Hi Kate,

They absolutely love to receive gifts for themselves and are particularly happy if it comes in the form of cash.

I don't think I have ever heard of a more disgusting gift. Since it seems like porn is a common thread for at least most of them my first instinct when I read about your "gift" is the pure lack of understanding and to him it probably was a joke. It shows the total lack of anyone else, what a horrible thing to do with your children there. It sounds like they were on to him, it seems these days kids get very wise about what is going on.




Twin, that is horrible, he sure has mastered how to ruin family get togethers. If it were me and I got his name I would just rumage around my basement and take something I was going to toss anyways;) or do what he did but mix up the items get a magazine or two, the ones that are just ads and are free, a few pieces of candy, some gum and a six pack of his favorite soda. Unfortunately he just wouldn't get it. It will never dawn on him how hurtful that was because he just doesn't care, the world circles around him.

The big problem is he is doing this I presume with your mother there?

Di

Oh yes. He's done this around my mother for years. To be honest, she is so thrilled that he bought anything that she can't or won't see that what he buys was inconsiderate if not abusive. Once about 5 years ago, I sent him a birthday card with a coffee shop gift card. He didn't call to acknowledge it, but when I sent him a birthday card the next year, he actually called me and said, "Last year you sent me a gift card for coffee. What happened?" Ugh. So friggin entitled.

I remember when my kids were little and I lived out of town. He'd call me to ask why I didn't bring them over to his apartment. Most of all, I wanted my children to bond with their grandmother/my mom and I mentioned that he was welcome to come over to mom's condo while I was there and that the kids loved the toys she had for them, the high chair, the playpen, etc. He went into a fit. "You think your better than me. You don't want your kids to like me."

I told him that it wasn't true. But I also asked him if he thought that his place was baby proof enough for a 1 1/2 year old and a 4 1/2 year old. The truth is he didn't have a lick of furniture in his place. He only had a t.v. and floor pillows (probably had porn all over) yet he was raging that I wouldn't bring my kids over. I never did take my kids over there and I've seriously limited their contact with him since they were babies.

My mom is so afraid of him she says nothing. She thinks the only way to respond to him is to enable him or coddle him. I try so hard to have sympathy for her and how it must feel to have a son with cancer that will eventually take him let alone a son like him. But it isn't easy.

Ruining family get-togethers doesn't even begin to mention it. One year my sister had had a baby and her husband lost his job so they couldn't host the annual Christmas party for our extended family. Predictably, he didn't call to offer support or an alternate location. Instead he called to let her know that "he expected" a Christmas party. She told him, then go have one. What an ass.

Twin,

Tonight I read through a lot of your earlier posts about your brother's manipulation and exploitation of your mom, the impact on her and you and other family members. People can change and improve at any age, but at age 83 its unlikely your mom will be able to make major changes in how she views your brother and interacts with him. It's good you're doing what you can to not let the situation drive you into depression, and to maintain a good relationship with your mom, but you and your sister may need to be practical about the long-term financial as well as the emotional impact of the matter. Tough questions. Do you know your mom's financial situation?--Is there any possibility your brother could drain her financially to a point where she doesn't have enough income or resources to pay her bills, support herself, continue living independently? If so, is there a plan for dealing with that? Would you be able to support her or have her live with one of you?


As a last resort...
If your mom's financial situation is, or looks likely to become, precarious,... and it would be a hardship for you and siblings to support her, you might be able to halt the exploitation by getting your mom declared 'mentally incompetent to manage her own affairs.' You'd petition and have a hearing, a judge would decide the matter. If the petition was granted the court would appoint a trustee to oversee/manage her finances and expenditures (can be a responsible family member or a non-related individual.) No one wants to have to go that route with a parent, but it's an act of love when it's in the interest of the parent's welfare, promoting their well being and supporting as independent a lifestyle as possible. It protects the parent from her (or his)own inability to say NO to exploitative money-drainers. A lawyer can explain the process to you in a free consultation. The court bases its decision on facts and figures;income and expenditures, what's reasonable and what's unreasonable. Once it was over and done with she'd experience financial relief and be protected from your brother.

