Tears of a Psychopath
As I continue to try to make sense of my upbringing, and who my father was an is, I am finding that the term “psychopath” explains quite a bit. Perhaps even more than narcissism.
I keep having these, “not you too, Brutus?” Moments. It is the experience of expecting one thing (decency, friendship), and receiving something else (coldness, betrayal). When I fell down, I expected someone to pick me up, and empathize with me. That is not what I got. Not exactly.
And my brain chronicle that, and now as I ask it, it is revealing these memories, and I am finally able to make sense of them. “Oh, so that is why I felt no empathy from my father in that situation… It is because he is emotionally incapable of empathy. He literally only feels emotions for himself.”
And yet… So many of my memories with my dad are so… Normal. And so many of them are fairly positive.
This is what still has my mind going in circles. The brain hates inconsistencies. It seems wildly inconsistent to have a generally healthy, kind, well-adjusted person that, under certain circumstances, feels no empathy with his own child is suffering, or even laughs at their misfortunes. Some of these moments – though trivial – still chill me to the bone.
However, yesterday it occurred to me that actually, my dad did cry sometimes. And, precisely, he cried over his children.
I remember two fairly disturbing moments when my dad cried. Once, dad gathered the rest of the family (those of us still living at home) around him, and began to ask us all for advice in how to parent my cousin, the girl that they had chosen to adopt. He stopped mid sentence and collapsed on a chair. He just sobbed and sobbed. It was a very awkward moment. I felt the need to put my hand on him (to comfort him?) and started to pray. My words felt like cardboard. It was a very awkward moment.
But he was crying. And for one of his kids. Doesn't that count as empathy?
The other time that comes to mind is when my older brother lost his faith. My dad called me up to the kitchen, late in the evening. It was like I was in trouble. He laid out his pain, his sadness, his fears for my brother's salvation. Then he laid a heavy burden on me: "You need to help him see why he is wrong..." There were not tears, but there was much emotion. And psychopaths aren't supposed to feel emotion, right?
In reflecting on this, the first thing that strikes me is how heavily my dad leaned on us kids -- and myself in particular, as my younger brother either disappeared or didn't care, and my older brother was often part of the problem. It was their choice to have kids, and later to adopt. It was their choice to do religion as they did -- forcing us to read the Bible daily from the age of eight, or else we would be spanked with a leather belt. Well, if one of the kids rebels once they get a chance, that's on them. That's not on the other kids to fix it.
But when it comes to the tears: were they really tears of concern for the kids? Or were they for himself? Of course, nobody can know what is in the heart of a man, except the man himself. But were they...really empathetic tears? Certainly, when dad speaks to my brother about his faith, there is no sense of love or compassion that comes across: there is anger, woundedness, control, power, guilt, fear, and passion. But not any love. He doesn't care about the pain in my brother's heart. I don't think anybody had cared about that boy's heart for a very long time before he left, and that explains a lot of the decisions that he made.
My mind brings up an example from a book. I cannot remember the name of it: I read it years ago. About a woman who was married to a very difficult man. Probably a narcissist and perhaps a psychopath. He was harsh, uncaring to her and her children, forused on money, unavailable, petty, mean, and selfish.
One day, she came home to see him sobbing on the steps like a little child. Drawn to him, she put an arm around his shoulder and -- amazingly! -- was not rebuffed. Could this be the break she had been praying for all these years? Finally, was her husband showing some human emotion? Letting her in, even? Perhaps this could be the beginning of her wildest dreams...a normal relationship with a real human being.
Through sobs, her husband began to say, "My horse...died..." It was not a precious horse, but one of many work horses on the farm. He was crying over lost money. Her arm began to chill on his shoulder.
"...and the worst of it is..." He said between sobs, "I was going to sell that horse last week. But I did not..." She quietly got up, turned her back and left. He probably didn't even notice that she had left.
A psychopath may cry. But never for anyone else. Only for their own losses.
And so what were my dad's tears about?
My dad is a very proud man. Arrogant, even. But he is a mere mechanic, in a small town. What does he have to be arrogant about? Had he applied himself, made friends, put down roots, paid off his mortgage, he would have had many things to feel satisfied about. But arrogance is about putting others down. How could such a common man feel arrogant?

