Normal things dark tetrad parents fubar for their kids: shame vs. joy of childhood

Hello my friends. Working to heal from CPTSD is taking me on a strange odyssey full of turns and surprises. I've come to realize finally, after 59 years, that what I experienced growing up in the abusive, neglectful homes of four dark tetrad parents, is nothing like normal. Basically everything was flip-flopped and bass-ackwards.  Everything. Nothing in my childhood fits or matches anything resembling normal. My life was like a crazy quilt of tiny, mismatched pieces all jumbled together. The result is constant chaos and stress. 

I've begun a series on normal things dark tetrad (malignant, exploitative, selfish, cruel) parents fubar for their kids. Today I'm looking at how these parasites enmesh themselves in their kids selves and rob them of not only of a childhood but also the joy that comes with it. They substitute it with manufactured chaos, stress, anxiety and adult pressures. They force the child to think and act like a child when she hasn't the maturity to do so. They make her parent them. Then they shame her for not being more child-like. And I cannot begin to tell you the existential pain and confusion this causes.  

It's much worse when the parents are "religious" (by that I mean self-righteous because nothing they do resembles real spirituality). They weaponize scripture. They continually subject her to very unBiblical, unChristian, unGodly behavior and situations. But the hold her up to every letter of the law. They fault her for being imperfect when they've provided no model of morality, goodness or even decent parenting. 

You know how Jesus talks about being child-like in your faith? And that a little child shall lead them? And how parents are supposed to let the children come unto me? Well, children of dark tetrad parents get a twisted version of that. Because our childhood was stolen. Our innocence usurped and our joy smashed.  Every child-like thing we do is shamed. Where normal parents think a kid's behavior is sweet or cute, narcissistic parents shun and shame it. 

They do their utmost to sabotage our innocence because they resent it. They make us feel weird, ugly, stupid, awkward and clumsy. They push us away. Where a normal parent can't get enough lap time with their children, a dark tetrad wants none of it. They make the child feel distasteful and weird for wanting hugs. They make touch sexualized. And boom goes the child's innocence. Her sense of wonder tainted. Her joie de vivre pissed on.  

They endanger, terrorize, abandon, neglect, manipulate, extort, humiliate, emotionally water-board, betray, lash out at, future fake, gaslight, scapegoat us. They demand disturbingly unnatural things of us . They exhaust, deprive and wear us down. But then they also punish us for not being like "happy, normal kids." I was told I was unlovable because I was angry, bad-tempered, selfish, attention-seeking, show-offs, too sensitive. 

They show blatantly partiality to their other kids. Whom they do not subject to these tortures and so do not act so broken and messed up. They take everyone's part over ours. Toward us, they show only vendetta, for what, we don't know. But it's a pretty effective way of wiping the smile off the child's face, for sure. But I tried to smile, to make them happy and to make them love me. Albeit through my tears. And I got even that wrong. That apparently is "fake" and "attention-seeking."

They act bitter, sarcastic, two-faced, spiteful, shaming, backstabbing, malicious and deceitful. Then accuse us of being all these things. And we believe them and it grieves us. Since we care too much about pleasing them and too little about ourselves, we're in a constant torment of self-hatred. Which they very much approve and exploit. If we feel any good about ourselves, it's "prideful" and "arrogant." 

We must feel constant shame but not show it because then that's showing off. I got so caught up in their toxic waste tip that for much of my life, self-harm seemed the only option. I never blamed them. And yet my dad told me I was "too heavy" and "exaggerating." And that I "needed to lighten up." Mind you, my dad had been threatening me with his own suicide since I was 5. He felt no qualms dumping his "depression" and woes on me. 

Now I understand, or I think I do, that my parents were putting all their shame on me, as scapegoat. But that realization doesn't do me much good against a 60 years-in-the-making wall of shame. This shame lurks in vague shadows in my waking hours. Occasionally it bursts out, when triggered, in odd trauma responses of freezing, fawning, fixing, flight and fight.  At night, it's a different story. 

I dream terrible nightmares in which I do unspeakably awful things. For most of my life, I thought these were memories of my wicked behavior. I'd have floods of sickness from "remembering" things they'd said I did. I wake up crying, screaming and begging, not for help but forgiveness. And everyone just looks on in scorn. It has crushed my soul. 

