CPTSD recovery from narcissistic parent abuse: Ending gaslighting by turning off the gas

Hello my friends. Today in my CPTSD recovery from narcissistic parent abuse, I'll share some "aha moments" about parent gaslighting, I had after I turned off the gas of FOG (fear, obligation and guilt). That's when I was able to see not loving parents but fat, malignant spiders spinning webs of lies. These dangerous hypocrisies forced me to go no contact with the two of my four dark tetrad parents that are left: my narcissistic mother and her ex-husband.  

💡You can't be wrong all the time. 

Part of the gaslighting my narcissistic father, mother, stepmother and stepfather indoctrinated me with is that I was always in the wrong. It was the only thing they agreed on, that Marilisa was the cause of all their problems. I don't know who beside them actually believed this DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender) nonsense, but I certainly did. And when people don't speak up for you against your abusive parents' neglect, child abandonment, endangerment, parentification, scapegoating, exploitation and constant toxic shaming, you think they believe it too. Silence implies consent. Some become flying monkeys with their haranguing toxic positivity and victim-shaming. But here's the lightbulb that just went on in my head: 

Mutually exclusive contradictions light the path. 

It was the paradoxical nature of these mutually exclusive contradictions that made me see. Each of these malignant narcissists scapegoated me. These toxic authority figures (note I don't say parents because they didn't care for me in any normal sense of the word) had a retort for everything I did or said. My dad said I was "too sensitive" and "couldn't take criticism" but also "too critical" of them. I was expected to take their demands very seriously always but was also told to "lighten up" and smile more often. I kept quiet on my own achievements and applauded my mom's grandiosity, I covered for her exhibitionist histrionics yet she said I was an attention-seeking showoff. If anything bad happened or anyone was mad, it was ALWAYS my fault. Right was wrong for me and wrong was right for them. There was no winning. But they took that blame-shame bucket to the scapegoat well one too many times. And that's how I finally figured it out. 

The Devil is in the double standards

In the very excessiveness of their behavior, the generalizations, the always-never double standards, I saw the parents for who they really were, arrogant, entitled, remorseless, self-serving control freak hypocrites living in one big narcissistic fantasy who would do anything to protect it. They had to always kick me under the bus to cover the deception. I was just narcissistic supply for them. My narcissistic stepfather and mother, got off on humiliating vulnerable people. My dad and narcissistic stepmother were terribly neglectful, abusive and exploitative toward me. They targeted me over the most ridiculous things because they could never admit to being wrong, so someone had to be. But that stopped working for them when their scapegoat child caught on. 

Impossible illogical fallacies

My enmeshed parents (who used me as a prop as well as a target) would make excuses for themselves all the time. They took narcissistic insult at any suggestion they were wrong. When they were caught in big ticket items like child abuse, procuring abortions (as pro-lifers) adultery, scamming, pedophilia, they had justifications a mile long. They'd blow it off, saying "no one is perfect" or my Bible beater dad's favorite "it's covered by the blood." Ironically, they would also entrap me in situations and then mercilessly attack. They would set me up to watch me fall. And trauma bonded me, fell for it. My betrayal blindness hid the fact that they were Machiavellian ruthless agent provocateurs. Then anything I did or said (and trauma response fawning made sure I kept quiet) was spun as defending myself. Even though I never did or said boo. I was too scared. They recklessly lied, twisted, gaslit and deceived and made sure I took the consequences of their actions on myself. 

Freaking mental Game of Cat and Mouse Trauma Bonding

Parent enmeshment is contradictory and purpose-built. They hate being so dependent on the child for narcissistic supply and punish her. Everything they do is underhanded and self-serving. The parent wields the power differential like a knife that cuts one way, not to guide but to control the child. They weaponize her natural attachment to them, against her.  They use bread-crumbing, future-faking and love-bombing to tenderize her. Then they randomly but strategically Devalue and Discard to groom her to think she did something wrong. This trauma bonding makes her desperate to get back in their good graces. They purposely violate her privacy and crash her boundaries to make her nervous and hypervigilant. Life is endless fraught spaces with two sets of ever-shifting rules I could never succeed at. Because just when I got it right, they changed the rules. They bound me up to burdens they didn't carry. They put a millstone around my neck and pushed me over the edge. 

Destabilized to sabotage 

I see now why in the narcissistic cult family they had to be so chaotic, hypocritical and unpredictable. My arrogant parents had to stay one jump ahead to retain this imagined moral high ground. They had to gaslight me with bullshit to preserve the FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) I felt toward them.  They had to undermine me to make sure I stayed blindly subservient. Those comebacks they had for me, felt rehearsed because they were. They had a litany, much like the Narcissist's Prayer. And that narcissistic abuse was bespoke specifically to destabilize me and sabotage any hope of escape or individuation.  

Childhood Trauma Recovery Means Going Back to Square One

Once you uncover one parent lie, no matter how innocently you discover it, the entire fabric is compromised. Especially if it is a lie that hurt or framed you unfairly. Narcissistic parents deceive to protect their false image at your expense. So it's like ants: where there's one, there will be more. They lie to cover past lies they told. Here's a breakdown of the many ways narcissists lie and the reasons they do lie. And that's how gaslighting works. It creates a web of deceit. And like a web, it traps you so the spider can suck the life out of you. Healing begins when you recognize that what you believed, trusted, put your hope in, worked for, was a tangle of lies. Then healing continues when you start over, rewriting your truth correctly, reparenting yourself as you should have been parented. I wish you well and will hold space for you as you do. 