I hope you don't think I'm cold-hearted and insensitive. Experience has made me acutely practical regarding matters involving psychopaths.
It just might be prudent for you and your sister to discuss the worst-case scenario (of your mom running out of money, if thats possible), and hatch some ideas for managing matters.

______________

I have been dragged through hell and back again by three psychopaths I've been unfortunate enough to have impact on my life. My mother, my husband(now ex), and my father's second wife. (I was 32 when Dad remarried; she was never a 'step-mom' to me.) Looking back, I can now say my dad was attractive to psychopathic women; he was tall, strong, and very 'handy'; a capable man whose income and placid and trusting nature broadcast "Security."

She was a dozen years younger than him. 5' 10" tall, 240 pounds. Big and strong. She worked as a hospital nurse, (2 year certificate, not college degree) and he was impressed. But once the honeymoon was over, she pitched raging fits and cried and threatened suicide whenever he wouldn't do what she wanted. He sought counseling, she quit after they attended 4 sessions, refused to consider more. It was much easier to give in to her demands than it was to resist, so he gave in, over and over...trusting and believing that "really" she loved him, despite her frequent belittling and mistreatment of him; and of course when he gave in, she rewarded him with compliments and sweetness, (and sex.) Dumb me, at that time I felt it wasn't my place to meddle or advise him, and I also happened to be married to a psychopath who was telling me it was none of my business what my father did. So although I expressed concern and gave such emotional support as I could from the sidelines, two states away, I didn't do what I felt like doing and have regretted ever since not having done: I didn't tell him to get the hell out of that marriage and run for his life while he still had a life.

You might wonder how his second wife could have such a bad impact on me, a grown daughter living two states away. Answer: by causing the father I loved incredible mental anguish and physical pain, and then pursuing me after his death, with frivolous lawsuits because I abetted his escaping from her. First she isolated him, threatening to commit suicide if he wouldn't agree to move to a small house in a lonely rural location near a lake. He was retired and wanted to live in a place where there were more people around and places to go, but he didn't want her suicide on his conscience, believed she'd be more content if they moved there, and he could always drive the 1 hr trip back to the city to visit people. They moved. He could never invite HIS relatives for dinner, always some excuse, but her's were welcomed there. He couldn't take any trips to visit his grown daughters and their families unless she could go to, but oh gee, her work and social schedule just never had time for it. Then he got cancer, and had back surgery to relieve the pain and extend his life. He returned to their home from the hospital, and became her captive abuse victim. No one discovered it for a couple weeks, during which time she abused him verbally and physically, blocked him from receiving phone calls and beat him in the head with a glass vase when she caught him trying to call out, disallowed his using the bathroom and shower, deprived him of clothing, food, water, and withheld his medications. By the time I became suspicious and alarmed and drove there, he no longer spoke or moved or did anything she didn't command, and was nearly catatonic from the relentless abuse and pain.

(Cut to the chase, skipping over lots of miserable and frightening details) I aided his escape, got him to a hospital, he had to have a second surgery to clean up the mess she'd made of the first surgery. He charged her with criminal assault and sued for divorce. But he died a few weeks later, before her Assault case was heard in court and before his Divorce hearing....which gave his wife, LEGAL RIGHT OF DEPOSITION of his remains. She refused to order cremation or burial, just relegated his body to the funeral homes cool-storage room, where it slowly decomposed for 74 days, while I awaited the granting of my petition to define his body as part of his estate. Meanwhile she sued me, charging me with unjustly enriching myself by coercing my father into making me beneficiary of life insurance that she felt should have been hers. (She actually got a lot of money and benefits after Dad died, widows portion of his pension and health insurance for the rest of her life, his retirement savings, 4 rental houses...but she wanted everything, and to make me suffer for having helped him get away from her and supporting his reporting her assault and pursuing a divorce.

Normal people can't predict what a psychopath will do, because they are capable of unimaginable cruelty and evil.