This is what caused me to start looking into my past. And now that I'm removing the blinders, I'm recalling that what I thought were things I did, were lies made up about me. I think. I'm still not sure because their gaslighting was very convincing. But the scorn, shaming, humiliation, that happened. I recall now, the shock of the sucker punching. The ooof of having the wind knocked out of you by people who call themselves your parents. I know now why my stomach feels so sick. I was held up to the family firing squad and repeatedly fired on at till my entire self was shot to pieces. 

All I am now is a tattered soul, riddled with bullet holes, more bits than whole person. That's what dark tetrad abuse does to you. It fragments your heart. It splinters your self. It shatters your peace of mind. It irreparably destroys your inner child. You're left with a damaged brain, neither adult nor child, never grown up nor young at heart. Always old, used up, dessicated. 

It's safe to say that children of dark tetrad parents aren't children at all. Consequently we never really grow to healthy adults without a lifetime of working out these problems. We are conundrums, never adult nor child. We are creatures Frankensteined by mad scientists, warped out of natural shape. We're always in the wrong body, either forcefully grown ups in little bodies or misaligned little people in big bodies, with the entire child self missing and trapped in it all. 

I know all this must be really hard to read. It really hard to even think about let alone write. It all feels so incredibly fouled up beyond belief. 

Normal things dark tetrad parents fubar for their kids: role-reversal and responsibilities

 Hello my friends. In my quest to heal CPTSD from abuse and neglect by four narcissistic parents, I've started a series on normal things that dark tetrad (arrogant, self-centered, exploitative, cruel) parents fubar for their kids. The short answer to that is everything: every normal thing in the child's life is flip-flopped, distorted and perverted. Wrong is right, good is bad, bad is good, etc. 

In that bass-ackwards scenario, the dark tetrad parent, twists messes up even the parent-child dynamic. The child is expected to provide for the parent, the childish things they demand. The parent whines, pouts, threatens, coerces, enslaves and manipulates the child into doing their bidding. The child is forced into very unnaturally adult situations which require adult skills she hasn't yet matured into. The parent pushes the child into the deep end of the grownup pool and told to swim or drown.  

As if that wasn't bad enough, the parent does not care for the child or even provide the modicum of help. It's a reverse ratio. Normal things that the child should expect from the parent, are withheld, or parsed out so randomly and sporadically that the child learns not to count on them. And this I might add, is the scapegoat's experience. The other kids get what they want and need.  The scapegoat is told that to expect anything, even basic necessities, is selfish. 

But wait, it gets worse. The parents don't just neglect the child.  they arrange stumbling blocks for the child to fall over. They sabotage her efforts so it looks like she's failing, so that she will keep trying harder. They do not thank or praise, they nitpick, fault find, lie, invent and rewrite versions that sanitize their behavior, exaggerate any wrong-doing of the child. They invent stories that paint them as the long-suffering hero/martyr. 

But wait, it gets more twisted than that. The child is expected to act as parent but it isn't accurate to say that the parent acts childishly. Because I've known, taught, cared for thousands of children in my life. And not one was as selfish, petulant, out of control or demanding my narcissistic parents. Because the narcissist brings to it all the adult weaponry (backhanded, manipulation, two-faced), with none of the innocence of a child. A child acting bratty from time to time is to be expected; an adult doing it is infuriating, humiliating and exhausting. And utterly baffling to the child. 

And wait, there's more. The more they do it, the better at it they get. And if the longer they're unchecked, the more outlandish and audacious the behavior gets. Along the years, my parents have done and said things to me that would shock most people. And they think they're so cute when they do. And people just turn a blind eye and humor them. Which they take as consent. The child is so shamed and bullied that she's too frightened to do anything but dance to their tune.  

But wait, there's more.  They twist again and take back the parent role, whenever it's convenient, well the rights, not the responsibilities. They cherry pick the preferred jobs: bossing, demanding, harassing and ignore the real parenting work (loving, nurturing, supporting, encouraging, helping) They set unreasonable rule and issue harsh discipline all while still depriving the child and expecting her to cater to them. They scold, hit, preach, scream and insult, in the name of "good parenting." 

Their idea of parenting is so messed up that I think they believe that other people will be impressed by how they control their child. You know what I mean. You've seen those parents in the store who use their kids to get sympathy and attention. They yell at the children and then look around to see who's watching and feeling sorry for them. All we're feeling is sorry for the  kids. Because their parents are completely out of control. 

