upon you and your children and other loved ones are those people who directly inflicted that pain.
If it was your ex and his entire family, then it’s fair to blame them individually.
Give them back the burden you’ve been carrying, even if it’s just a mental and emotional burden you are tossing aside.
But we cannot blame the dead parents or care givers who were once a part of a sociopath’s life. We can’t blame the brothers or sisters we never met.
The full accountability lies with those who inflicted the harm directly, not by proxy.
I love my son and give him lots of love and understanding. My wish is that he grows up to be a man HE can be proud of being.
His success or lack of success will soon have no bearing on whether I was or wasn’t a good parent.
The power to be kind, empathetic, loving and forgiving lies 100% within him.
If your ex is a part of a pathological and toxic family unit, he/she had a choice a long time ago to become a positive influence. Not every person within a toxic family is pathological or destined to become pathological.
But the longer and deeper the delusions run, the less likely the cycle will ever end.
I have met many people through this page who were raised by pathological mothers and/fathers and are not sick themselves. They are good, honest and giving people.
So I wholeheartedly believe the fault lies solely on the abusive person’s shoulders. Not the mother’s, the father’s, the foster parents’ or adoptive parents’.
Those people as individuals may be jerks and assholes, too. They may have been shitty parents and care givers.
But it’s the choice of the individual to continue to be hateful and harmful to victims/survivors who modeled love and honor but, in the end, failed to make an impact.
It’s no more the parent’s fault than it was your fault that the sociopath remains diabolical and unable to change.
Namaste!
~Paula
© 2013 Paula Carrasquillo and Paula’s Pontifications.