Healing CPTSD from narcissistic parent enmeshment of parentification and spousification

 Hello my friends. Today in my CPTSD (complex post traumatic stress disorder) recovery, I'm digging deeper into child abuse from parentification, spousification and adultification. A narcissistic parent creates a toxic family system where children play roles to serve the parents rather than live authentic, individuated lives. And three very bizarrely contradictory child roles narcissists coerce the child into are that of adult, spouse and also parent. 

Narcissistic parents break every rule of parenting.

They flip-flop everything normal parents do. Everything is done for narcissistic supply rather than care of the child. They future fake to build trust then they break promises. They exploit the child's natural attachment to them into trauma bonding. They play cat and mouse with her, by bread crumbing (giving her just enough of what she needs to keep her compliant) and love-bombing (showering her with performative shows of affection to throw her off guard.)Then they play the discard and devalue game to make her desperate win them back. Narcissists weaponize the logical parent power differential into coercive control, not to keep the child safe but to destabilize her. They demand all good from her and deprive her of necessities to wear her down. They lie and distort everything so the child develops betrayal blindness. Then they DARVO spinning the story that the child is the problem and they are the victims. Do this enough and you have one very confused, beaten down, pliable child. 

Malignant narcissistic parents tenderize the child like a steak, wounding her and then rubbing salt in the wounds.

Narcissist parent gaslighting around child roles

Children are not people to dark tetrad parents. We were owned possessions and cat's paws. Narcissists create a false reality for their children regarding roles that the child expected to play. The child is just supporting cast in their main character narcissistic fantasy. They hypocritically use words like duty, family loyalty and responsibility which mean one thing for the irresponsible parent and the opposite for the hypervigilant over-responsible child. They set the child to inappropriate tasks. They demand that she do for them things that they should be doing for her. They place unfair expectations on her. They instill a pervasive FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) to carry the mental load for them. Narcissistic parents expect children to act and think like adults while the grownups behave like immature, selfish brats. That is the adultification, as I call it. 

Parent enmeshment and role reversal

The enmeshed parent cares only about getting her way, having her needs met and wishes granted. She violates privacy and tramples on the child's boundaries. What she tells the child is that she loves him so and that's why she's so "devoted" to him. But what she shows him is that he does not exist outside her. I did not know where my parents ended and I began. Or if I even did. My narcissistic father indoctrinated me that I was to put everyone else ahead of myself. That self-care was selfish. What he meant was that he and my narcissistic stepmother should come first, last and always. Then my enmeshed mother punished any individuation on my part while she went no contact with me whenever she chose. I was owned and always owing them. She and my narcissistic stepfather used, abused and gaslit me that they owed me nothing. I was made to parent them like spoiled, whiny babies. Then I was made to parent all of their children. This is parentification. 

Spousification

This is what I call it when a parent expects the child to be a spouse and partner rather than a dependent. They groom the child to treat mommy like a girlfriend. They share inappropriate sexual things with the child. My mother forced me to listen to sex stories. They rely on the child to provide adult support. My parents made me do gratuitously heavy housework as a young child, even though I had a debilitating spinal problems like congenital hip dysplasia and scoliosis.  I had to co-sleep with their babies even the four special needs kids under 5, in my mother's foster care home. I had to work unpaid doing caregiving and cleaning tasks in my dad's adult foster care home that I just learned were illegal for me as a 14 y/o to do. I did chores that no one else had to or would not have done if I wasn't there to do them. My mother dumped all her woes on me like a therapist. She even did this a few times to my best friend, age 11. 

Parent Enslavement

I think the root of all this crazy bass-ackwardness is that narcissists enslave their children, emotionally, physically, mentally, all of it. And mine enslaved me to anyone they decided to shove on me, no matter how dangerous that person was. They accomplished this by scapegoating, abuse and neglect, endangerment, child abandonment, humiliation, invalidation, toxic shaming, triangulation and other destabilizing tactics. I did not think, eat, sleep breathe anything but them. I was their Broken Vending Machine Child dispensing all that was demanded of me with no remuneration or reciprocity. 

Narcissists do things to their children not for them. 

I just listened to a vlog by Dr. Ramani discussing how narcissists do things to people (hurt, abuse) while loving people do things for others, to help them. I would sum up my relationship with  my parents with this polarity. They did things TO me while I did things FOR them. I carried, nurtured, slaved for, supported, affirmed, loved them. And they antagonized, attacked, shamed, criticized, embarrassed, punished, harassed and hurt me. Is that a too broad generalization? I only wish it was. 

Healing CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse requires breaking rules

 

Hello my friends. Childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse is a long, complicated and often rocky road. Today I'm exploring  how healing CPTSD (complex post traumatic stress disorder) means breaking rules our toxic family system laid down for us. And this can be very frightening because adult children of narcissists (ACON) were indoctrinated in FOG (fear, obligation and guilt). Our one job was to keep them topped up on narcissistic supply, no matter how much it hurt us. We perfected the art of people pleasing and dancing attendance on our enmeshed parents. Even as adults, the thought of violating their rules, no matter how harmful and hypocritical they were, fills us with dread. 

I would rather stay in the misery of narcissistic abuse than do something to displease them. Yet displeasing the narcissistic parent is exactly what I have to do, to get well. 