These parents aren't human. They are parasites that feed off their kids like a tics or lampreys. They enmesh themselves into the child, pirate their minds and take over their will and  emotions. We think and feel what they tell us to.  We're their puppets. What people saw was little me. What they didn't see is that it was my parents controlling me. I was just like Pinocchio with a smile painted on, dangling on the end of their strings. 

They gaslight us that we are responsible to them, but they aren't to us. No one is responsible for us and so we grow up way too fast. We have no idea how to just be a kid. That is far too dangerous. We owe them everything and can never pay. While they owe us nothing. And how dare we think they do, how selfish! It's THEIR house not ours. And we can lose our home at any moment (raising hand here). Even though it's our child support paying for it. Nothing is ours, not our money, toys, clothes. They control everything. 

We worry too much about them  and they don't give two shits for us. We wait on them. We do everything they tell us to and they're still angry with us. We work oh so very hard to make them happy. And then when we ask if they are, they shame us for "looking for attention." We can never feel good about anything or we're arrogant, conceited, showing off. We're  told that God expects us to serve without reward or praise (as if!!) 

But we dare not show depression or sadness. Then we're attention-seeking, too critical, showing off. We need to "lighten up." When dad has just screamed at us and beat us for not being happy enough about having our room taken away and being made to sleep in the baby's room. Or for asking to try on a Christmas sweater. So I developed this way of grinning like a skeleton through my tears. I would pray to stop the tears, swallowing, choking and pressing my lips together so hard it hurt.  Crying was a sure way to incense my dad. 

We're so messed up and confused. There's no winning for us or even just breaking even. There's only losing and feeling stupid, ashamed and disgusted with ourselves. And that's where they want us, helpless and hopeless. We're damned if we do, damned if we don't. We're trapped in their nets and harder we try to free ourselves the tighter the bonds get. 

Accepting one simple truth helps free me from narcissistic family enmeshment and parentification

 Hello my dear friends who follow this blog. Dealing with CPTSD and pain from four abusive and neglectful narcissistic family is pretty grim, I know. Hashing through memories of emotional torment, bullying, abandonment, child endangerment, invalidation, shaming, enslavement, exploitation, gaslighting about it all, is miserable. So today I want to share how accepting one simple truth helps free me from family enmeshment and parentification. 

And that fact is, that I was not in any of their families, neither the initial one of which I was the only child, nor the two new ones they created when my biological parents split up. I was an unpaid servant, scapegoat, surrogate spouse (to all four, creepy) and surrogate parent to their kids. They gaslit me into thinking I was a family member, so that I'd do all (and I do mean ALL) the heavy lifting. But the benefits of family, no. Those I did not receive. I did the work without the perks while they claimed the perks and did none of the work. Here's how they managed it.

By gaslighting, deception, distortion, lies, manipulation and mind-messing, they convinced me that I was responsible to them but also for them. All of them. You have to do her bidding, she's your stepmother. He can harass and abuse you, he's your stepfather. Even when he was just my mother's boyfriend. You have to care for me like I was the child and you, the parent. Why? Because I say so. I'm your MOM. You're my kid. I possess you. You owe us loyalty, servitude, obedience, etc., because...

Well, that part was never mentioned. They talked a lot about their expectations for me. My dad's wife greeted me at the door with a lengthy list of demands, when I moved into their house (notice I say their house, not mine). As you would for a paid nanny and housekeeper. As I look back it wasn't just help with housework, it was all the housework, particularly those tasks she didn't want to do. My dad gave her complete authority over me and probably encouraged her to make a nice long list. My mother and her boyfriend did likewise, including placing me in a tiny bedroom with four special needs foster children under 5. They then made a cozy apartment for themselves two floors down. 

But when it came to expectations I could for them, there were none. To expect, I was told, was selfish. For me. For them it was Godly parenting. See how they twisted definitions? Rules for me and another set for thee. So even minimal care and the most basic of necessities, was denied me. I was deprived of anything that  inconvenienced them and everything inconvenienced them. I was also relieved of anything someone else gave me. My child support, paid by my dad for MY care only, was taken to fund toys and pipe dreams of my mother and her new husband. My toys from childhood were sold or given aways without my permission of knowledge. I'd come home to find them gone. 