The ansewer is religion, and children. Sure, my dad never figured out money, never had the discipline to finish school, never decoded the mysteries of trade or started a business. He never wrote a book or came up with an original idea. He did not shine on any type of human scale of success. But...in religion...he was able to excel. He will boast to anybody who will listen about how many times he has read the bible through. And reading the bible through 35 times (or whatever the hell he's up to now) is not an easy feat to compete with. Especially since normal people don't keep track.
And training his children to also be Christians, and also to keep track of petty measurements of religious one-up-manship also made him look good. Imagine if his plan had worked. Three happy little pastors, all reading their bibles, all adding up the stats. Why, in twenty years, we could have read the Bible through forty times between us. Wouldn't that be something? Wouldn't that give him some wonderful boasting rights?
Maybe then, he could finally feel self-satisfied, and happy about himself.
Except that it didn't work out. My older brother left the faith. My sister had a refused to play the game the way he wanted.
...and to say this "broke his heart" isn't quite right. If he had a heart, he would have cared for them, and the pain and crisis they were going through at those times. But that is never what I felt from him. Rather, what I felt was a deep sadness, pain, and crisis, for himself. What does a poor mechanic have, if not boasting rights in his religion, and in his children?
Never having accomplished much, two of his kids left the faith. His second was a missionary, but now has stopped for an undeterminate amount of time. His youngest leads worship in church, but doesn't even preach. What a failure. What a catastrophe. It is almost looking like my dad is...ordinary.
Of all the things.
After all of his efforts to be better than others. He is normal.
What a catastrophe.
But his tears can fall thick and heavy elsewhere. For myself, I am thriving in the dew-filled meadows of the ordinary, making friends with the soul-healing fellowship of the saints, and moving my tender muscles to the rhythm of our kind and gentle shepherd.
Let that man run. Let him run. He does not follow my Lord, and I do not follow him.
Let him run. Let him run away. I will not follow him.
I am happy, where I am.
Amen.
I keep having these, “not you too, Brutus?” Moments. It is the experience of expecting one thing (decency, friendship), and receiving something else (coldness, betrayal). When I fell down, I expected someone to pick me up, and empathize with me. That is not what I got. Not exactly.
And my brain chronicle that, and now as I ask it, it is revealing these memories, and I am finally able to make sense of them. “Oh, so that is why I felt no empathy from my father in that situation… It is because he is emotionally incapable of empathy. He literally only feels emotions for himself.”
And yet… So many of my memories with my dad are so… Normal. And so many of them are fairly positive.
This is what still has my mind going in circles. The brain hates inconsistencies. It seems wildly inconsistent to have a generally healthy, kind, well-adjusted person that, under certain circumstances, feels no empathy with his own child is suffering, or even laughs at their misfortunes. Some of these moments – though trivial – still chill me to the bone.
However, yesterday it occurred to me that actually, my dad did cry sometimes. And, precisely, he cried over his children.
I remember two fairly disturbing moments when my dad cried. Once, dad gathered the rest of the family (those of us still living at home) around him, and began to ask us all for advice in how to parent my cousin, the girl that they had chosen to adopt. He stopped mid sentence and collapsed on a chair. He just sobbed and sobbed. It was a very awkward moment. I felt the need to put my hand on him (to comfort him?) and started to pray. My words felt like cardboard. It was a very awkward moment.
But he was crying. And for one of his kids. Doesn't that count as empathy?
The other time that comes to mind is when my older brother lost his faith. My dad called me up to the kitchen, late in the evening. It was like I was in trouble. He laid out his pain, his sadness, his fears for my brother's salvation. Then he laid a heavy burden on me: "You need to help him see why he is wrong..." There were not tears, but there was much emotion. And psychopaths aren't supposed to feel emotion, right?
In reflecting on this, the first thing that strikes me is how heavily my dad leaned on us kids -- and myself in particular, as my younger brother either disappeared or didn't care, and my older brother was often part of the problem. It was their choice to have kids, and later to adopt. It was their choice to do religion as they did -- forcing us to read the Bible daily from the age of eight, or else we would be spanked with a leather belt. Well, if one of the kids rebels once they get a chance, that's on them. That's not on the other kids to fix it.
But when it comes to the tears: were they really tears of concern for the kids? Or were they for himself? Of course, nobody can know what is in the heart of a man, except the man himself. But were they...really empathetic tears? Certainly, when dad speaks to my brother about his faith, there is no sense of love or compassion that comes across: there is anger, woundedness, control, power, guilt, fear, and passion. But not any love. He doesn't care about the pain in my brother's heart. I don't think anybody had cared about that boy's heart for a very long time before he left, and that explains a lot of the decisions that he made.