Not all Rules are Good

So we know that the world operates better when there are restrictions and protocol to follow. This includes family systems where parameters keep people safe and secure. However in families governed by narcissism and parent enmeshment, the rules are biased in favor of the narcissistic father or mother.  (I had four narcissistic parents.) The only thing that matters to the parent is getting their way no matter how dangerous what they want is or who they harm in the process. These parents set unsafe rules that damage rather than guide their children. 

I did not know where my parents stopped and I began or if I even did. I was a human doing for them, not a human being.  I was owned by them and also owed them all. I had nothing. No self. No individuality. Nothing. 

Sociopathy and Narcissism Violate the Natural Order

Narcissism is characterized by arrogance, entitlement, ruthlessness, deceit and greed or selfishness. Narcissists believe only they matter. They are the main character in their own narcissistic fantasy. Everyone else exists as props and support crew. So when they become parents, narcissists expect the child will do, be, provide for them. They do not see themselves as having a duty of care to the child. Sociopathic or malignant narcissists or dark tetrads add the elements of cruelty and Machiavellianism. (doing whatever it takes to get what you want). They use very harmful methods of obtaining it: coercive control, gaslighting, intimidation, parentification, humiliation, narcissistic rage and child exploitation. 

Narcissistic and enmeshed parents are the real rule breakers 

Parent Enmeshment is the result of unbridled arrogant entitlement. Enmeshed parents see themselves as the center of the universe. Everyone else exists to serve them. They blur lines between them and their children. The child is a thing to be used. The scapegoat child or what I call the Broken Vending Machine Child is expected to dispense anything the parent wants with no reciprocity.  These parents violate boundaries, punish individuation and disrespect privacy. They exercise no self-control and behave in reckless, irresponsible ways YET they maintain rigid Draconian control over their children. They exploit the parent power differential not to teach but to manipulate the child. They micromanage the most inconsequential things BUT at same time, provide no safety or security. It's all and only about power and control. 

Narcissists all about BDSM

Emotional bondage, domination and sadomasochism are hallmarks of malignant narcissism. They control for the sake of feeling powerful. They get narcissistic supply off domination. And it is a form of sexual power too. Narcissists have a bent toward exhibitionism and histrionic personality. They crave attention. All four of my narcissistic parents loved humiliating me in front of people. My narcissistic father would make passive-aggressive snide comments and my narcissistic mother once threw a pie in my face for laughs. These are not nice people. They are sick, twisted deviants who abuse children. This violates every rule of the parent-child relationship in unspeakably disastrous ways. It is a direct cause of CPTSD. 

Narcissist parents are anarchists and fascists 

The sociopathic narcissist is an anarchist regarding their own behavior. Anything goes for them, because they believe they are above the rules. My narcissistic mother behaved in shockingly immoral, unethical and illegal behaviors. She preaches against abortion but took a girl to have one and I believe had an abortion herself. She sees nothing wrong with that. She had frequent adulterous affairs. But she also calls herself a Christian minister (she is not ordained but she thinks she is). She believes she is entitled to lay down rules for others which she has no intention of following herself. She was a fascist dictator as a parent to me. I was kicked out of their home at 16 for coming in 15 minutes late. I was routinely smacked across the face for "sassing" but I have no memory of saying anything. Childhood trauma responses had taught me only fawning and people pleasing. 

Breaking Unhealthy Rules is Healthy

You know the old saying "the enemy of my enemy is my friend?" It works the same with immoral, unsafe, unhealthy rules. Violating them reverses the double negative and puts priorities back in logical order. And hypocritical double standards nullify themselves and render them worthless. If you're in a situation like this, think back to the two sets of rules your parents set. Were they there to keep you safe or keep you compliant? Were there reasonable and logical consequences or harsh punishment? Did they practice what they preached? If not, those "rules" may be just more chains to keep you under their thumb. 

Some dangerous rules narcissists set

Here are some examples of spoken and unspoken rules mine set for me. And regarding the unspoken ones, very often what that meant was that rules changed on a whim, to suit them. Then I wasn't told until I "violated" one. An example is that I was loaded down with unfair, discriminatory and as history would prove, illegal chores. Being made to work unpaid in my dad's adult foster care home at 14, was illegal. I was forced as a young teen to co-sleep with babies and young children. Then my dad and narcissistic stepmom would add even more work, not tell me and then get mad if I didn't do them. It was a constant "guess what I'm thinking" game. Another was children must neither be seen nor heard. So any positive attention I got, sent them into narcissistic injury and retaliation mode. Oh and I was 19 when they set that one. Parentified and made to raise their kids and work like a skivvy for them but infantilized and treated like an idiot. 

How to know which rules are unsafe

Dangerous rules include things like keeping secrets about child abuse and neglect. The self-absorbed parent uses a lot of toxic shaming language like "you're too sensitive" or "showing off for attention." So their rules will feel like ways to keep you quiet because they are. The rules also will make no sense or seem to have a hidden agenda. My dad moved me out of my room to sleep in a tiny room with my infant brother because my stepmother didn't want to deal with him. He then got into a rage and began hitting me because he said I wasn't showing proper humility about being moved out randomly. I had no idea what he was talking about as I had just quietly complied as always. I think he knew this was a stupid idea and he was mad at his wife. So the "rules" will have a surprise sting in the tail. My unemployed lazy abusive stepfather set a ridiculous curfew for me, then when I was 15 minutes late because I didn't have a ride, I was kicked out of the house. Which wasn't suitable anyway, having only two bedrooms and five people. I think he was looking for an excuse to evict me. They are always unfair and apply only to you. I had mountains of chores while my dad's sons had none. I had to be respectful and obedient to the other children while they were disrespectful of me. 