And about those rules for me, wooboy were there a lot. Rules, however that they did not follow. Throughout my life, beginning around 3 or 4, they'd leave me unattended, send me out to play alone in hectic, dangerous and unfamiliar places (they were always upsticksing and moving). Several times they literally dumped me on strangers and left to go I'd know where. My grandma commented when they came to visit us in Alaska (I was 6), that when they arrived "Jack went one way and Nancy went the other and left us with Marilisa." What she didn't say but probably meant was, who the heck do they leave her with when we're NOT here?" Well, gram, the answer is, no one. I didn't see my mom or dad for years of my life. 

BUT when they did chance to be around, oh the ridiculous rules they laid on me. At 15, I had to walk to school along a dangerous highway because I had to work two hours before and after school. Because they wouldn't provide even basics. And yet they gave me a super strict curfew that kids who didn't work, didn't have. They put with creepy, nasty people yet dictated to me who I couldn't associate with. They punished me when a guy they didn't approve of showed up where I was hanging out. I was grounded for two months. 

My sorry stepfather refused to hold a job. Yet demanded I do the housework and childcare on top of my job and schoolwork. My mom told me I had to comply because "he's my husband." Same with my lazy stepmom, issuing all kinds of ultimatums and rules and doing nothing herself. And my dad taking her side every time. Yet when I came home 15 minutes past that crazy early curfew, they kicked me out of the house. I was 16. And still they expected me to follow their rules! 

So the truth I now must accept is that I wasn't a family member I was a possession. I didn't have a home, I lived at work. I didn't have family, I had employers. I had no parents, only dark tetrad (malignant, self-serving, arrogant, cruel) slavedrivers. And accepting that is so incredibly freeing. Because since the rules of normal family didn't apply to me, they still don't. 

I learned to play by dangerous, unhealthy, unsafe rules no one else in my family had to. So I learned dysfunctional, overcaring, fawning behaviors. They who never cared for me, still expect me to care for them. That's the enmeshed narcissist M.O, for you. "You have no life outside me and what I allow you to have. I pull your strings, puppet! You do as we demand, not as we do." And do they play the " you have to we're you parents and we're old" card. 

BUT, good news! Now that I see all this (it took me 59 years), I see that I don't have to anymore. They never kept their part of the bargain and I don't owe them anything. Anything I may  have owed them was repaid decades ago. And so they're old now, well, they should have thought about that before they exploited and took advantage of me all those years. You don't get to shirk your responsibilities to your child all her life and still expect her to fulfill hers to you. 

You made it abundantly clear that I was not welcome in your family, now you aren't welcome in mine. The gravy train has derailed, the ATM is broken and your primary caregiver has left the building You don't have any parental rights. You surrendered those when you quit caring for your child. You lose. And you don't even get the lovely parting gifts. 

So is that weird? Yeah. I see people caring for their parents and it triggers extreme guilt that I'm not caring for mine. But I was and always have until it got too toxic for me. I have to remember that they set the terms, not me. The people I see caring for their parents very likely had a more normal set of  rules. I didn't. They care for their parents because they were cared for. I wasn't. It's transactional in the best way. Mine was one-sided. And to keep trying to have a relationship that was never there to begin with, is a fool's errand that only leads to more pain. 

Normal things dark tetrad parents fubar for their kids: goals, abilities and even career path

 Hello my friends. I know it's been heavy weather around here, with me coming to terms with the many levels of abuse and neglect I experienced from four dark tetrad (narcissistic, malicious, exploitative, cruel) parents. I'm working to heal CPTSD from childhood trauma, including endangerment, abandonment, neglect of basic care, parentification, enmeshment and enslavement, scapegoating, constant shaming, boundary smashing by my two bio parents and their new families. 

I started a series on normal things that dark tetrad parents fubar for their scapegoat kids. As this is a stream of conscience blog, they're in no particular order. They're coming to you as I realize them. Today I'm looking at how narcissistic parents mess us their victim child's goals, understanding of abilities, dreams and even career path for her. 

To do this we have to go back to the beginning of her life. Dark tetrad parents systematically (operative word) deprive her of even the simplest of things, that most kids in her milieu take for granted. And they do this is a clandestine way that makes it appear that she's no different that anyone else, and has access to what most others have. Or they go so rogue but gaslight people into thinking it's normal that people miss the abuse that's actually taking place. I know, confusing. Welcome to my life. 

Now, you may say and you'd be right, that many children have experienced neglect and that it's not the  parents fault. They were doing the best they could. For example, children of parents who are working poor, doing their best, working their butts off just to provide. But my situation was different. My parents didn't work consistently. And never at plebian jobs everyone else did. They were too good for that. They were "called by God" to be missionaries and I was dragged off on a  "mission trip" to Alaska that never materialized. They just, as my grama put it, "ran off to do their own thing and leave Marilisa on her own." I was 6. 