Kate -- it is going to take me a few days to process entirely what you've written because your situation with your father and his psychopath wife sounds a lot like my situation with my mom. He hurts me through his exploitation and abuse of my mother. Anything that I've done to help him is actually to take the heat off of her.

Today, I brought my mom dinners that I had made so she wouldn't have to worry about cooking or extensive grocery shopping given the nearly 2 ft of snow on the ground. I do this pretty regularly. It isn't that hard because I make an extra serving of whatever I make for my family. I've done this for years. Today when I arrived, she had her coat and boots on ready to take HIM to the grocery store. It took me back to the first few months about 5 years ago when my husband and I decided to pay for a monthly cleaning lady for her. At that time, I excitedly called her and said, "So how was it to not have to clean toilets, scrube floors, or change sheets after all these years? She said, "I went over to Blank's house and cleaned up his apartment." I realize that this could be habit or discomfort at someone helping her after she was used to doing the helping, but this went on for about 6 months or so. I finally decided to talk to her and said, "Mom, you can do what you want, but we're not doing this so you can clean his place." I tried to talk to him and said, "Look, if she comes over to clean can you send her away and tell her to enjoy herself." (Keep in mind this was before I knew he was a psychopath so I thought that I might be able to persuade his conscience.) He glibly said to me, "It isn't my problem. As a matter of fact, I'm kind of benefiting from it." (What a sick prick!)

So much of it I've got to let go in order to keep up contact with her. Other than this (and it's huge) she's been a good mom to me and a good grandma to my kids in so many other ways. She's like your dad Kate. She's giving and generous. So to a psychopath she's easy to use and exploit.

My sister has some financial signing authority on her banking account. I've got another brother (whose wife is also completely on board with this) who also has access to her checking and saving accounts. I'm not so worried that he'd completely wipe her out financially. Instead, I know what he has done is nickle and dime her to death. I do appreciate your concern about this though and we are considering this all the time.

One of the things that complicates this is my brother's cancer. Tomorrow, his PET scan is going to be reviewed at a doctor's appointment. I know that my emotional reaction is reasonable: "I can't stand him." But I find myself fighting against the thought: "Have some sympathy. He's got cancer." Truthfully, I can't even go there. He's been such a manipulating, conning, and lying game-player that it is a real challenge to have sympathy for him. And yet, I find myself thinking that it will be over for him and maybe her when he dies. What a mess.

I think that the hard part of the mess with these psychopaths is that in my family we are all at varying degrees of understanding of him. We're all in the same book, but we're not in the same chapter let alone the same page. I've got a friend who is a newly hired hospice nurse. She says that one of the biggest let-downs for her has been to see patients who manipulate and game-play with their dying breaths. She tells me that most people die like they live. I have no doubt that my brother will fit that image.

Ugh.

Twin,

I can't reply at length right now, but wanted to let you know I read your most recent reply. GREAT that your sister and another sibling have some access to your mom's bank accounts -- affords you some control over what oozes out to your brother.

Yes, cancer obligates some sympathy, but it's no blanket-excuse for his psychopathy. If possible fix it so your mom's money doesn't pay for his treatment.
Maybe he has decent health insurance (I don't know, you haven't said) - but if not, get him into public aid programs.

I'll write more later.


Kate

Over the years he's had no real full-time jobs so he's never had health insurance. My sister and I paid a friend (who has expertise in this area) to secure disability and state sponsored medicaid. Had he gone through a lawyer he would have had to give them a 1/3 of the settlement and had he done it on his own he would never been able to complete the paperwork. So we found someone to help and he was an ass every step of the way. (eg: refusing to do what she asked in even the most simple form like completing paperwork; being rude openly; being rude by never thanking her; criticizing her in front of her co-workers, showing up to her office at night and then complaining that she was never around, etc.) She's a saint for doing this and what we paid her is was small in comparison to what a lawyer would have charged, but certainly not a small amount.