Breaking Rules is Breaking Free

These aren't legitimate rules we are breaking so much as bonds that kept us tied to them. Trauma bonding caused betrayal blindness and also bondage blindness. Using coercive control, gaslighting, DARVO (deny attack reverse victim offender) along with bread-crumbing and future-faking and devalue and discard my parents created a terrifyingly fraught world where fear and subservience were my only options. But that world did not exist. And they did not actually have the power they wielded over me. It was all part of their narcissistic fantasy cult. It certainly felt real though. 

The only way out is out

I have decided to let doors they slammed on me, stay closed. Which in common parlance is going no contact. I think of it as issuing a metaphorical restraining order in which I set boundaries around what I will and won't do anymore. They can do whatever they want, think what they want. I don't care. They can send their flying monkeys and play their family mobbing games. And I can go no contact with them too. I'm done being their Broken Vending Machine Child. Broken works both ways, no payout and no refund. 

Surprising tips on Childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse

 Hello my friends. Today in my childhood trauma recovery journey I'm going to share some tips to heal from narcissistic parent abuse, that may surprise you. I've experienced narcissistic abuse, neglect, toxic shaming, invalidation, exploitation, scapegoating, abandonment, endangerment and gaslighting about it all, by four parent authority figures with various forms of sociopathy and malignant narcissism. 

Healing CPTSD with poetry

I've got another blog called The Writer's Garden (you can click that link to be taken to it). Writing poetry helps me process the grief, anger, confusion and pain of childhood trauma in a creative format. Offering it online, to be read by others gives my inner child a voice she never had living with narcissistic and enmeshed parents. Narcissistic abuse tells a child that her needs and wants don't matter, only those of the entitled, arrogant, self-centered parents. They use coercive control, intimidation, humiliation and FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) to shame her into silence. Writing my story in narrative form on this blog helps me understand it in technical terms. Writing it in poetry gives it a three-dimensional visualization. I can't explain exactly what I mean but suffice it to say both forms of writing are therapeutic. 

Art therapy for Adult Children of Narcissists

ACON (Adult Children of Narcissists) have struggled not only to be heard but also seen as anything but a prop in our narcissistic parent's main character fantasy play. Our one purpose was to be narcissistic supply without any autonomy or individuation. And too often, enablers and flying monkeys seemed to approve and support our parent perpetrators by victim shaming us. They all created false images of reality with DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender) in which we were problem. Creating graphic art repaints their gaslit version correctly. Art can be a vehicle to show not only us but the abuse we suffered clearly. 

You can't gaslight art. It shows and tells truths that all the trauma bonding and betrayal blindness can't hide.

 

Singing in the pain 

You probably see where I'm going with these childhood trauma healing tips, and that is how art, whether written, graphic or performing, can be a recovery tool. Singing, playing a musical instrument, dancing and even acting in theatre are helpful in many ways. Performing arts provide a channel for the pent-up energy from trauma responding especially freezing and fawning. It gives our tendency toward hypervigilance a healthier focus. And it puts positive attention on us, instead of always on our attention-seeking parents. 

Be Aware and Beware

Having said that about attention being given to us, know that narcissistic parents do not like being outshone. They're great performers but a poor audience. They soloists, not choir members. Not that you are trying to compete with or steal their limelight. They're jealous, competitive and take others' success as a narcissistic insult (or ego injury).  My narcissistic father loved playing his violin, expected to be asked to play everywhere he went and got pouty if he wasn't. Yet when I was singing privately, in the bathroom he told me to quit showing off. He couldn't be bothered to come to performances of a music group I started. Then when I invited him to join, he took over and kicked me out saying I had no talent, yet still expected me to attend and applaud his performances with that group. He has never once said a kind thing about any success I've had and has found a way to attack, belittle or insult me. I don't recall him ever complimenting me. He said he was afraid I'd get a big head. Then he said I was too sensitive and couldn't take constructive criticism (which was always destructive shaming). Meanwhile this arrogant, insensitive man was incredibly oversensitive to the faintest hint of reproof. But knowledge is power. Now that you know your parent is jealous of you, don't feed him any data to use against you. Grey rock. Keep your own secrets. Don't go looking to him for advice or affirmation. He will always undermine you. And for heaven's sake, keep singing. 

Protect yourself

What narcissists can't steal they sabotage, including your innocence, personhood, childhood and joy if you let them. Children of sociopathic narcissists learn very young, to be neither seen nor heard. There's no room for anyone else in the narcissistic fantasy spotlight. The child is merely a tool to get them what they want at no personal cost. If you do get paid positive attention, they will ruin it with mocking, humiliation, exhibitionism, dirty tricks and cheap theatrics. They will get the attention on them no matter what they have to do. My narcissistic mother wore nightgowns to family celebrations and lied that she didn't get enough to eat, just to get pity and keep eyes on her. She yells AMEN and PRAISE THE LORD loudly when visiting other people's churches where they don't do that. She even upstaged her deceased brother at his own funeral. You can't have nice things, like sanity or a new car, around envious narcissists because they will destroy them if you let them. Don't let them. Don't invite them to things they'll just ruin. Go no contact if you have to. Don't support their habit. If they have run-ins (which narcissist frequently do) don't hurry to take their side. Set boundaries around what you will do and not do if they act up. They can be idiots all they want but you don't have to be their fall guy. Don't JADE (justify, argue, defend or explain). Just do you. 