My mind brings up an example from a book. I cannot remember the name of it: I read it years ago. About a woman who was married to a very difficult man. Probably a narcissist and perhaps a psychopath. He was harsh, uncaring to her and her children, forused on money, unavailable, petty, mean, and selfish.
One day, she came home to see him sobbing on the steps like a little child. Drawn to him, she put an arm around his shoulder and -- amazingly! -- was not rebuffed. Could this be the break she had been praying for all these years? Finally, was her husband showing some human emotion? Letting her in, even? Perhaps this could be the beginning of her wildest dreams...a normal relationship with a real human being.
Through sobs, her husband began to say, "My horse...died..." It was not a precious horse, but one of many work horses on the farm. He was crying over lost money. Her arm began to chill on his shoulder.
"...and the worst of it is..." He said between sobs, "I was going to sell that horse last week. But I did not..." She quietly got up, turned her back and left. He probably didn't even notice that she had left.
A psychopath may cry. But never for anyone else. Only for their own losses.
And so what were my dad's tears about?
My dad is a very proud man. Arrogant, even. But he is a mere mechanic, in a small town. What does he have to be arrogant about? Had he applied himself, made friends, put down roots, paid off his mortgage, he would have had many things to feel satisfied about. But arrogance is about putting others down. How could such a common man feel arrogant?

The ansewer is religion, and children. Sure, my dad never figured out money, never had the discipline to finish school, never decoded the mysteries of trade or started a business. He never wrote a book or came up with an original idea. He did not shine on any type of human scale of success. But...in religion...he was able to excel. He will boast to anybody who will listen about how many times he has read the bible through. And reading the bible through 35 times (or whatever the hell he's up to now) is not an easy feat to compete with. Especially since normal people don't keep track.
And training his children to also be Christians, and also to keep track of petty measurements of religious one-up-manship also made him look good. Imagine if his plan had worked. Three happy little pastors, all reading their bibles, all adding up the stats. Why, in twenty years, we could have read the Bible through forty times between us. Wouldn't that be something? Wouldn't that give him some wonderful boasting rights?
Maybe then, he could finally feel self-satisfied, and happy about himself.
Except that it didn't work out. My older brother left the faith. My sister had a refused to play the game the way he wanted.
...and to say this "broke his heart" isn't quite right. If he had a heart, he would have cared for them, and the pain and crisis they were going through at those times. But that is never what I felt from him. Rather, what I felt was a deep sadness, pain, and crisis, for himself. What does a poor mechanic have, if not boasting rights in his religion, and in his children?
Never having accomplished much, two of his kids left the faith. His second was a missionary, but now has stopped for an undeterminate amount of time. His youngest leads worship in church, but doesn't even preach. What a failure. What a catastrophe. It is almost looking like my dad is...ordinary.
Of all the things.
After all of his efforts to be better than others. He is normal.
What a catastrophe.
But his tears can fall thick and heavy elsewhere. For myself, I am thriving in the dew-filled meadows of the ordinary, making friends with the soul-healing fellowship of the saints, and moving my tender muscles to the rhythm of our kind and gentle shepherd.
Let that man run. Let him run. He does not follow my Lord, and I do not follow him.
Let him run. Let him run away. I will not follow him.
I am happy, where I am.
Amen.
Jeez, your writing... It's some of the best I've read in a long long time. There is so much soul here, real pathos. The unadulterated kind bourne of suffering and betrayal, faced squarely. Please keep writing.
ReplyDeleteI think I grasp the eerie uncertainty, the confusion and dissonance thinking about supposed acts of kindness and sacrifice that really cannot logically coexist with the deep greed, deceit, and intrigue of narcissists. It's mindboggling to accept that your very own parent views you so callously, like an appliance.
I remember once when I was maybe 5 or 6, my mother accidentally dropped a pot in the dumpster outside our apartment. She tried to cojole me into being lifted inside to retrieve it, but I greivously protested to the point of tears. Without any concern or compassion for my feelings about being placed in something so unsanitary and disturbing, she forcibly placed me inside, while I crouched crying for some time. No sympathy, no soothing words, no maternal warmth: just get it done. By forcefully overpowering my protest, she did a few things, but what stands out here is that she forced my brain to accept this kind of treatment as love. Only until recently have I come to understand how abnormal that event was, and what it indicated about my mother. Yes, she truly only cares for herself.