One of my passions is the human psyche. Not just the human psychic.
I've been following a fascinating woman who is a clinically diagnosed psychopath at her blog for a couple of years, and today she answered several questions regarding her "mask". Essentially, how she is able to live in the world without being "seen".
If any of you watched "Dexter" you'll understand what that means. Oh, I do recommend watching "Dexter". All. Of. It. Even the newer and final season.
Today's most revealing question and answer though, really shook me for a few reasons.
Q: Which emotion do you find the most difficult to emulate?
A: Long-term care. What I mean by this is continually investing my energy into someone else’s needs. I can do it and will do it when it is required, but it isn’t something that I enjoy. I am not naturally interested in other people, their lives, their problems, their need for companionship. Without a mask, I simply won’t give them the time of day. I have ‘me’ stuff to do. The mask is required for me to focus outside myself and consider them.
This was my mother. Of several answers that this Blogging Psychopath provided, the most revealing was her answer regarding relationships, and how to behave in them. She can't have any kind of long-term relationship, nor could my mother. She had a different face for everyone and often made me "the bad guy". She was a horrible person, and I loved her anyway.
There are differences between a narcissist vs. sociopath vs. psychopath. As a Jungian Minister, I've spent nearly 40 years of my life studying and counseling others, so I wonder how I kept glossing over evidence right under my nose. My mother might have been many things, including a closet alcoholic, but rethinking my upbringing? I'm going to give myself a bit of time to process.
As we head into the next portal of ascension and awareness people like me call The Lions Gate... →(each month has its own "Gateway", the month and the day are aligned with the same number, so August is the 8th month thus the 8th day of August is a "portal or gateway")← ...it's good to have a focus for intention. Healing the elements of this woman I called "mother" within me is a ideal place to start.
I'm attending a gathering for women only later in September and they are aware that it's taken me years to develop proper friendships with people but most of all, other women. I am getting closer to the revelations about my own inability to understand other people from a different perspective beyond just not being neuro-typical, but this latest insight into being raised by a possible psychopath is shocking.
That kind of shocking that reeks of "truth".
I'm not seeking sympathy or even compassion by writing this, although a "there there" would be kind of cool...
My reason for writing this is that I know when I'm "gone" my own children (and theirs) will eventually find their way to my various online endeavors and I want to leave something that will enlighten them too. This isn't the kind of conversation I want to engage them in right now. I'd rather listen to them, if I'm honest.
I'm thinking of changing my book title from "My Mother Is An Orange" to "Raised By A Psychopath" if my suspicions are confirmed further.
Genetically, she's not my birth mother. I was adopted because she couldn't bear the thought of having another child after my brother "ruined her" as she was fond of saying. But she didn't raise him, he dodged that bullet.
Maybe literally.
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