A Family of Psychopaths

The first time I asked my maternal grandfather if my father was evil, I was only six years old. He was carrying me up the seemingly endless steps to my school—steps I couldn’t walk up myself because of the weakness in my legs. His answer was subdued, measured. He simply said, “You don’t understand yet.”

The weakness in my legs, particularly on the left side, began five months before I started first grade, following nearly four weeks of fever that doctors dismissed as the flu. For decades, no one could explain what was wrong with me—least of all my indifferent parents. It wasn’t until I was 73 years old, after enduring countless misdiagnoses and even outright ridicule, that I was finally diagnosed with Post-Polio Syndrome (PPS). Yet, even with this long-awaited diagnosis, one deeper, more troubling question from my childhood remains unanswered: Who are my parents?

When I was seven, I no longer needed to ask if my father was evil—I knew. That certainty came the day he noticed my left foot turned slightly inward, by just one centimeter. To "correct" my "embarrassing" walk, he dragged me outside to the street to train me. Anytime my foot wasn’t perfectly straight, he hit me.
Not long after, I witnessed him savagely beating my grandfather—just months after my grandmother had died. My grandmother, who had raised me from birth, had been my only source of love and safety. When she passed, everything changed. I was forced to live with my parents.

Soon after, my grandfather moved out of the home he had built in 1948. As he left, I overheard my father laughing, saying, “Now I’m the king of the castle.” A castle my father did not build. A castle built by another man—a man he had brutalized. A father who, without my grandfather’s labor, was otherwise penniless.

Even now, at 75 years old, I find myself asking a grim and troubling question: Who was the bigger psychopath—my father or my mother?
Haunting Shadows from the Past  https://sieglindewalexander.com/haunting-shadows-from-the-past/

The Psychological Evidence of a Family Curse

The scars my parents left on me are deep and enduring, carving a legacy of permanent alertness and a constant awareness of impending danger into the fabric of my life. This toxic inheritance manifested not only emotionally but physically, taking form as adrenal insufficiency, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus.

My three younger brothers, raised entirely under my parents’ influence without the care and refuge I found in my grandmother, became exact replicas of them: violent, manipulative, deceitful, and pathological liars.

Studying psychology for two years In my quest to understand, I turned to books, research papers, and seminars and caring for “Adults Abused in Childhood” worldwide from 1994 to 2016, research was both illuminating and deeply haunting for me. It unraveled the layers of my family’s dysfunction—shedding light on why my parents became who they were and why my brothers grew into their mirror images. My parents’ violence, manipulation, lies, and lack of empathy were not merely personality flaws; they were manifestations of something far deeper, rooted in their biology and magnified by the toxic environment they fostered. 

By then, after reading emails and listening to childhood abuse victims share their experiences and related illnesses, I was convinced that childhood abuse causes not only psychological but also physical and organic damage. In 1999, I wrote to President Clinton about this very issue.
Here is his response: https://sieglindewalexander.com/letters/letter-from-bill-clinton/

Results: The Safe Start Initiative involved collaborations with researchers and organizations focused on childhood exposure to violence.
Just to name a few:
Joy D. Osofsky, Ph.D. Title: The Impact of Violence on Children,
Alicia F. Lieberman, Ph.D. Title: Infant Mental Health and Trauma: Intervention Strategies for Infants and Toddlers Exposed to Violence,
David Finkelhor, Ph.D. Title: Children’s Exposure to Violence: A Comprehensive National Survey.

In 2014 “The Biological Effects of Childhood Trauma” was published by Michael D De Bellis, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3968319/

Hearing James Fallon speak in 2016 on YouTube, about the results of PET scans and fMRI brought another moment of clarity about the deep roots of the evil that plagued my family.
His book, The Psychopath Inside by James Fallon, finally offered critical insights into the neuroscience behind psychopathy, helping me piece together the biological and psychological puzzle of my parents' behavior.

Fallon explains how psychopathy is linked to specific abnormalities in the brain, particularly in regions associated with morality, empathy, and impulse control. Here’s what I learned from his work:

Neurological Features of Psychopathy:

    Orbital Cortex:

        Located in the prefrontal cortex, just above the eye sockets, this area is responsible for regulating impulse control, decision-making, and emotional responses. In psychopaths, it shows decreased activity, explaining their impulsive, reckless, and often destructive behavior.

    Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex:

        Adjacent to the orbital cortex, this region governs social behavior, ethics, and morality. Dysfunction in this area leads to a disregard for ethical norms and a lack of social inhibition, traits that define psychopathy.

    Amygdala:

        Situated in the temporal lobe, the amygdala processes emotions such as fear, empathy, and pain. Psychopaths often show damage or deficits here, resulting in emotional detachment and a chilling lack of empathy for others.

Brain Scan Findings:

Fallon analyzed the brain scans of psychopathic individuals, including violent criminals, and found a consistent pattern:

     Reduced activity in the orbital cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

    Damage to the amygdala.

These deficits create the hallmark psychological profile of a psychopath—someone incapable of moral decision-making, empathy, or emotional connection. Fallon’s findings, corroborated by other research, support the idea that psychopathy is rooted in measurable biological abnormalities. It’s not just “bad behavior” or “poor choices”; it’s the result of a brain that is, quite literally, wired differently.

Nature, Nurture, and the Destruction of Generations

This raises a controversial and uncomfortable question: Should individuals with extreme psychopathy—substantiated by evidence of neurological deficits—be allowed to parent children, hold educational or political positions, or retain the same rights as others in society, given the potential of their actions to harm future generations?

I don’t ask this lightly. I’ve seen firsthand the devastation that psychopaths can wreak—not just on their immediate victims, but on families, communities, and the lives of innocent children. My parents' legacy of abuse and destruction didn’t end with them; it cascaded down to their sons, shaping us in ways we are still struggling to understand, decades later.

A Final Thought

Psychopathy is a complex interplay of nature and nurture. Neuroscience offers a biological explanation for the behavior, but it also raises difficult ethical and societal questions. How do we protect society—and future generations—from individuals who lack the capacity for empathy, morality, and human connection? At what point does our commitment to human rights come into conflict with the greater good?

These are questions I continue to wrestle with, even as I approach the twilight of my life. Understanding my family’s history has brought me a measure of peace, as I was spared from repeating my parents’ patterns thanks to the love and care of my grandmother (mentioned many times in Fallon's book), which allowed me to develop empathy. Yet, it has also left me with a deep unease about what the future holds—for families like mine, and for a world filled with broken castles and broken lives.

Treatment Possibility:  
Serotonin can influence dopamine levels and, in certain contexts, reduce dopamine activity. The interaction between these two neurotransmitters is complex, as they are part of an interconnected system in the brain that regulates mood, motivation, and reward. Serotonin can act on specific receptors, such as 5-HT2C, which inhibit dopamine release in regions like the prefrontal cortex or striatum. This means that increasing serotonin levels, for example through medications like SSRIs, might indirectly suppress dopamine activity in these areas. In reward-related brain regions like the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and nucleus accumbens, serotonin can modulate dopamine-driven responses to rewards, potentially reducing motivation or pleasure.
Additionally, serotonin and dopamine exist in a delicate balance, and an increase in serotonin can shift this balance, leading to reduced dopamine signaling. This interaction is clinically significant, as seen in conditions like depression and Parkinson’s disease, where dopamine plays a key role.
For instance, SSRIs may increase serotonin but suppress dopamine enough to cause side effects like apathy or reduced motivation in some individuals, while excessive serotonin signaling in Parkinson's disease can interfere with dopamine therapies. However, serotonin's effect on dopamine is not universally inhibitory—it depends on the brain region and receptor types involved, with some areas showing serotonin-enhanced dopamine activity. Overall, serotonin's ability to reduce dopamine highlights the importance of their balance in maintaining healthy brain function.

Psychopaths Lack Brain Function to Care for Others https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/psychopath-brain-activity-lack-function-care-empathy-461248

Psychopathic violent offenders can't understand punishment: study
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/psychopathic-violent-offenders-can-t-understand-punishment-study-1.2209625

James Fallon is a professor of neuroscience at University of California at Irvine  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqufcsUSbo0

Responsibility, Punishment, and Psychopathy - Adrian Raine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMaA_rcocJI

Psychopath or Sociopath | What You Need to Know https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpjYtAB9i2w

‘Psychopaths’ Have An Impaired Sense of Smell https://neurosciencenews.com/psychopaths-have-an-impaired-sense-of-smell-orbitofrontal-cortex/

© 2000-2025 Sieglinde W. Alexander. All writings by Sieglinde W. Alexander have a fife year copy right.
Library of Congress Card Number: LCN 00-192742
ISBN: 0-9703195-0-9