Lately I have been trying to work out what has been going on in our family? I spent 13 years lying to myself and trying to make a dysfunctional marriage work. We had five children one adopted oldest daughter was adopted and i am estranged from her on and off since age 19 she is twenty four now. My eldest son and two youngest live at home. One other son just moving out at 19 years. There seems to have been alot of lying and manipulation going on between me my exhusband and my daughter and I think it was based around my eldest adopted daughter who i believe is waging a campaign of revenge against me for not allowing myself to be manipulated by her. She was always the number one in the family well behaved and loving but a lot changed at teenage years. i thought it was because of identity and divorce issues but she got completely out of control and I had postnatal depression at time so was not mother of the year by any standard. I believed it was because of the two youngest being born that sent her over the edge but now I am beginning to wonder if it was my fault. I see the undercurrents of narcissism in our family or is it my mind trying to make sense out of my own shortcomings as a person? My daughter was unable to show feelings easily but was ok as long as she got her own way at times I felt though she was far away or acting It was very hard to catch her out in a lie but once I did on a grand scale. She was accused of scratching a teachers car at school and she denied this so I believed her but after talking to the school they had her caught on cctv.Then and only then did she admit it. I also felt a coldness about her and I beleive she only pretended to bond with us. Her grief and primal adoption wound was too great I think. I thought she was the best behaved of all the children and felt very close to her out of all my children she was studious quiet and shy and I never thought for one minute she would change so completely I believe she has become a master of social manipulation and will not face me straight on and deal with issues but has to do it via my friends and family. I feel more stable than ever in my life as I am healthy and single and going through counselling etc. Facing up to my issues lies and truths. But a lot of people now think it is me with the problem and not my daughter so I want to know If I am the problem because I have two young children to raise and do not want to make the same mistakes again and damage them. If on the other hand I am right in my suspicions and not mad then my daughter has been very clever in turning people against me by indirect methods. It is making me very depressed trying to work it out. One or two people have seen beneath my daughters charming exterior but most have a glowing idea of her. I just have this overwhelming sense of something being very very wrong. There are many instances I could give which at the time I brushed off as normal teenage behavior but now i am examining it all they seem to point towards narcissism.

Once or twice a year she would contact me and i would let her straight back into my home and heart. Then odd things would start to happen. And she would if she did not get her own way she would then disappear again. Then a pattern would emerge. The new friends I had made and information I had shared with her seemed to be used to cause problems for me. It was very subtle and I would not have spotted it but then I stopped letting her in and for a year just sat down and tried to work out what was going on. My suspicions were frightening. Any advice would ease my mind. Thanks

The reason I begin now to doubt my own mind is that it just seems so unbelievable that so many other people could be blind to this so I find myself asking if I am the psychopath or narcissist. I wonder if that falseness I was living filterd down to my daughter and helped to cause her dysfunction. The guilt is terrible.

Hello Damaskrose

For a start psychopaths have no insight into their own behaviour so would not even question whether they were or not, The fact you raise this question in relation to yourself rules you out as well as questioning your own shortcoming which rules out narcissism.
You lied to yourself to shore up dysfunctional marriage, it was probably the only way you could cope and lying to yourself which you admit is being too hard on yourself. Most of us would say we were in denial to avoid seeing or coping with reality. You did it for all the right reasons. At worst it was a sham.

None of us here can tell you whether your daughter has any sort of personality disorder. Most people never get an official diagnosis but you as you are asking questions about her shows you believe there is something seriously wrong.

She is obviously a very difficult person and there are some red flags like going for you because you can’t be manipulated by her. Breaking the mother or mother figure is not unusual psychopathic behaviour. I presume you have looked at the checklist for psychopathy and narcissism but have you researched Reactive Attachment Disorder? You didn’t say what age your daughter was when she became part of your family.
There is some debate about whether psychopathy and RAD are the same thing, from my little knowledge I think RAD is over-diagnosed as it’s a far softer term to use than psychopathy when referring to a child. Children brought up in places like the orphanages in Rumania often have true RAD. It seems that some children are more susceptible than others. Bonding is learned from a two way interaction and without a constant care giver the child learns to cope without a bond. There is also a lot of doubt about whether it can be treated with therapy, there are RAD forums where many parents are convinced that some therapies really do work but the later they start the less chance of total success.