Turn off the gas. 

Four gaslighting tactics a narcissistic parent uses against the child are parent enmeshment (blurring boundaries between you and them, teaching you that they own you and you owe them), parentification (making children responsible for them) infantilization (overcontrolling and treating the child like she is inept. My parents did both, parentifying and while also rigidly controlling me) need shaming and triangulation (targeting and pitting people against the child). All of these form an inaccurate sense of self.  And the first step to see the inaccuracies and correct them. Children are individuals not parent extensions. They don't have a debt of obligation to parents. Parents are obligated to care for their children. The child is always the child. But not childish. Needs are not wrong and self-care is not selfish. If you feel targeted or set up to fail, you probably are. Limit their access to you. They don't have buy-in on your life. 

Leave the Egg on and Pie in the Face

But making themselves the center of attention sometimes backfires. Once, I was having a nice time with my children at my mother's work party we were invited to. And out of the blue, in front of everyone, she threw a pie in my face and laughed hysterically. My narcissistic stepfather joined in because he loves embarrassing people. No one else laughed. And it was her turn to have egg on her face. Then when she was chastised by her boss, she and her husband threw a narcissistic rage fest and blamed me. They ambushed me, saying I made them look bad (yes, I am serious.) And this points out a key flaw in the sociopath's plan: by trying to make people look foolish, they make fools of themselves. And that starts a shame spiral which the narcissist can't tolerate. They have to have a target which is usually the scapegoat child. Which even as an adult I let them do. I took the brunt and placated them instead of letting them experience the consequences of their bad choices. So one way to practice recovery from this narcissistic abuse, is to let the pie stay on your face and the egg on theirs Don't rush to wipe it away or make excuses for them. Let people see what they have done.  Some people will only believe your abuse story if they see evidence of it with their own eyes. Let your parents sit with their shame, alone. Stop warming them by setting yourself on fire. Hold space for yourself. 

So this is a long, rambling list of trauma recovery tips but they are interconnected. Not like a set of steps, more of a safety network. I wish you peace and healing in this fraught journey. 

"Good Christian" parents like the Duggars trigger childhood trauma responses from narcissistic parent abuse

Hello my friends. I just read something about the Obedience Game the Duggars of "19 Kids and Counting" play with their kids, and it triggered childhood trauma responses of shame spiraling. The good thing is that I noticed the shame spiral starting, so while it's still pinging, I'm going to unpick the stinking thinking before it does any more damage. 

The "good Christian" parent trauma trigger

I have always felt inferior and ashamed around people who proclaimed or who I perceived to be "good parents", especially the "good Christians." We tried to teach our children Godly principles. I did my best raising my kids and made a lot of mistakes and even bad choices. I feel guilty about the wrong I did and I have apologized and received their forgiveness. My children have told me they admire and try to emulate how I parented them. And yet, I default to auto-shame and feeling wrong, whenever a parenting style conflicts with my own. And even when it doesn't. I feel ashamed of  myself for having a core flaw. 

The fact that is was the Duggars...

It's interesting that it's not just Christians that I share ideology with, that trigger this sense of self-loathing. I defer to people I don't even agree with, who have been caught in many hypocrisies, the pedophilia of their son Josh Duggar and their very problematic IBLP Bill Gothard brand of quasi, cultish Christianity. However, if I hear something they did no matter how diametrically opposed to my own professional training in child development, it triggers feelings of self-doubt.  I know what's wrong with blanket training and blind compliance. I see how it endangers a child. But no matter how wrong and dangerous I know it to be, I believe I'm wrong and they're right just because they are them and I am me. Which ironically is what these obedience games teach a child,  to ignore their own common sense and good judgement and let people control them like puppets. Now think how vulnerable that makes me to people I have great respect for who turn out to be unsafe. 

Toxic shame or guilty conscience?

This comes up in politics, too. I'm a pretty far left progressive because as I read scripture, that's what God calls me to. I can see the hatred in MAGA and don't support it. I can hear the heresy when Christian acquaintances tell me I can't be a Catholic and not support Donald Trump. But still I have that sense of being wrong, again. Some would argue that what I'm feeling is a guilty conscience or promptings of the Holy Spirit to examine my conscience. Fair enough, we all need to do that. But we are also called to be careful not to follow warmongers, pharisaical blind guides or wolves in sheep's clothing. Not to serve two master. Which some sectarian fundamentalists,  like my parents,  have proved to be. So is it more toxic shame from narcissistic parent abuse driving this?

Childhood Trauma Responses from parent gaslighting

Based on what I know about God, who is love, I think the "guilt" is shame. It doesn't feel like being  held accountable for a reasonable error. It feels like sick, nauseating shell shock. Like someone sucker punched me. It dread and disgust and terror. And I cannot figure out what I have done wrong. If I had done wrong, God would not leave me in this confused limbo, but would show me clearly. God does not backstab us. He deals in mercy. So if I'm feeling this utter revulsion, it must be coming from a malignant source. 