Our hope was that it would provide him with a stream of consistent income and allow him to have access to appropriate medical care which would take the heat off of our mom. Last summer he got a nearly $15,000 settlement from disability and monthly gets about $1000. We suggested (which is allowed by disability) that he use the money to pay rent and utilities ahead to give him some security. He refused because he "doesn't like people telling him what to do." No one really knows what he did with all of the money besides pay off some credit card debt and rent cars by the week.

(By the way, he sure loves to sing a sad song saying that my sister and I never help him. We help him, but we don't enable him.)

So now, his health has worsened and he's had to take a leave from his extremely part-time job. My sister-in-law took him to his doctor's appointment last week. His hemoglobin counts were down and he was very very tired. She picked him and sympathetically asked him how he was feeling. He lives alone and has a history of porn use. You know the only thing he said was... "I couldn't even get myself hard last night."

Sick.

Hi Twin,

Sick is putting it mildly. I have heard from tons of victims about their partners requests for porn and weird sex but your own brother, gives me the creepy crawlers.

I am really baffled and maybe I missed something. I can understand how the attorney got him on medicaid, that makes sense. How in the heck is he getting 1K a month and a 15K settlement from disability without a job etc? What other benefits does he get, food stamps etc. with the medicaid. Very puzzled over the disability?

So far no one has written a book on how to handle the death of a family member who is a psychopath so you are on new territory, Kubler Ross and the stages of grief would be appropriate to consider looking at so you can see what stages your mother may well go through to support her.

I really don't think there is any right or wrong way to deal with how you do or don't feel about your brother dying. The choice is really how you want to deal with it. There is a neutral position which to me means you don't have to throw yourself sobbing over his casket but simply acknowledge he is dead and turn your attention and support to your mother. I don't think dealing with it by wishing he goes to hell or that he dies quicker might cause some issues. He is dying, it is as simple as that. Once he is gone it will be important to not let him control things from his grave, he is just dead.

All the attention should go to your mother, your family is brave and loving to your mother. I am sure your mom will have grief so the Kubler Ross book might help in understanding the stages she will be going through. Your mother protected your brother with a heavy veil to not see what he was, she is probably too kind and loving to think of him as a monster. That is how mothers can be.

I think your mom is just doing what moms of her generation would be more likely to do. You deserve a lot of credit for figuring it out so you would at least have a base to operate from rather than behind a dark door.

She loves her son, that doesn't mean you have to love him and you can be neutral or whatever your choice is and what will work best for you. Your family has lifted a heavy weight all these years to attempt to care for your brother by getting him aid and medical care. He will never care, he is the typical psychopath who is the constant victim in any circumstances and now he has cancer so he has a new card in his deck for his remaining time.

I hope I am not sounding cruel or cold by suggesting a neutral position. I can't think from your writing here of anything else you could have done for your brother. Most people wouldn't be that strong to carry him as their burden as long as your family has. It has to be very emotional from all sides. My thoughts would have raced to how I could get him a one way ticket to Siberia;)

It is very sad what your mother has gone through and her reaction to his death will probably be deep sorrow, she will see it much differently.

Di

Hi Diane -

No - you don't sound cruel at all. I think that my sister-in-law, sister and I have adopted that neutral position. It is a challenge though. We're trying to support my mom through this and we will support her when he dies. We are realistic to know that the best we can hope for is that he die before our mother so we can work on undoing some of the damage and possibly rebuild our relationship with her. Realistically, we know that there is only a 50/50 chance that she outlive him and then another 50/50 chance that the damage he's done to our relationship is not permanent. We're trying to do our best to keep a good relationship with her, run interference, and support her. I still make meals for her, pay for her cleaning lady, take her to the grocery when I can, attend her doctor appts. with her, etc. My sister helps with her with meals, her health insurance, pays for her cell phone, etc. My sister-in-law does the same. What is to her advantage/disadvantage simultaneously is that she is still mentally quite sharp. By that I mean, she isn't so old and frail that she can't handle her own matters with help. But, she isn't sophisticated enough (who really is)to maintain a healthy relationship with him.