I spoke to a psychologist about my partner’s son as I was told when he was young he was often complimented on his good behaviour but was told this is like the grooming process in adult psychopaths. The willingness to please, the charm, the cuteness, trying to show intelligence -but only you would know whether your daughter was genuine. If she was then some radical change has happened but why? Do you know anything about her birth parents? The other thing that is now being researched is maternal alcohol consumption and smoking as both can damage a developing brain in the womb. We are quite knowledgeable about Foetal Alcohol Syndrome and if severe enough there are physical features but smoking doesn’t seem to have any visible features, to complicate things further there is some research being done on sperm from fathers who smoke as they may produce less healthy sperm.

Please don’t blame yourself, you don’t have these problems with your other children and I guess you brought them all up the same. You say you loved her and were close to her and that is more important than anything else. Many children have terrible lives but don’t turn out with a personality problem. I’m sure your younger children will be fine because you are aware of their needs.

There is such a fine line between what all teenagers do and behaviour disorders if the teenager seems to do EVERYTHING all teenagers do and constantly without learning from mistakes. Being punishment insensitive is a big red flag. I heard that phrase so many times and yes-all teenagers can be difficult, moody and tell lies if they want their own way, they also play one parent against the other for the same reason. I would say listen to your instincts, that’s what they are there for. You are not doing anything wrong and considering and researching various disorders confirms you are hoping to find answers and maybe solutions which is so positive.

I hope we can offer you some support while you are going through this process of finding out what is going on. I hope your suspicions are not confirmed but you will decide one way or another as you find out more. Knowledge is power. If everything is as bad as you think it might be you will need to take good care of yourself so you can cope. When I hear stories like yours I always optimistically hope things are not what they seem so I do feel for you.

Please let us know if there is anything we can offer by way of support and feel free to ask any questions you like, there is nothing I won’t answer. Sometimes some of the things people experience are not things that are normally discussed and you may have experienced something you find hard to mention to anyone else.

The more we know about what you have experienced will make it easier to either put your mind at rest or point you to the relevant information but only say as much as you are comfortable with.

Regards
Jan

Jan thanks so much for your quick reply. I will admit I am very low with all the worry. Especially this year so much seems to be clicking into place and the very base I have built my life upon seems unsure. I have done some research on personality disorders and it is confusing. The last contact I had with my daughter I asked if she would see a counselor with me one specifically dealing with adoption issues. She did not reply. So I am going ahead alone to work the thing out. It is not easy and drags up a lot of things I am not proud of. I believe my daughter was not authentic now I look back she did not cry or show emotions easily and liked having surface relationships if you pushed her for anything more she got distressed so I used to ease off thinking she did not want to discuss her painful memories etc..,She was adopted age four nearly five and had been twice rejected by her birth mother and placed in foster care. I believe she was abused in foster care by other girls. I worked on a birth book with her about her life story and got in contact with her birth mother and father. She seemed interested and met her father age 14 but would not discuss her birth mother with me. From what I have read the child who is adopted either makes the birth mother the angel and the adoptive parent the bad mother or vice versa. She did not respond to discipline and it was noted by others that if you withdrew your approval she was not happy. A small thing that some other child might dismiss she seemed to cultivate and brood over. I feel I am one of the few people who has insight into my daughters life....she seems able to read the room and prepare people for manipulation without them even being aware. I am personally frightened of her. When she was living with me I got very ill and confused. I once even thought she may have tampered with my food. I think that once I got pregnant she was about 13 then she kind of lost patience with me as I obviously had other things on my mind than her. At this time she was going through so much stress with my divorce from her father and her own identity issues. I believe the new babies two one year apart caused her to discard me as she was discovering her own sexual identity and power etc...I have thought about this long and hard. Not really wanting to believe what conclusions I draw. I can't talk to anyone really it sounds like a episode from a tv show.
One thing is for sure she was not a happy bunny at this time and there were incidents of cruelty to her brothers and planning of very wierd stuff. Only certain people seem to see the dangerous side to her. It is strange.. people will comment that she was looking at them funny or said something which did not sound right. She very rarely lets her guard down and I am only now working out some of the incidents that occurred. I feel if I can work it out then I can help her one day or at least warn others that this is going on so they can protect themselves. Also perhaps other mothers and fathers can learn how damaged a child may be and yet seem ok on surface. My daughter is of mixed race and has colour issues too she is very light and we are a mixed family but I feel she is not sure who she is as her white mother rejected her. She seemed very sensitive around colour issues. Now I look back she never expressed love well. I cannot remember her ever doing that apart form cuddles when she was younger. Once she looked at me with the babies and said in such a cold voice they really love you don't they...it was so spooky it sent chills down my spine. Then she just laughed and walked away before I got a chance to question her but it is in one liners like that that I have tried to work her out. Of course we passify ourselves day to day that we are reading too much into stuff but I have this deep gut feeling that I have helped to create a very unhappy young lady Now alot of the incidents could be written off as just my over active imagination but all I have learned lately has made me be open to looking at things from different angles. I feel so inadequate I only have a lay mans words to describe all this. Sorry to go on but I have had this inside me for so long and felt like a mad person.