Childhood Trauma Nightmares

This nameless, faceless evil is the same oppressive horror that stalks my nightmares. Every night. I cannot begin to explain how brain damaging they are. I'm also the adult child of narcissists who experienced lifelong narcissistic abuse by four malignant parents. So this sense of FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) was inbred in me by hypocrites with a God complex, playing by their own  made-up rules. They made themselves gods to me and kept me from the real God by their deception and exploitation. Gaslighting,  trauma bonded betrayal blindness and self-abnegation are just nursery tea for me. 

Self-care was called selfish

I struggle with Imposter Syndrome which tells me that anyone who compliments just doesn't know me very well. I have called myself  the divorced child who was cut off from care while being expected to care for parents. I'm the Broken Vending Machine Child, endlessly giving with no reciprocity or even basic care. I was groomed to believe that other people were always right and I was always wrong. If I protected or defended or spoke up for myself, I was severely chastised. So I learned not to. I learned fawning, kowtowing, deferring to anyone else, no matter how dangerous they were. I was taught that it was sinful to see red flags and avoid them. Which put a target on my back for predators and child molesters. It conditioned me to expect abuse as my due. 

The take-away

I'm grateful to have seen this shame spiral coming on and so be able to  head it off at the pass. It makes sad to think how often these panic attacks happened. I'd be in fullblown dissociative split with all the dysregulation and destabilization that goes with it before I even knew what hit me. My advice to you who like me are working on childhood trauma recovery, is to start seeing those red flags for what they are. I need to see that the childhood trauma responses that were supposed to keep me safe, are hurting me now. 

Childhood Trauma Recovery from narcissistic abuse means understanding the Divorced Child Dilemma

Hello my friends. Welcome to part two of the Divorced Child Dilemma series.  Today in my childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm exploring how healing requires radical acceptance of this uniquely fraught space. 

Two conflicting and invalid documents

The malignant parent divorces from himself from responsibility to the child while also binding them to endless obligations. He issues the child a decree of divorce along with a contract of debt into perpetuity. The child grows up believing these are valid and binding but they aren't because the child didn't sign or agree to either. So how does a parent achieve this bizarre setup? 

Parent enmeshment

Enmeshed parents believe they are infinite and god-like, omniscient, all-seeing and supreme. The child is just and extension of themselves. She has no more rights than plunger used to clean the toilet. Individuation and autonomy are punished. Self-care is selfish. The enmeshed parents violate the child's boundaries and invade her privacy with no more thought than they would to entering their own bedroom. They walk in without knocking and eavesdrop on conversations. They feel entitled to criticize things that are none of their business. They read the child's diary not to help or understand but to gather data they cause shame her with. The child gets used to be caught in their gotcha traps. 

False responsibility ratio 

In the narcissistic family cult, the parents create a parallel universe where there are two sets of janky rules, one for them and one for each child according to the role they have cast them in. The narcissistic parents make it up as they go along, lying, gaslighting, script-flipping and narrative-shifting, role reversal and creating an artificial parent-child debt burden (the contract of obligation) in which the child owes all to the parent, yet nothing is owed to her. The parents implant a false sense of responsibility to and for them in the child. Then they deny all responsibility to and for her. It's win-win for the parents and lose-lose for the child. 

The Parentified Child 

Part of that invalid contract is the parentification clause. The parentified child is groomed in a FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) to the parents with no reciprocity. The Broken Vending Machine Child (who is elements of all of the family system roles, especially scapegoat child) dispenses everything demanded of her, with nothing good coming back to her. The coin slot is broken and the family takes whatever they want, free. Caring, nurturing, mental load, housework, support, chores, loyalty, obedience, respect, compliance, duty, being a punching bag, listening ear, all that and more, the child pays out in endless debt to the parent, yet receives only the most cursory, if any, care in return. She is expected to parent the parent like a child, yet infantilized and treated like an incapable idiot when it suits them to paint her as such. There is never a real, healthy parent child dynamic. 

Coercive control

But still, you're asking, how do they manage this. By weaponizing the power differential. Parents naturally hold the power differential to protect, defend, nurture and guide the child. And the child naturally loves and trusts the parent. The dark tetrad parent exploits their authority and the child's attachment to them, to break the child down. They enslave the child in their narcissistic cult of  FOG and even intimidating coercive control. 

Surveillance with safety

Malignant parents monitor ridiculous things with micrometer-like precision yet don't provide even basic care or necessities. They engage in surveillance to entrap rather than protect the child. The set the child up with disturbing sting operations. They keep tabs on things they have no business monitoring. All four of my "parents" were hypervigilant over my every move or facial expression, not because they were anticipating my needs or fawning. They were looking for something to ambush me with. They got narcissistic supply off humiliating, baffling and terrifying me. That's no conspiracy theory. Though I wish it was just me exaggerating or too sensitive. 

My lazy, jobless, abusive stepfather, with my mother's smiling approval kicked me out of the house at 16. The curfew which was supposedly to protect me, endangered me by making me homeless. These parents hide malevolent fascism behind a guise of concern which shows itself in the illegally abusive ends to which they will go to wield power.

Owned by not owed

"My wife is married, I'm not." I once heard a serial cheater say this laughingly about his relationship. And this illogical fallacy perfectly demonstrates the bespoke gaslighting hypocrisy that the traumatized child is subjected to. The parent effectively says "You are my child, my possession, with all the rights of ownership that go along with it. You are indentured to me forever. I own you. I am your parent authority figure, but I am not responsible to or for you. I owe you nothing. You are accountable to and for me, and I'm accountable to no one, least of all you." Yes it really is this ludicrous and insane. 