I'm not sure if he gets food stamps now or not because I don't talk to him and I hardly ever bring his situation up with my mom. He's able to get about $1000 (probably closer to $900) in disability because he has worked over the years. He's never had a full-time job. EVER. The closest he's ever worked to full-time is about 30 hours a week which was a decade or so ago. But his pattern was to do so and then get himself fired or deliberately work temporary jobs so he could collect unemployment. Quite frankly, I was surprised that he could secure that much assistance. When my friend was helping him complete the paperwork she asked him about his series of temporary/part-time jobs. His response was something like "I never liked to push myself too hard and it all worked out." (Everyone else limping him along which he never acknowledges.) BTW, the settlement was $15,000 because it went back to the date of diagnosis. He has worked part-time over the past 7 - 10 years . . . probably about 20 hours a week. My mother floated him money each month to make ends meet and paid for his car insurance.

She told me once that she wasn't giving it to him. She had him do things to "earn it." (Yeah right.) Who has their elderly mother pay them to help? A psychopath that's who.

It is unchartered territory. I have a feeling that the PET Scan results were not terminal or I would have heard about it by now. I spoke with her on the phone last night and she didn't sound depressed. So we're back at it again. My therapist and my sister-in-law's therapist says the same thing: it will probably be a relief when he dies.

Hi Twin, and Diane too,

Lots of good advice there Diane. You have a deep well of compassion for humanity.

I'm going to take one of Diane's remarks and run with it. Don't know how much there is of it that might or could be helpful, maybe some, maybe none.


> how to handle the death of a family member who is a psychopath...

I second the suggestion to read up on stages of grief; its a good idea.
To that, I add this:
Of course you shouldn't feel bad if you don't experience stages as described; heck, you've already put in years grieving because he lacks heart and conscience. But also, don't be surprised if you feel a strange sense of loss and unreality creep over you...as if you're standing inside a bubble where time has stopped and the world outside it seems separated from you or muted. Are you familiar with the "elephant in the living room' analogy? I bet so, but just in case not: When there's an elephant in your living room that won't budge,(a psychopath in your family that you can't make leave and which you can't get away from for whatever reasons)...in order to survive having to live with it, you adapt by living 'around' it. You rearrange the furniture, keep a safe distance away from it, feed it, truck away its poop, put up with its noises and figure out strategies to minimize it's disruptions. I know, that YOU know, that you've been expending loads of effort for years and years helping your mom, AND even helping your ingrate-brother, WHILE simultaneously "managing" your own strong feelings towards the situation, PLUS working and meeting other separate and unrelated challenges in your life outside your family. What I'm trying to describe is, having intellectual recognition of your psychopath's impact on your life is ONE thing; but when your emotional brain recognizes and feels total freedom from his physical existence, that's ANOTHER thing, and it can trigger some surprising sensations, new insights,thoughts, and changes.
Your mom or other relatives who maybe love him your brother the ways she does, may have a need to preserve the mental space he occupied in their minds, and do just that.