And we weren't poor, I was. They had money for expensive breed dogs, an organ, new motorcycle with matching leathers, English riding lessons (I can't make this up). For that mission trip across the globe from Michigan to Alaska. And they did this by, bluntly put, stealing, denying me basic things, funneling resources from family for themselves. My grandparents never knew that most of my life, I didn't even have a bedroom or proper bed. 

So I said this was systematic and that was a critical point. Dark tetrad parents groom their victim child by 

1) keeping necessary things from her like safety, security, people to watch over her and even food or shelter.  

2) endangering her in bizarre terrifying ways that destroy her self-care abilities. Actually they frown on her self-care and call it self-centered showing off. Her needs are selfish whims while their entitled selfish whims are God-demanded expectations that she must fulfill. 

3) routinely abandoning her, not showing up, not being there, leaving her alone in scary situations with no one to help and no explanation of how to navigate. Leaving her alone in situations that would traumatize adults. 

4) putting far too much and too adult responsibilities on her, bullying her into doing  their work, and then the coup de grace, attacking her for being unable to satisfy their endless demands even when she does manage to perform pretty well, better than they as adult perform. They create a constant feeling of failure, worthlessness, being a burden and in the way. 

5) indoctrinating her into a fake reality, a parallel universe, a cult in plain sight, using endless lies, humiliation, distortions, twisting, deception, exploiting fears, invalidating, gaslighting, boundary crashing, enmeshment, parentification, role reversal. 

6) grooming her to her into believing this is God's will for her. Even though no one around her, cousins, their other children, friends, are living anything like this deprivation. 

7) manipulating her empathy and genuine care, making her believe it's her job, from little girl on up, to keep them (and anyone else they decide to make her subject to) happy, no matter what it takes or how much it hurts 

8) damaging her brain with endless stress and chaos. Causing her body to spray cortisol like a sprinkler. Creating a shell shock condition in which she doesn't sleep but only cycles through endless nightmares. 

9) sabotaging self-confidence, calling it arrogance and pride, wearing down her resilience so that just staying awake and upright is a challenge. Walking, thinking, feeling, interacting is exhausting and everything hurts. But she learns to suck it all up. 

10) infantilizing and making her feel no use to anyone, ultimately shaming her into thinking that this is all she deserves and it's as good as it's ever gonna get. 

So what's left is one damaged, ashamed, scarred, scared girl who doesn't know safe from dangerous, right from wrong, parent from child. Who has been color-blinded and can't tell red flag from green. And that's exactly what they want, a kid who not only doesn't know how to protect herself but who feels guilty doing so. And she's putty in their hands. 

So how does that screw up her ability to set goals or even choose a career path. Her sense of accomplishment has been destroyed by them endlessly moving the target and raising the bar. She's been worn down and made to feel never good enough. She's been drilled into servitude to them. Having goals requires believing you have the right to have them. But the damaged child has been dictated to all her life. She's been forced to fulfill THEIR goals, dreams, wishes. She's been punished for  having organic ideas and thoughts of her own, let alone aspirations. 

Here's a case from my life. By the time I was 13, I'd been so thoroughly enslaved to both sets of parents that I wouldn't have knows a wish or want if it hit me in the face. I raised them and their kids. I did what I was told and then was made fun of for failing. My only thought was them. So when, in 8th grade, I took the COPS and CAPS test, it showed that my abilities far exceeded my goals. My scores were in the top 2 percentile and I'd listed as my goal, childcare or housekeeper. 

Not being a mom, myself, mind you. They'd convinced me I was far too messed up to ever parent a child myself. My chief "goal" if you will was to care for others' children and clean their houses. Well, that's all I ever did. No one had ever talked to me about going to college. I didn't even know the names of different universities except from reading books. And they certainly weren't going to cough up for any furthering of my education. Let alone give up having me around to do the heavy lifting. That's the infantilizing servitude: destroy her confidence to do anything but wait on them. 

Now, you might say there's nothing wrong with childcare or housework. The test proctors thought otherwise, if the student was capable of more. My teacher called me aside and said that something unprecedented had happened. The test assessors who apparently never comment on results, had contacted him and said he needed to have a chat with me regarding my choice of career vs. my ability. Usually what they saw were kids expecting to have big jobs without putting effort in. I was the exception.  "This kid could design fighter jets and she's settling for babysitter. You've got to stop her letting her potential go to waste. Get her some college and career counseling!"