Divorced yet still married

Malignant parents sabotage the child's natural attachment to them, to confuse and destabilize her. The enmeshed parent divorces themselves from responsibility to the child while also, hypocritically, keeping the child "married to" them in terms of what she is groomed to believe she owes. These control freaks leverage essentials like food, shelter, safety against her. They create a false burden of debt that they bind her to. They steal all good things like personhood (identity theft), sense of self, independence, autonomy. They sew her up into a tight net of obligation from which there seems to be  no escape. The "wedding ring" that only the child wears, is actually manacles and shackles. She is handcuffed to them for life. 

Trauma bonded betrayal blind bondage

The enmeshed parent plays a double dealing hand of "blanket training" and senseless carrot dangling which she snatches back for no reason. The narcissistic mother makes necessities into rewards that must be earned and which can be removed at a moment's notice. The narcissistic father uses love bombing and future faking and bread crumbing to trap the child in endless tail-chasing. The more the child purses the parent the more the parent plays hard to get. Till the child is twisted into a pretzel and stuck in a cycle of lawless, anarchic punishment and deprivation. And this is so normal and everyday for the child that she develops betrayal blindness. She believes them that she is the problem and caused this chaos. Even though no one around her lives anything like this. 

Gaslighting and grooming by deprivation

Normal people have no concept of this unique hellish reality that kids with CPTSD live in. They are given essentials as rights, not rewards or contingencies. They don't have to earn a roof over their head with constant hoop-hopping only to have it randomly taken away. They are not told they lost the privilege of a home or a bed by some trumped up charge levied against them. And the parents know this. They use the very craziness of what they put her through, to keep her quiet. Who would believe you, they say. The child gets worn down and worn out. The neglect and abuse deplete her basic resources. Through a kind of Munchausen's' by Proxy they keep her sick and tired and hungry so that she is biddable. 

The transactional one-sided contract

Malignant parents make everything transactional. The child has to earn basic unalienable rights. They wrote a contract of obligation before she was even born. They bound her to duties, expectations and demands before she could speak or walk. The child never signed or even read the contract. They just told her she  had to guess what they, and anyone else they bound her to, wanted. Then they punished her failing mind reading. Then they changed this imaginary contract again. But then they violated this contract that they coerced the child into. They didn't keep up their end of the bargain because they are entitled, arrogant, ruthless, believing no rules or contract binds them. 

The Divorced Child is Forever Thwarted

Adult Children of Narcissists grow but we don't develop. I don't mean we're immature. Most of us have had to be far too mature too young. While the grownups in our lives acted like irresponsible, immoral, feckless, reckless failure to launch-ers. What we lack is not adulthood but childhood. We weren't allowed to differentiate, to individuate. The power they wielded over us dogs us. We struggle to see anything clearly. They may not have actually had that power, but tell that to our trauma brain. Tell that to our inner child who forever lives in this blanket of burden they crocheted for us. 

The way out is walled up

I would like to promise you and my inner child that there is hope, a way out. But that was sealed off for us strategically to keep us enslaved to them. So maybe what we have to do is tunnel another way out. Going no contact is one exit for me. I'm also seeing the prison has a glass ceiling that is breakable. Enablers and flying monkeys have smugly told me it's me that is trapping myself. Aka, I'm imagining it. Well, they would say that. They always took the narcissists side over the wounded child. So maybe I need to go no contact with anyone and everyone who holds me back from healing, from getting unstuck from family of origin. 

Breaking contracts I never signed

Actually, what I have to do first is to find a way to realized this contract they wrote, never existed. It was never notarized nor signed by me. It's as worthless as the nonexistent paper it was printed on. These were just made-up unethical, illegal, immoral demands placed on me by unethical, law-breaking, immoral people. Then I have to emotionally tear up this invalid contract.  The tricky part will be to help my poor inner child understand that this was a fake.  

The Divorced Child: Gaslighting hypocrisies about going no contact with narcissistically abusive parents

Hello my friends. Today in my childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm starting a new series called "The Divorced Child" in which I'll show how malignant narcissists (who I will also interchangeably call dark tetrads) divorce themselves from the child while still remaining "wed to" or enmeshed with them. I'll begin with gaslighting hypocrisies about going no contact with our abusers. Adult children of narcissists (ACON) are fed all kinds of gaslighting nonsense, not only by our parents but enablers in society, religion, family, media, even professionals in the field of psychology. One of the most complex is the parent-child debt paradox, fed by parent enmeshment and wrong ideas about the narcissistic family cult. Let's debunk these dangerous myths. 

Going no contact is something someone does.

But it's not. It's what they stop doing. They stop responding to texts or calls. They disengage which though it sounds like an action, it's more of an inaction. The scapegoat child stops allowing herself to be used as a scapegoat. The Broken Vending Machine child lets her auto-giving machine, that they broke, shut down completely. She discontinues doling out treats with no reciprocity. The abused child quits fawning and people pleasing. She moves from trauma responses and toward healthy self-care skills. She ceases taking the bait, being hoovered back, in and falling for the bread-crumbing and love-bombing. She sees that it was all ever going to end it devalue and discard. And she just quietly, without fanfare, steps off the merry-go-round of narcissistic abuse. 

Going no contact is an action verb. 

