A mother's guilt.... and a mother's grief

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Mikki Wells
Admin · November 4 at 1:51am


A mother's guilt.... and a mother's grief

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*note* this post contains several intensely personal points, which I normally try to avoid but I hope it will be clear why I have allowed a little of my own experiences to crystallise my thoughts around the MM mystery. It is, as ever, *only my own opinion*, much of which is based on gut instinct more than any other factor.

In several of my posts, including "A mother's love", "Did the McCanns love their daughter?" and "Why I don't believe them", I examined the numerous behavioural red flags and verbal clues that lead me to the conclusion that both parents - for reasons we can only speculate about - had no bond with, no love or respect for their firstborn child, nor a sense of instinctive, protective duty. Her loss was not mourned and it (clearly) did not cause night after night after night of frantic, sickened sleeplessness; instead it was, from the start and ever since, utilised as an opportunity to raise their own profiles and (attempt to) convince everyone of their unimpeachable innocence.

Regardless of whether these endeavours were because they really ARE innocent, and desperate to 'prove' it to us, the fact that THAT is what they poured all their efforts and resources into is, quite frankly, one of the biggest indicators of their mental and emotional deviancies. What mother or father does that, what mother or father truly gives a flying **** what the public might think of them if there's even a tiny possibility that their baby girl is being held captive somewhere by a child rapist?

In their desperation to 'prove' their innocence, they have categorically demonstrated the opposite.

The material wealth and infamy that has arisen because of their astounding cold-bloodedly focused mission of 'self-preservation' are merely (very welcome) side effects. Without doubt the McCanns love money and they love attention (even negative attention is preferable to being ignored), but even more than that, they love being perceived as victims. God, do they relish it! They love blame-shifting, misleading, diverting away from the facts and The Truth. (A narcissist fears nothing more than the truth.) They love whatever elevates them, and whatever crushes or undermines their enemies. They have no love or real regard for any person alive or dead. IMO.

These conclusions, for me, are as inevitable and insurmountable as they are unpleasant and almost impossible to comprehend. I am myself the daughter of an unloving (deeply disordered) parent, however even with my own painful experience to call on, and a background in Psychology and mental health, I keep drawing a blank when I try to find a rational train of thought to help define or explain the enigma that is Kate McCann (in particular her rather than Gerry). As high-functioning but mentally sick, abusive, remorseless and disturbed (and cunning/ Machiavellian) as my parent was/is - an undiagnosed psychopath, truth be told - she would never, EVER have had the notion, never mind the ability, to capitalise on the sudden death of her own child, regardless of whether or not she had been the direct or indirect cause of that death. (Like most psychopaths, she has never been inclined to commit 'literal' murder: it's too 'obvious' and unrefined a crime.) NPD parents, that is parents who have the *full-blown disorder* rather than simply possessing a few narcissistic traits, do NOT love their children any more meaningfully than you or I might say we 'love' our cars or our iPhones, however they *are* generally able to recognise when it is appropriate to show (fake, and sometimes almost genuine) concern for their children, and *by necessity* they have the acting skills to at least feign distress and grief when appropriate - in fact they tend to thrive on the attention and sympathy that being 'grief-stricken' affords them.

As well as an inability (or, more controversially, an unwillingness) to feel love, psychopaths (and narcissists generally) do not tend to feel 'guilt' either, and as such they are constantly seeking ways to shift and deflect blame for their wrong-doings, while expecting unwavering deference and preferential treatment.

A parent who is a narcissist or a psychopath does not have any sort of conscience.

A parent who is a narcissist or a psychopath is permanently - and I really do mean permanently - 'ready to rage', in other words, they will lash out (physically as well as verbally) at the slightest provocation, often at nothing the child has specifically done but rather as an erratic and unpredictable reaction to something simmering and festering inside of themselves.

The child's sense of what's right and wrong is constantly eroded or corrupted, their perception of truth and reality is undermined every hour of every day, their feelings and perceptions scorned or dismissed. It is pure torture living with a parent like this, and two of them? I cannot bear to think of it.

Even despite knowing all this, I STILL cannot comprehend how neither of the McCanns were able to even FAKE grief, or why it didn't occur to them, in the glare of the media spotlight, that it might be a good idea to at least convincingly *try to*. To go from having this precious child in your life, to suddenly.... not...... the void that would leave is unimaginable. Whatever the circumstances of that loss, it would leave a seismic, obliterating void. And yet... it was as if it were a mere inconvenience.

Okay, I know about the lack of love. I know about the lack of guilt. But grief... grief is universal. Even psychopaths grieve, and they are EXCELLENT at exaggerating grief in order to squeeze as much attention and sympathy from others as they can.

I don't and can't 'get' the lack of grief, and it remains the ONE aspect of this case I simply cannot comprehend, because I have witnessed a psychopath grieve, and they *do* cry, they cry just like the rest of us. The tears might be from a less pure source of suffering, but they *are* capable of real tears, they are capable of sobbing inconsolably over even relatively trivial losses, including the bereavements of others. (My NPD parent is a pass master at 'fake empathy'.)

(And I don't buy Clarence's outrageous "tears are shed backstage" remark... it only adds to my suspicions. If you are a parent experiencing what they claim to be experiencing, you cannot just turn your devastation on and off when it suits you - *yes, even if you're a psychopath*)


Edited to add: I am not diagnosing anyone (apart from my own parent, because frankly nobody is better qualified to do so)... I cannot emphatically maintain that the McCanns are either narcissists or psychopaths, merely that I have my suspicions that they are likely to have at least one personality disorder, based only on what public performances (interviews) we have been exposed to since 2007, and Kate's extraordinary book. I might, of course, be completely and utterly wrong.

Edited (again) to add:
OF COURSE I accept that everyone grieves differently, and some genuinely bereaved people just don't and won't grieve openly or obviously at all, for a whole host of reasons. I covered this in my post "The vicissitudes of grief": [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


Straightforward grief is *entirely different* to what the McCanns tell us they are experiencing. They tell us they *don't know* whether their daughter is alive or dead, whether or not she is suffering horribly, what kind of monster might be holding her captive, and what they might be doing to her. I maintain you CANNOT, as a parent, face a camera day after day in that scenario without the abject horror and unendurable terror of the situation showing on your face, in your eyes, in your every word and deed. It is *impossible*, and that is not just my opinion it is my heartfelt conviction as a parent and more importantly as a human being.