I didn't go home and tell anyone. They would have just scoffed and taken it as an insult anyway. When I did go to college, I got no help and a fair amount of hindrance and dismissive pooh-poohing.  I still didn't grasp as far as I could reach. Fear will probably always hold me back to some extent. 

But I did cherish that middle school affirmation random strangers. It only takes one person to believe in a child, to make a difference. 

Normal things dark tetrad parents fubar for their kids: confidence and self-concept

Hello my friends. To heal CPTSD from abuse by four narcissistic parents, I'm writing a series on normal things that dark tetrad (selfish, arrogant, manipulative, cruel) parents fubar for their kids. These are everyday things most kids experience normally which the abused kid experiences abnormally or the reverse of. . Today we're looking at confidence, self-concept and self-esteem.  

You know how most parents want what's best for their kids? How they encourage their kids? How they're proud of their children? How they even cover for them when they make mistakes or at least don't blow little things up into huge deals that make the kid feel like an idiot?  Not perfectly, no parent does that, but most of the time?  

Well, dark tetrad parents are just the opposite. Most of the time dark tetrad parents sabotage their kids' success, or at least feeling of success. Occasionally they might seem to encourage but that's only to string the kid along, to keep them duped into thinking they have parents that love them. What we are to them are possessions and servants. And the only way to keep us in servitude is to throw us the occasional crumb. But it's always self-serving and agenda-based. 

Instead of wanting what's best, they want the worst for their kids. They put us in dangerous situations with dangerous people. They do scary weird things that undermine our confidence. They kick us out of the house for some trumped up thing we supposedly did. They terrorize us. They make us afraid and then mock us. They turn their backs on us. They set us up to fail. They put up stumbling blocks that we fall over. And then they laugh. They sucker punch us and kick us when we're down. 

They're never proud of us and they make no bones about it. No matter how good a job we do, they just dismiss it. When I graduated university Magna Cum Laude my dad just sniffed and said, well, college isn't for everyone. They eff up self-confidence too. My dad who was arrogant AF, would scold me for "showing off." If I felt good about getting all the housework done that they had set for me, he'd snap that I shouldn't do it for praise. I should  just do it. Then he and his wife would find fault with it. I never did feel like I did a good job at anything.  

They only time they feel pride is in themselves. They spin our success to be theirs. They remind us how much they did for us. Which in my case was damn all. I paid my way for everything beginning around age 16. They shame and blame us for their failings. The child of dark tetrad parents feels only self-hatred. Sometimes it gets suicidal. Sound like I'm making it up? I'm not. Ask anyone who identifies as being raised by a narcissist. 

What to do (and not do) when a narcissist parent asks why you've gone no contact

 Hello my friends. I'm working to heal CPTSD from a lifetime of abuse and neglect by four narcissistic, dark tetrad parents. One way I'm doing that is to greatly limit contact with family of origin. And a few days ago, I met what could be my Waterloo. One of them texted to ask why I no longer keep in contact. Well, I knew it was coming and wasn't surprised. But I had no prepared answer. And so, because this is a stream of conscience blog, you're getting all my experiences with me, in situ. How do you respond and what do you do (or not do) when someone asks why you've gone no contact with them? Short answer, I'm not sure myself But I have some ideas. 

1) Take my emotional vitals. Immediately upon reading the text, my CPTSD responses (flight, fright, fix, fawn) went into overdrive. Panic and anxiety were going off like New Year's Eve in Times Square. My hands started shaking, I felt sick and short of breath. I'm sure my blood pressure even shot up. But you know what I did? Not a damn thing. I just closed it and went back to what I was doing. Which for me is unheard of. Because I don't...

2) Take care of myself. I have always let shame drive me into those trauma responses, particularly fawn and fix. Then I stopped and went no contact. And the narcissist, who has been manipulating, dismissing, gaslighting, shaming, invalidating, suddenly wonders why I stopped participating in the abuse. And my trauma responses say, bad me! I must fix this! I must answer, how dare I ignore! And do those narcissists know how to play on THAT! Guilt was screaming in my ear that I'd better rush to do something, but instead I did something revolutionary 

3) Don't just do something, sit there. Thank you Alanon for these words of wisdom. Instead of hurrying to reassure, justify, answer, defend and explain, I ignored it. These are the same people who have been ignoring me when I'm inconvenient all my life. And then when they want something, demanding I rush to provide. My job has always been to fix what they broke. I've been inundated with all I owe them and then stiffed on what they owed me. It wasn't transactional, it was a grift. And so I finally realized that I can...

