With many estimates suggesting that psychopaths comprise upward of 1 percent of the general population, one can only speculate about the extent of damage they inflict on individuals and society. At the very least, having a psychopath in your life may trigger a lifetime of confusion, doubt, disappointment, and turmoil. What is it like to be a psychopath’s victim? While many studies have been produced exploring the psychopath, there is a dearth of literature on the types of trauma victims experience.
The obvious cases
Literature, movies, and everyday media are replete with stories of the horrors some psychopaths produce. We are all too familiar with the cases of homicidal psychopaths and sexual sadists. The victimization they cause is tragic, often causing death and serious physical harm. The extreme carnage and destruction following in their wake has led the general public to equate these incidents with “the psychopath,” yet such psychopaths represent only a small fraction of the 1 percent that are psychopaths. As a result, many have no realization that psychopaths exist outside of this setting and are surprised to learn of the insidious, often hidden, damage such psychopaths do, especially within the workplace or family setting. In fact, according to psychopathy expert Martha Stout, “Most of them are obscure people, and limited to dominating their young children, or a depressed spouse, or perhaps a few employees or coworkers.”1
Psychopathic parents cause emotional and psychological damage
Frustration, confusion, and significant psychological damage will beset a helpless child who seeks to have a relationship with a psychopathic mother. Unfortunately, the mother’s “emotional deficiency”2 will prevent a normal, loving relationship between mother and child from ever developing. The psychopathic mother does not bond with her children or anybody else. According to Robert D. Hare, a trailblazer in psychopathy research, “Most clinical descriptions of the psychopath make some sort of reference to his egocentricity, lack of empathy, and inability to form warm, emotional relationships with others ….”3 That inability to form warm, emotional relationships extends to immediate family.
Minimization and marginalization—subtle tactics, grave consequences
My mother displayed high levels of psychopathic characteristics across all aspects of her life. Growing up in such a household, I personally experienced how she used minimalization and marginalization to achieve her goals of dominance and control. Minimization stems from the intentionally hurtful overlooking and ignoring of what most would see as happy moments. For example, my mother intentionally minimized the importance of birthdays, new births, special occasions, and other “happy” times. She did this intentionally to upset me and to achieve a perverse thrill of contemptuous delight. Most outsiders would never believe she was doing this but would instead blame me that there must have been some reason or misunderstanding. However, my mother’s behavior was textbook psychopathy, and experts have seen it as such.
According to psychopathy researcher J. Reid Meloy, “Psychopaths do not experience pleasure by empathically responding to the joy in others. Their perception of others’ pleasure arouses only envy and greed in themselves.”4 Trying to make peace by pleasing and appeasing the psychopath will not improve the situation.
Marginalization in action
Minimization is hurtful, but marginalization can be cruel and ego-destructive. In her desire to always dominate and control, my mother frequently sought to marginalize me. This would often take the form of insidious attacks on my character by demeaning me to others. To understand how this works, it is necessary to study a few real-life examples that I endured.
I was a dutiful, respectful daughter, but my mother would manufacture untrue stories alleging various personal affronts that she would breathlessly tell family friends and relatives. One day, out of the blue, she announced, “Nobody likes you!” and with a look of thrill and delight filling her face, she told me all of the family gatherings and family weddings that did not include me. Confused and upset, I contacted some people I thought I could trust, but there was no support or understanding. Some said, “You must be nice to your mother.” Others insisted, “What a wonderful mother you have.” Some just slammed the phone in my face, bringing dead silence.
Unbeknownst to me, my mother had engaged in a systematic character assassination. Why? By doing this, she sought to build sympathy for herself so she could extract favors and help from these people. Denigrating me enabled her to make others feel sorry for her and get them to support her. Many psychopaths effectively use this “pity-play” ploy to win more support from others.5
In later years, I would find some solace in the famous concluding words of Arthur Miller’s screen adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Enemy of the People: “You are fighting for the truth and that’s why you are alone and that will make you strong.”6