Hello Damaskrose

You are doing a lot of soul searching what is it that has made you feel like this now your daughter has left home. Has something happened that triggered this response?
I can sense you are very agitated and have an urgency to explore the problems of the past years and I was wondering if another event has occurred that made you start investigating the past.

You might have raised a very unhappy young lady but you didn’t make her that way, without your nurturing, despite all her difficulties, she might have turned out even worse than she is. Most children have a sibling and have to share their parent’s attention and often there is a bit of jealousy and sibling rivalry but do you think her reaction to new siblings was excessive?
What makes you think she tried to hurt the babies? When she was with you and you were ill and confused, are you saying you think she laced your food to make you ill? Sorry there are so many questions for you to answer but I’m just trying to get a clearer picture of how things were for the whole family. If she had a good relationship with your ex, her father, then she may feel some resentment towards you for breaking the family unit. Also resentment of the new arrivals that take you further away from her, it’s so difficult to say why she has these issues but if she doesn’t want to go for counselling then there’s nothing you can do about that.

Will the outcome of your quest for information help you move on because if not- is it worth putting yourself through the effort it will take to get answers, you may not even get any answers so do you think you feel able to accept that situation?

Maybe it’s time to let your daughter be herself and if that person is someone who is content as they are then it’s time to let go and no amount of research on your part will make any difference to her. All you can hope for is the satisfaction of knowing you didn’t do anything wrong.

You must have made a lot of self sacrifices to hold a failing marriage together while raising 5 children and accepting behaviour from one of them that was so challenging. Maybe now the worst is over you have time to reflect but is it worth it? The past can’t be changed and you need to be happy about the positive things you have achieved.

You need to have a clear idea of what outcome you are looking for and be able to accept that you may achieve nothing so please put yourself first so you don’t feel a failure if that happens.

I don’t know how we can help you so please let us know what we can do for you.

I hope coming to the forum gives you some information to make sense of your daughter’s life so you can think positively about the future.

Best regards
Jan

Hello Damaskrose,
I read your postings and indeed it is confusing. As far as I can tell, I agree with Jan... This can be also RAD.
Both, psychopathy and RAD aren't treatable and difficult to live with.

Being a grown up woman who was brought up with a lot of violent I can confirm that indeed within seconds you know who is in a room, where people sit, who they talk to, if they are scarry or not, who is shy, who is callous and so on. You also know in that short time if you want to stay in the same room, where you can be in that room, what energy is there.
So no need for any personnality disorder to feel all those things. Just a natural mechanism to survive.
Jan said that it can be natural also for her to see the new borns arrivals. She had your love for her alone for a very long time didn't she...Now she has to share...these are children from your own whomb so no wonder she worries.