4) Respond when and how I want. I owe them nothing. Not even a response to a text, till such time if any I choose to respond. This is big for me. Because I was groomed to believe that if someone expected something of me it was my responsibility to give it. Even sick, toxic, abusive people making horrible demands. Especially when it was an interrogation, accusation or (their favorite) ambush. I was to cringe in humiliation and beg to be told what I could do to be forgiven. They could ignore, evade, lie, deflect, distort, blame-shift all they wanted. But I'd better damn well be forthcoming with remorse, shame, groveling whenever they decided to retaliate. Because no matter how passive-aggressive it is, I now...

5) Accept that it is retaliation. This doesn't mean I've done anything to retaliate against. Dark tetrads just don't like you doing anything that isn't in their script for you. We've marginalized and manipulated you all your life but how dare you now put us aside?! We call the shots, missy! We dictate who will be ignored and when. Well, maybe you did but you don't now. Because I now...

6) See that it's a ruse. I was expecting something like this, but I didn't realize how templated it would be. It could have come out of the textbook on "how to get others to take the blame for your actions."  I was told to explain why I didn't text anymore. I was offered a lightweight blanket apology for "anything that might have offended me." And then asked to tell her what that might be. Which comes straight from another textbook on "how to sound sorry without actually being sorry and make others feel guilty for what you did." And I now...

7) See the trap. They apologize, kinda, without saying what they did wrong. They admit to nothing and want us to tell them what they've done. It's a challenge, not an admission. They know very well what they have done. They just want to see what we'll say. They've got an answer prepared for everything. They catch us unprepared hoping we'll do exactly what our triggers are telling us to do: panic and tell them (making ourselves do very uncomfortable, unfamiliar things they've punished us for in the past). And they fire back with denials, lies, gaslighting, mocking pooh-poohing, distortions and blaming. All we get for our pains is more pain. Because what we must do is...

8) Know that they are not sorry. They are angry and blaming us. They don't confess and the "remorse" is fake. They apologize to lure us into trusting them and apologizing, as if what happened was a two-way street. Which it was not. That we somehow had a hand in the problem which we didn't. They don't acknowledge what they have done wrong because they arrogantly don't believe they do wrong. What they've done is "open to interpretation" and we are just "offended" Or that we were somehow to blame too. We aren't. And we must...

9) Recognize how they twist words and distort reality. Now, these people are good at this game. They proclaim to be Godly and they know that God is offended by things. They are always talking about what offends them as if it's what offends God too. But if we're justifiably offended by their offensive behavior, we're just being "politically correct" or "a snowflake" or "unable to face the truth." Actually, they're not sinful at all but completely righteous. It's us that are sinful for objecting to their objectionable behavior. Even if we didn't say a word. They just can sense our evilness because they're special. But all that's just hogwash and what we must do is...

10) Accept that they are deceitful, entitled, arrogant, exploitative hypocrites who have no intention of apologizing or even admitting what they did. If they were contrite, they'd have confessed decades ago what they'd done to hurt us. They would have tried to make amends. They would have humbled themselves. They wouldn't have expected us to put ourselves back through hell telling them what they did, just so they could mock, scorn, humiliate, shame and blame us all over again. But that is what they have always done and will continue to do so if I do respond back, I will...

11) Take my time. Give it a week or so. Make them agonize a bit like they've done to me all my life. Is that vengeance? Meh, IDK. That's above my paygrade. I do know that if we don't, all the trauma responses will take over and we'll fall right back into their trap. And we need time to...

12) Consider our options. Which are admittedly few. If I rush to answer, I'll either lie and say no we're all good, when I'm not. Or I'll make excuses and probably blame myself which is just what the narcissist wants.  And I'll end up back in contact and nothing will have changed. It will just get worse. Because the only way out is...