I hated my elephants. At that time I didn't know much about psychopathy, and what I thought I knew was erroneous. Still, it was enough that I recognized mine were abnormal and dangerous people. And I recognized that there had to be a REASON that I had not perceived that these two people were truly dangerous people. After establishing a safer home for me and my kids, one without any elephants, my brain seemed to recognize by itself that there was more room available in my mind for thinking. I'm a visual thinker. For a couple days I felt sort of gathering sensation in my brain and a couple days later my brain began 'playing' a "video review" of my life... to my "minds-eye",-- like a movie of images from Toddlerhood. It was amazing and a little unnerving; I could see it but it didn't interfere with my usual vision and normal activities;it was like I had a third eye in my head, just for watching that. I woke and fixed my kid's breakfasts and sent them off to school, and took phone calls, and did grocery shopping...with this little in-mind video running all the while. Real and accurate life events. But I called the counselor I'd been seeing about it anyway--you know, in case I maybe was losing my mind?-- but she said she thought it was a very healthy event that had been waiting a long time to happen, I should try not to worry about it, call her if I had trouble sleeping or other bothersome effects. So, well... I was 48 then, didn't understand what was happening but guessed it could take awhile. My earliest years played at at normal speed, slowing down here and there, pausing on certain frames (some for longer times than others), and then moving on. I didn't know why. As the review moved into my teen years it speeded up but still slowed-and-paused to inspect certain frames. Sometimes there were audible conversations in the pictures, but more often not. By the fourth day it had progressed into my 20's and my life's story was passing by quite a bit faster. The 5th day the images sped up to where they were zipping by like a VHS tape fast-forwarding between specific frames it stopped; that night I slept only fitfully. I was exhausted by the 6th evening, for by then the images were rushing past at the speed of a passenger train and stopping and moving on with equal rapidity. I called the counselor and she okayed a small dose of Valium, which slowed things down enough to allow me to sleep about 5 hours that night.
They speeded back up in the morning, but in the afternoon the movie began slowing, and slowing, and then stopped,and roved forward and back, picking out specific areas of my life-experience to re-visit.

I hadn't realized it while it was happening, but my freed-up brain had reviewed everything in order to replace the LIES and FALSE meanings attached to abuse-memories with their true and correct description: ABUSE. Irrational mistreatment, false blaming, gross neglect-- every episode. Even at a very young age I had somehow tagged them as not-quite-right, or aberrant, but overlaying that was "DESERVED" because Mom who said she loved me, always told me I deserved whatever she did to me. And when I protested that I hadn't done this or that thing, she told me I was a liar, or couldn't remember because I was so stupid. And even after I got older and then was grown up, this stuff was still active to the extent that all anyone had to do was accuse me, and I apologized for whatever they said I should. The man I married had the same abuse traits as my mother: gaslighting, denial, false accusation to create justification for abuse they "needed" to do to secure themselves. Finally I understood My Life, and it felt GOOD to be able to see the labels!

Well, this has been too long. Sorry for that. I must leave it. You KNOW what your brother is, and what you're dealing with, and as miserable as it is to recognize in some ways, it's much more enabling of smart decisions and preventive measures that scurrying or cowering or enduring etc.

I probably won't visit the site again until Sunday.

Kate:

You wrote:

You rearrange the furniture, keep a safe distance away from it, feed it, truck away its poop, put up with its noises and figure out strategies to minimize it's disruptions. I know, that YOU know, that you've been expending loads of effort for years and years helping your mom, AND even helping your ingrate-brother, WHILE simultaneously "managing" your own strong feelings towards the situation, PLUS working and meeting other separate and unrelated challenges in your life outside your family. What I'm trying to describe is, having intellectual recognition of your psychopath's impact on your life is ONE thing; but when your emotional brain recognizes and feels total freedom from his physical existence, that's ANOTHER thing, and it can trigger some surprising sensations, new insights,thoughts, and changes.

My sister said it best. If you are near HIM, you take a "hit." If you stay away too much, our mom takes a "hit" or we take "hits" trucking away the poop.

One of the most troubling parts of this is that some of my siblings really blame my mom for ALL of this. Sure, when we were kids she didn't handle all of this in the best ways. Her nature is to be non-confrontational and helpful which is a bonanza for a psychopath. But these people (these psychopaths) are nearly impossible to stand up to.

The latest is that my mom is considering having the psychopath move in with her as his cancer progresses. My sister (who is on board) spoke with another family member and asked her if mom mentions him moving in to discourage it. Our oldest sister said, "Maybe she can handle it." My sister explained that WE would end up taking care of mom and him while they all sat back, afraid to confront him or discuss it with her, and blamed the 83 y/o that she can't stand up to him.

That is where the rub is. My sister (who is on board) and my sister-in-law know how agitated he gets and how she cowers to him, The rest of our family blame her and think she is a co-conspirator. Yet, they are unwilling to say ANYTHING TO HIM or discuss it with her.

I hate it.