In fact it is a passive, being verb. If it's a verb at all. The traumatized child begins to see the red flags and hear the gaslighting lies for what they are. She starts to understand that the bonds, demands and expectations that parent enmeshment crocheted for her were just FOG (fear, obligation and guilt). They didn't exist. It is quiet resignation to the fact that the action verbs were done by the parents. They DID abuse, neglect, exploit, manipulate, endanger, abandon, exclude, triangulate, coercively control, toxically shame, invalidate, dehumanize, destabilize and then gaslight her about it all. 

Going no contact is something the child does. 

To the world, it looks like the child has made a choice to cut ties to the abusive parent. After all, it's the now adult child who has stopped interacting with the parent, right? Wrong. What the child has done is leave shut the door the parent repeatedly slammed in her face. She is practicing radical acceptance that she was the one divorced from, excluded, used and abused, taken advantage of and then shut out. And she let all that read as written, instead of covering for them and making us excuses for them. 

Going no contact is a choice. 

Nope. It's a logical result of living in a lose-lose situation with narcissistic and enmeshed parents who wielded the power differential like a weapon against her. It's an inevitable recognition that the past is never going to be any better than it was. Which is my personal definition of forgiveness and radical acceptance. When the trauma bonded child's betrayal blindness scales start to fall off, radical awareness shows her that the family system was broken and failing the children to prop up the narcissistic family cult. 

Going no contact is the easy way out. 

No it's one of the hardest things to accept that your parents didn't love or care for you. That they did not have your welfare only their selfish agenda at heart. That these dark tetrads could and would do any cruel Machiavellian thing to you that they wanted, just because it was Tuesday. That you hadn't seen any of it till you were 60 years old. That they so misused you that it caused cognitive dissonance, brain damage, dissociative split and autoimmune diseases. That you are now consigned to a life of CPTSD and trauma nightmares. If that's easy, I'd hate to see the hard way out. 

Going no contact is infantile. 

Nope it actually a very mature and healthy response to the parentification and infantilization they put on us. The infantile ones are the parents with their temper tantrums, silly double standards and immature hypocrisies. They wanted it both ways, grooming us to think we owed them endlessly while they owed us nothing. So going no contact is re-reversing parent role reversal back to the correct framework of parent-child dynamic. 

Going no contact breaks up the family.

Your narcissistic parents and their enablers and flying monkeys will fill you full of nonsense about this happy family you supposedly had and how family loyalty is the be-all-end-all. But they've chosen to blind themselves to the fact that the parents busted up the family right from the get-go, either by divorce or by dismantling healthy family for a toxic family system in which you were just a pawn. Then after blowing your world apart, they gaslight everyone that they are starting over with a new family as if the old one never existed. And the OG child is coerced into a role of unwanted stepchild or problem child.

Going no contact is divorcing from parents. 

No, it's accepting that they divorced themselves from us. That's why I say when narcissistic parents divorce, it's not so much each other but their child, the responsibility for her, they are divorcing from. They create this parallel universe where they write any crazy rules they want. They feed everyone this web of lies that they don't owe the product of the first family anything because that family was dissolved. Which is gaslighting 2.0. So child lives in a chaotic limbo of existing only on their sufferance. BUT while they refuse to honor obligations to the child, they also refuse to relinquish control of her. It's win-win for them, all the perks with none of the work. 

Going no contact simply acknowledges that the parents never provided a loving family for the child in the first place. It gets the order of operations right: who went no contact with whom, first. 

Going no contact is a reckless and dangerous. 

No it is actually stopping being the reckless parent's source of  narcissistic supply. It is getting out of the path of their dangerous narcissistic rage. It is ceasing to body block the narcissistic mother from the consequences of her own unethical, irresponsible, immoral, illegal behavior. It is letting her feel the narcissistic injury of censure for said reckless behavior, full on and not buffering and fluffing. It's not falling for the DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender) and realizing that this is just more gaslighting deception. It's steeling oneself against the narcissistic father's blame-shifting and projection. 

Going no contact is an attack on someone. 

Wrong. It's the opposite of an attack. It's a withdrawal, an evacuation. The person cutting ties ceases to JADE (justify, answer, defend, engage or explain). And context matters. The people on the "receiving end" of the no contact, went no contact with me pretty much since birth. Or shall I say, no contact with benefits. They pushed me away when I was inconvenient then pulled me back when they wanted anything from me. They set me up to fail so that I would break and have to stay in bondage to them. They ambushed me with smear campaigns and family mobbing. Then as soon as I gave them what they wanted, boom, I was out in the cold, again. Now I've just stopped playing the game by their rules. I left the arena. 

Going no contact is controlling them. 

No this is self-control. I'm setting boundaries around what I won't do or tolerate anymore. How they choose to act is up to them. They were the control freaks who thought they could call the shots and dictate terms with no repercussions. Well, actions have logical consequences. For every action, there's an equal opposite reaction. They called the tune by shutting me out, then expecting me to keep banging on the door and begging to be allowed back in. They wanted payout with no input. But I'm not doing that anymore. The locked door stays locked. They dictated the rules of engagement kicking me out and I'm simply abiding by them and staying out. 

You'll regret going no contact. 

No, what I regret is that it had to happen, that they went no contact with me, ignored, excluded, shut me out, rejected, neglected, used, exploited, scapegoated me. Mistreatment that has hounded me all my life, has confused and bewildered me. Has affected my ability to sleep, move, parent. That's what I regret. And cutting ties with all that toxic shame, never did something feel so right. It's the first paving stone on the path to individuation.