Title Image: Mother Tucking Children into Bed by Norman Rockwell licensed under public domain PDM 1.0 Deed

Norman Rockwell Paintings

Freedom from Want by Norman Rockwell is licensed under public domain PDM 1.0 Deed

I love Norman Rockwell paintings. I fully realize that they are the quintessential “Americana” portraits of life in the early to mid-twentieth century and as such are an idealized version of family life. Still, there is a part of me that longs for the warmth that I see in those paintings. I love the imagery portrayed in the title image for this blog. A mother tenderly tucks her children into bed. She will keep them safe. As long as she has breath, she will always be there for them, guiding them, protecting them, and above all fiercely loving them. The dilemma that I find myself faced with is that for sociopaths such as my daughter, to interact with them, to get too close, to be there for them, is to be harmed.

I met with my daughter’s former psychiatrist a few months ago, after my daughter was sentenced to prison. I filled her in on recent events with my daughter and then asked about boundaries during her time in prison. Her reply was that ideally, I would have “no contact”.

Martha Stout, PhD The Sociopath Next Door 

In fact, “no contact” seems to be the predominant advice given by those who have worked with victims of sociopaths. In Martha Stout PhD’s book The Sociopath Next Door, she wrote, “The best way to protect yourself from a sociopath is to avoid him, to refuse any kind of contact or communication.”

How do I as a parent go “no contact” with my own daughter? When I told my daughter’s psychiatrist that I hesitated to do that, she advised me to get as close to that as I could. In The Sociopath Next Door,  Martha Stout PhD says the same thing, “If total avoidance is impossible, make plans to come as close as you can to the goal of total avoidance.”

Because my daughter scammed me while in prison 8 years ago, I am wary about being taken in again. She did this through phone calls; I believed her when she said she was pregnant and wanting to place her baby for adoption. I had a work colleague who was trying to adopt and she urged me to reach out to her. I almost reached out to my colleague but didn’t, thank goodness and so avoided hurting that person in my daughter’s baby scam. It was only when my daughter was a week out from her supposed delivery that she called me to say that she had been lying. I was so furious and so horrified that I could have unwittingly hurt my colleague that I have never forgotten or forgiven my daughter. Even now, I do not want to talk with her by phone while in prison because I just can’t trust her.

Boundaries in Place

As soon as my daughter was settled at the prison, she started calling me. She called my husband one time but me…she called multiple times a day, every day for more than a week. I chose not to answer. I would have had to put money into an account to be able to take the call and I was unwilling to go down that path again. I would guess that the only thing that finally stopped her calls was that the prison officials realized she was harassing me.

Just in case the reader thinks that my daughter genuinely wanted to connect with me, bear in mind that she wasn’t calling me prior to prison; at least not after confronting her with the knowledge of the scam that she had carried out against her victim. Bear in mind also that she knew that I talked with the pre-sentencing officials about her past behaviors; she would have been given a copy of the notes from the phone call. It is a safe assumption that her motive in calling me instead of my husband is that 1. I’m an easier target for manipulation than my husband is and 2. She wanted to harass/punish me for conveying information to the sentencing judge.

I wrote my daughter a letter to let her know that while I would write to her in prison, I would not be communicating by phone or email. She wrote back. Knowing that prison officials read every line of every letter, her words were grandstanding to those prison staff…partly portraying herself as a victim, partly a veiled threat that she was “so angry”…implication, at me for conveying information to the sentencing judge. It was extremely stressful to read it. I could see the attempts at manipulation but also, she knows how to twist a verbal knife in me.

Grandpa’s Little Ballerina by Norman Rockwell is licensed under public domain PDM 1.0 Deed

I talked it over with my husband; how to keep some small amount of connection with her while not allowing her to harass or manipulate me. I asked him from now on to be the one to read any letters she writes. He can give me any factual information while protecting me from any of her manipulative undercurrents. My husband is pretty much immune to her shenanigans so I’m not worried about him. In the meantime, I will write non-emotional, breezy notes to her, talking about just the mundane doings of our lives, without mentioning anyone outside of my husband and me. It’s the best way to protect ourselves from her.

So that in a nutshell is my “close as possible” to a no-contact policy. I will connect carefully and not allow her to disrupt me emotionally. If she gets ugly through letters, either the prison officials will stop her as they already likely did with the phone calls, or my husband will shield me from her.

It’s not a Norman Rockwell depiction but for now, it will have to do.