"I'm sorry....your daughter is a psychopath..."

It was almost one year ago that my world came crashing down around me, with one simple sentence, everything was changed forever.  I will never forget that moment, it has been burned into my memory forever.  Its funny the details a person remembers at moments like that.  The slight smell of lavender in the doctors office, I kept thinking that it seemed out of place; the coldness of the leather chair I was sitting on was at such odds with the sunshine flowing through the window; the odd look in the eyes of the psychologist as he uttered the words

                    "I'm sorry...your daughter is a psychopath..."

  He talked on for a while, I don't even know for how long.  I just sat there, hearing his words but... it was as if I couldn't comprehend them, or anything else.  Everything just stopped, all my thoughts and feelings seemed to freeze.  Somewhere at the back of my mind all I could think about was how Lavender was used to make people sleep, how odd to use it in this office.

Slowly his words began to sink in and my thoughts started to move again - slowly, as if stuck in heavy syrup.  I heard someone asking questions, that seemed quite appropriate for the situation.  After a little while I realized that it was me.  I was talking. huh.  My husband was also asking questions and nodding his head.  I remember that too, Tom's head nodding slowly as he took in what was being said.

           "don't be alone with her" the psychologist was talking, "take precautions with your other children, and for goodness sake, get her out of your house as soon as possible..."  I drifted out, back into that numb place of sticky syrup.  How?  How to get her out, how could this happen, how did it happen, how do we fix this?

            "I am sorry, but there is no way to 'fix' it Betty.  There is no medication, or therapy that can change this.  There is  nothing wrong with her body, she was born this way - without the ability to have or understand emotions.  She can mimic emotion, which she does very well, but she does not feel it.  None of it, except anger.  Therapy will only serve to teach her how to mimic emotions and say 'the right things' at 'the right times'.  In essence, it will make her a better predator."

He thinks my daughter is a predator, surely he cant be right, can he?  My mind began to race, trying to find a way out, a way to make this wrong.  Other doctors, therapists maybe.  Perhaps he doesn't know how much I love her, how much of a blessing she was to me that day she was born...  The next thing I knew he was shaking my husbands hand, and then mine. 

I saw the bathroom, as we walked out of his office and made my way to it.  Before I knew it, I was sobbing uncontrollably!  I couldn't stop the tears from falling down my face anymore than I could stop the guttural sounds from pouring out of my throat.  I fell to the floor and sobbed in a way I have never sobbed before.  I knew it was true.  Every part of me knew it was true, and some part of me had known for some time. 

I don't know for how long I was like that, rolled up in a ball on the floor.  But eventually I pulled myself together and found my way out of the bathroom and to my husband.

 Nothing has been the same since that day.  All the illusions of a 'nice, happy family' have long since been shattered.  The luxury of excuses is gone too.  Now we survive.