Eye of the Storm

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A little psychopathic nightmare
athenawalker.substack.com

A little psychopathic nightmare

My childhood was not one that is fondly remembered by anyone except me

Athena Walker
Sep 7, 2021
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A little psychopathic nightmare
athenawalker.substack.com

This won’t be an all inclusive psychopathic child post, and I have to remind everyone that is reading this that you cannot identify psychopathy in children ever. It can only be identified in an adult whose brain is done growing. A child that is born a psychopath is a psychopath, but cannot be identified as one until they have a fully developed brain. More a bit of an idea of what I was like to contrast the reddit post addressed in the first two posts. This is the third in that series. For the first two, please see here;

Eye of the storm
Examination of an old man's confession
You wanted longer posts, and this one is definitely that. Actually, it ended up being so long, it will be split into three separate posts. Otherwise it is twenty-three pages long. Enjoy. I like really good stories, and listen to them on Youtube on a regular basis. I find them very entertaining. I prefer true stories, because the world is so very interest…
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9 months ago · 11 likes · 17 comments · Athena Walker

and here;

Eye of the storm
A Second Look
This is the second look at the Reddit post that I addressed in my previous post. If you haven’t read that, you will need it for context, and you can find it here; For the rest of you, this is the second part of a three part post. This story is true…
Read more
9 months ago · 6 likes · 11 comments · Athena Walker

Let’s close this post out with a little more insight to what an actual psychopathic child might be like. A bit of a palate cleanser for all the dark that Reddit post brought about. 

Let’s do a list, shall we?

Psychopathic children are;

Extremely willful

Defiant

Independent

Terribly dishonest

Brutally honest

Little thieves

Unempathetic

Devious

Punishment immune

Manipulative

Little liars

Big liars

Are selfish

Unconcerned with your ideas of behaving well

Do not share

Have NO fear of anything

Basically, psychopathic children live in their own world. They are disconnected from the swirling of emotions that neurotypicals frequently have, and they have terrible impulse control. I want what I want when I want it. This is still true, but I am far better equipped at controlling those niggles that say, Ooooo!!!! Want!!!

As a child, this was not my forte. I stole things, lied about them, manipulated people, and said terrible things to them because I had no idea that they were hurtful. I was constantly, and I mean constantly into everything. There was nothing that was safe from me, and my mother thought she was pretty clever. 

Lock the Christmas presents in the trunk already wrapped? No problem. At night, I snuck to her purse, flitched her keys, got a knife and the scotch tape, snuck into the dark garage, turned on the light, scaled the car, popped the truck climbed into it, took the knife, slit the tape on the Christmas wrapping until I could figure out what was inside, and then carefully rewrap the gifts, and recovering the scotch tape that I slit with one exactly the same size. Then I would put them all back, climb out of the trunk, close it quietly, shut off the lights, return the keys, and go back to bed. 

Patience was not a virtue for me… at all. This is just one of many things that I did, and by the way, I was four when I did that. I was already well-polished on what I had to do to get away with things. I never got caught for the presents thing, though I told my mother about it years later (cue groaning). If you end up with a child like me, you have to learn to be very calm, find my currency, learn to negotiate with a moving target, be more clever than I was, know how to pick your battles, and know that punishment is going to have zero effect on that child. 

Psychopathic children are very difficult, but not for the reasons that people tend to think. They have this whole idea in their heads that we are stark raving lunatics with nothing but causing other people harm on our minds. The only thing on my mind as a child was entertainment. I didn’t care what sort of entertainment, just stuff to do. 

All of my behavior was focused around what I wanted at that moment. Learning to shift my focus from something bad to something good was the key to my parents' communication with me. It also helped that they insisted on teaching responsibility through a rewards system. I got X when I did Y. They were unfailingly consistent, and it taught me that I could trust that so long as I did what they wanted, I would get what I expected out of it. I mucked it up a ton of times, but, there you have it. Psychopathic children aren’t evil incarnate, but they are balls of fearless energy that isn’t at all bothered by your constant use of the word “NO!”, and in fact find it a bit funny. No, but I’m gonna do it anyway. 

I was a devious little nightmare that is lucky to have survived her childhood. I was so much of a handful that my mother would take photographs of me while I was sleeping so she could remind herself that there were times… that I was still. 

Eye of the Storm

The world filtered through the lens of psychopathy. Strange and mysterious stories. Other weird and interesting things.
By Athena Walker

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Damaged
Sep 7, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

Did you care about making friends?

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SS Big Red
Sep 7, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

I thank you for the honesty. Your mother should win a parenting award, but I think having you be a successful adult is a big one.

The movie “Let’s Talk About Kevin” really disturbed me. I thought it well done, but now that I see some of your points I understand it not to be as good as I thought. The way that Kevin just tortured his sister, defied his mother just for the joy of it (shouldn’t have experienced that, I understand) and all the killing, without emotion, especially that of his family, was disturbing. I have learned that psychopaths, although not like NT’s, DO have blunted emotions, so that seemed wrong, too. Correct me if I have misrepresented the psychopath (knowing that everyone, NT, psychopathic or otherwise are each their own person and generalizations are a slippery slope).

Sweet when asleep - all parents think that! :)

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