What worries me most is the fact that she was adopted very 'old'...Old in the sense that she wasn't a very small baby, just born, when she came into your house. Being rejected twice by her birthmother pfff.........No wonder she has survival mechanisms.

Does this mean you have to put up with it...No, I don't think so!!!
Both psychopathy or RAD... there is no treatment, no solutions no behavior therapy...no
nothing!

It is clear to me, as a mother you go and find out what is causing this behavior but let me tell you something;
Me, as I said, I was brought up in a very, very negative envoirment with a lot of abuse and violent; no psychopathy with me whatsoever.
I have two sons, the oldest one is a psychopath, the youngest isn't... I live in a 'white' country...my younger son is of mix ras. Very dark by the way.
The oldest one is white, blond and bleu eyes..so they really don't look alike. They aren't alike in anything.
Both had a difficult youth for various reasons but compared, the younger one had the hardest time...If only for his psychopath brother who is 8 years older...
My youngest son went to live with his father when he was 8 years because of my healthproblems ( who are sever)he had a bad time for all these years with his father and stephmother. There is a lot of discrimination in my country and he felt this throughout his life...

By living it I know what is meant when people talk about nature or nurture......
My opinion is; If the personnality of a person doesn't allow criminal or emotionless behavior , no matter what you do to them as being children...they just will turn up right!!!!

The other side is; No matter what you may do or whatever will happen... the loving, nurturing envoirment included, where we all dream about; if someones personality is bad.... he or she will show!!!!!
I understand completely that you are searching for answers.... But don't let this break your heart for it will not help you, the other kids and not her.....

If you look through all kind of postings on this forum and you look at the ones who are of a positive tone , you can tell that the ones who understand that there is nothing you can do, except we have to look after ourselves, take care of ourselves and try not to get close to or expect anything from the psychopaths in our lives. We have to let go and move on for nobody benefits if we put energy in this personnalities.
This is hard, very hard, no one knows that better as we do, and I hope by reading and writing on this forum you will learn sooner then most of us did.
With love Segaya

thanks seyaga
my daughter was very disturbed I guess at age four when adopted everything I read tells me that. The age when attatchment is so important. She was doubly incontinent for a long time and used to go into trances but we were not unduly worried as she seemed happy most of the time and was a little sweetie very attentive at times. Looking back we should have ensured she had on going therapy . Still we can not go back so i am trying to ensure I understand exactly what happened in our family and in her history. If I write my worries down then it is there and may be of help to us and others. I have no problems with the other children so i am at a loss. I feel I bonded with her and felt she was no different than a born to child but I see now that it was not the same for her. She must have had so much pain. I think she was very close to her father my ex and she was angry at me for ending the realtionship.

Hai Damaskrose,

Ohh we can relate all I think to the search of 'what has happend'.....
We want to understand it, we want to have a grip on things but you know what;
Take for example witnesses to a car accident. Two cars bump into each other and very many people watched the whole incident. Police comes and investigates what has happend. If there are a 100 people present at the time, all 100 will tell a different story. Everyone saw the accident from a diffrent angle. So what is truth and how do we find it. I think in engish the expression is; 'it's all in the eye of the beholder'...( sorry I am not english!!)
What I mean to say is, that it is oke, in my opinion, to search for answers, but it is also fine to know where and when to stop.
Do you ask yourself if there are mistakes you made with her? I asure you, you have!
But everybody makes mistakes with bringing up their children. Do you know of parents who do it all right? I don't think so, and if you know people who fullfill all their childrens needs, looking at it from the outside, try to get closer and look again! ( mostly such families are only better in hiding things!)

