Psychopath/Sexual kids that don't care about punishment

[WeepIndigo]

I have been reading so many posts about trouble children and about how wilful they are, I just want to post a quick reply as most I read are years on so I suppose inappropriate to comment on the original post.

I was a horrid child, ran away, tantrums (broke furniture, biting, pulling out my own hair), peed in my bed till well past 7, sexually inappropriate(touched other children, asked adults that came to house to watch me shower, asked to wrestle with pants off), hurt animals (pulled tails off kittens, poked out animals eyes), did not care about punishments. Now with my adult eyes I can look at what I did and explain these seemingly irrational things.

Running away. Pretty much a screw you to the parents. Make ME clean my room.. make you sick with worry. HA. Though times when I left it was just an overload of feelings and I can't be there at home. Very angry and overwhelmed but had no vocabulary or even the willingness to address my feelings.

Tantrums. Anger, pure anger with no way to talk about it and a gain the willingness to talk about it. Now I have been able to curb SOME of my anger. Up until my twenties I still had anger that I could not handle and broke walls or hurt myself due to the rage that built up in me. As a parent I have no clue as to how one can talk to someone with this amount of anger without upsetting the child further. As far as I have found this comes with maturity and the ability to leave situations that anger you. Still when very angry I have no willingness to talk, you can not express rage very easily and when in rage that becomes impossible. As a teen it became self harm, I was so seething with anger that I would break glass and cut with it, that helped to take the shaking rage away. Also helped when sadness took over. Now I no longer feel the need to do these self harm behaviours. It will get better eventually.

Peeing. Was unintentional and only thing that helped was age. ***** but reappeared when I began to drink and again needed time to grow and let my body learn how to stop that. So very embarrassing but happened at sleepovers as a child, nothing that I did on purpose.

Sexual inappropriateness. This is an odd thing that I think is just about not thinking anything is sexual. As a kid I always wanted to wrestle with no pants.. sounds super sexual yeah? But I said this many times and then when asked about it now by my mother (hey remember you asking to wrestle with no pants? what the heck was that about?) I think back and remember just what I was thinking. Wrestling is great, whenever I see people going to wrestle they push up sleeves, I like to get my legs involved, pants off heck yeah! While as a child mom asked me and all I could say was "it feels right" or "it feels good" also SOUNDS sexual but I assure you it was not! I remember these very well as others seemed to be baffled but I was thinking huh? I blush as now I can see how bad that sounds as an adult. As for touching kids, I was very curious as to whats this whole thing about vaginas? I want to know if mine looks like others. So at sleepovers my girlfriends and I looked and touched, I always thought that exploration was perfectly normal and fine as we all did it as kids. I remember it being a mutual type of exploration, some friends asking to play "doctor". Showering I never saw it as sexual, I had no idea that people have sex or that nakedness was bad! Why shouldn't I be aloud to show how awesomely I washed my hair? Again completely innocent and I have this feeling that people are seeing a child show nakedness or even touching or humping things as a sexual act when kids usually do not. I understand that sometimes this can show that they are sexualised but a lot of the time they are not and are just going through normal hey my body is awesome and I found out its awesome. Sort of like how you can watch things you saw as a kid and think gosh thats sexual.. why didnt I see that before. I listen to things I listened to as a teenager (popular music) and go whoa! Took me over ten years to hear THAT lyric.

Hurting animals. Yes as a child I did so many nasty things to animals and today it sickens me. I am someone that spends too much time worrying about others feelings and worry for years about things that I have said while the person I spoke to may have forgotten long ago. My point is that just because a child hurt an animal or seems to have no empathy does in to way mean that they will be a psychopath or never have empathy. I actually became a vet tech for a while but had to stop as I could not deal with putting animals down or declawing cats as I see that as cruel. I took the work home with me and felt like a monster agreeing to kill a perfectly healthy animal due to an owners inability to care for it, or declaw because of an owners inability to realise that a cat sharpens claws. If you have a cat don't have leather furniture.. but thats a whole other talk.

Did not care about punishments. I was always very hard to punish, I didnt care what you did to me. Screw you I will not let you win. This I still have. I hold grudges and will not let anyone give me an ultimatum. When I was in my early teens instead of taking a punishment I downed a bottle of pills and a bottle of bleach. In short I always cared about punishment but refused to show that I cared. In no way let you see that it effects me, or I will show you that if you punish me I can hurt you worse. No thoughts on this as I readily admit to still having this trait and nothing has stopped it aside from growing up and gaining some control.

I am a productive part of society and have gotten through my hardest years the teens and twenties due to the love and care of my wonderful sometimes flawed parents. Its possible to get through this time but good luck to all you parents that have kids like me. Only thing I wish is that my parents made me work more, I was a bit coddled and never had to do many chores. This has made it VERY hard for me in the work force and made me feel as if its a huge thing to clean and go to work while I feel that if I had regular chores I would have been better equipped.

Respect to parents of kids like me. I wish you all the best and don't give up on us, we can become wonderful people despite what some people say and our seeming lack of empathy. May not be true of all but I grew up and found my empathy in spades. My mom frequently says "Gosh you were hell on me but I am so glad you are who you are, I am proud of you and that I know you. You grew into a wonderful woman."

[Vamppirre]

I was pretty much the opposite to you. I always listened, but was still constantly abused physically, psychologically,  and verbally. I was always beaten.

I ended up with severe anxieties,  self mutilation,  major depression, have recently been diagnosed as a sociopath. I simply learned to hide it well. For a long time, I used movies and television as models of human interaction and behavior. I still do.

Punishments were different for me, because I never did anything to earn them. With the woman that...raised me, she would simply beat me then force me to do whatever it was I hadn't wanted to do. Like once I didn't want to eat the food she cooked. She beat me enough to break a finger, then told me to eat the food. By the time she'd finished the beating, roaches had claimed the meal. She tired to force the food in my mouth for over an hour. By the night's end, I had three broken fingers and two cracked ribs.

I had very limited human interaction outside of her and few family members. I still flinch when people touch me.

[AnnieBrooke]

Thanks for writing in, I know you will give hope to parents dealing with something like this.  It must feel impossible to the parent.

[Sandman2]

Very interesting.  Thank you for sharing.  You know as the CL on the ADHD forum, I have seen stories kind of similar to yours.  Ever wondered if you have something like ADHD or ADD?  It would explain a lot of your actions.