Childen with RAD are also called chameleons.
I think you know why, but as we are not the only people reading here I will explain;
Children ( and for that matter; grown ups) with RAD have the abbillity to change color all the time they need to.
They are nice, well adjusted and friendly. Your family tends to joke a lot? They will join in, is your family all about reading and discussing politics? They will also. Is there a fight amongs siblings? They will get out of the way.
They will keep a low profil and in the meantime they will do whatever they want to do. Smiling at you and soon as you turn aroun or look the other way they will enter your upboard and steal something, damage something or bullying the other children.
They had learned 'nobody cares' so I have to take care of me in the only way I know how, and that is by disturbing others!!!
Funny (!!) thing is, the bad behavior is almost only with the mother and (younger) siblings..... When father comes home they turn around ( chameleon) like nothing is wrong and no matter what you as being the mother will tell, the father doesn't see it and will think the mother is to blame and will argue with her..... not rarely this will end up in divorce.
There is often braindamage with these children.The frontal lobes of the brain where the social skills are centred are too small, too big or not even there. The development of these childreen is very much infuenced by this damage.
This is bad and sad for all involved, but it means also there is nothing you could have done or still can do for her.

I have to add this damage is done long before she came to your house, so again not your fault and not that of the child herself.
There are simmilarities between RAd and psyhcopathy, as Jan pointed out already.
But there are differences. RAD will not go as far as psychopaths will..Still there is a lot to grief about for parents an other family involved.

With both disorders there is only one thing you can do; Let go....
She is old enough now, You have other chidlren to take care of. You are the mother and in control..( pppfff)
Everybody has his or her own responsebillities in live, so does she. We can't control them and worrying doesn't help..
You know what helped me a lot with my concernes about my oldest son?
I ask myself; oke, now I worry, does it solve anything, does it help him or anybody else? If the answer is 'no'.. than there is no need to worry or being sad and the only thng it does is ruining my life...Do I want that to happen? No, sure not!! So I stop orrying alltogether.
Not easy,I now but it is a way of programming your own brain. You just start telling yourself this,and with time you will see you can stop the proess of being buzy with her all the time, promise!!!
I hope this can help you a little bit!
Segaya

hi segaya Of course you are right and we have to let go which I was trying to do but i feel my daughter C*** is not letting go. Even after living away for seven or eight years She is still creating gossip and false stories which hurt not just me but the people she tells them to. As I said she lives very close and you will know how people talk and spread tales about each other. It is a human quality to want to do this. The trouble is I am quite a private person and am having to program myself to live with my business being public knowledge. And as you will also know the right knowledge in the wrong peoples hands can be used to hurt or bully. Psychological bullying is all the more horrible if you cannot prove it. For instance we all know things about someone which if we told would cause them pain. My daughter has realized this and takes great pleasure in using her social skills to cause damage. I have been thinking of moving away. It may be the only way to get out of her range. Do you still talk to your son at all or have any contact? What age did you realise something was wrong?

Hello Damaskrose

I know the feeling when unjust things are being said about you and you feel the need to defend yourself and not able to do it.
My friend gave me some good advice ..."those people who care don't matter, and those who matter don't care". So I now look at things very differently and have let many people go from my life, I had a bit of a clear out and kept only the people who care about me.

If your daughter has no knowledge of what you do and think then whatever gossip she spreads is not important. What does she know about you that other people would care about? She probably only spreads rumours because she knows it will get a reaction from you, let her see you couldn't give a toss what she tells people. Or better still have no contact whatsoever with her and the people who listen to her.

I know it's hard but you need to do this for your peace of mind.

Regards
Jan

Thanks jan
I guess that is why I am posting as well. To get advice that stops my mind cycling over it all. I posted earlier last month on some problems I was having with a few people at school pta behaving oddly towards me and now I have made a link between what my daughter has been saying and the whole game playing at my youngest children's school. which made me feel very upset. We live in a very small tight community. Though you say it shouldn't matter what people say words do hurt perhaps even worse than physical violence we cannot prove psychological bullying. I believe certain people link on to the fact that they can make you look crazy by pushing your buttons and at present I am learning to disable those buttons. Also as you say it is good to clear out your life which I have been doing.
Slowly and calmly working the threads of control out and backing off. The trouble was I could not do this until the penny had dropped as to what my daughter was actually doing. She and her enablers made a few mistakes and I began to see clearer. I tell myself that it is a good thing to wake up each day free and with knowledge to build a truer life for us.

I realize I have a role in the bad stuff in my marriage and my relationships I kept covering up the cracks and reading other peoples stories on here and the web in general has helped me get better insight.