13) Stay out. Either by keeping the text on read or with a short, sweet, honest response. I think mine will be something like, "The problem isn't me being offended but it should be. It's about things that happened that shouldn't and things that didn't that should have. Things which I got no acknowledgment of let alone amends for or assistance with. If you search your memory, you'll recall. But I will not explain nor discuss it. I wish you no ill, but I think it's best left at arm's length." No JADE (justify, answer, defend, explain). I've never done anything like this before. But I have to because I need to 

14) Heal myself. If they won't heal it, and I don't trust them to, I have to. And if they're ever going to grow a conscience it will be because I stopped doing all their dirty work. If you finally stop protecting, lying for, defending them, they might just bend the knee. But that's not why I'm doing it, I need to 

15) Do what's best for me. And talking about it, discussing, will only make it worse. It always has. It's never ended well. Confessions and closure are things for novels, not for me. I just rolled over for more. If they heal, terrific. But they'll have to find that on their own. The scapegoat has left the altar. 

  

Normal things dark tetrad parents fubar for their kids: memory and memories

 Hello my friends. I've been working to heal CPTSD (complex or childhood post-traumatic stress disorder) from narcissistic abuse and neglect by the four adults in my life who called themselves my parents. What does CPTSD mean for me? Endless triggering of trauma responses, pervasive anxiety, brain damage from constant cortisol release, nightmares and amnesia-like memory loss. Let's talk about the memory loss component. 

You may contend, that we all have memory loss and you'd be right, of course. However the memory problems from narcissistic parent abuse is not so much fading or forgetting certain things. It's memory damage by destructive forces purposely intent on damaging memories for ulterior motives. My narcissistic parents and their two new spouses were also dark tetrads, having malicious, manipulative, entitled and cruel behavior traits as well. 

How do they destroy memories? Dark tetrad parents place the child in hostile, frightening situations. They subject her to disturbing things like abandonment and angry mean people. They neglect basic care and don't teach her how to be safe. They groom her to serve and parent and take the blame for them. They say and do icky things about sex which make her uncomfortable and vulnerable to predators. They do creepy things other kids' parents don't do. They preach about immorality and then behave in very immoral ways. 

All of this is very out--of-sync with the more normal world the child sees outside the home. Perhaps kids see more inappropriate behavior now. But I still think, by and large, we try to keep it child-friendly. In my time, life was moderate, outside the house. No one else seemed to live in anything like I did and they looked at me like I was crazy if I told anyone. And it is crazy and crazy-making. It's like living in a cult in the middle of an everyday community or a parallel universe. 

Then they compound all that routine craziness with lies, distortions and deceptions. They connive and trick her. Then they gaslight her into distrusting her perceptions and experiences. They say  none of this happened, that she's lying, showing off and making it up for attention. Or if it did happen, she deserved it. They mock her and make fun of her trauma responses. They openly resent her, call her names and accuse her of being jealous of them (?). 

So the child is left bewildered, nervous, anxious and unsure of what to do or think. This normal little girl is made to feel like a freak. She learns to see herself wrongly, as a problem, a nuisance a bad person. She mistrusts everything she thinks, feels and wants. Because someone along the line said it was wrong. And wishing to please and be a good girl, she smothers anything that they say is wrong. She smashes down impulses, feelings, wants and needs. And doing this over time, has the cumulative effect of squashing memories too. 

Memories of bad things they did, can't be allowed in because then she would have to admit that these things DID happen to her. And dark tetrads can't have any questioning. So she compartmentalizes the memories. Memories are parsed by her damaged brain and by parenting brainwashing, into those to retain and those to repress. 

Good memories are exaggerated, by self-serving parents, and made much larger than they were. Any time spent with me or thing done for me was to be endlessly appreciated. Even if it was just a normal thing parents do for kids, like feed them. Extended family never did this. Just  my dark tetrad parents. Culling back through my memories, I realize that aren't many good ones. And of basic care and simple things like meal times, toys, a bedroom, patterns of wallpaper in my bedroom, I have no recollection. And I have a very good memory for such things. So my conclusion is they weren't there. 

Memories of bad things parents did are neutralized by the servant-child's mind. They never have to say sorry or even admit it because I already absolved them. I never even remembered they did it. These things just passed right through me as being all fine and dandy. I think on some level too, my brain was protecting me by doing this. It put these memories into little drawers, like a library card catalog, and then shut the drawer, locked it and threw away the key. But shut in is not forgotten by the subconscious mind. The drawer's contents leak out, in bad dreams, trauma responses (fawning, flight) in panic triggers and half-recollections. A little digging and then I remember...

Now,  memories that painted me in a bad light, accusations made against me, things twisted, even lies, stay in my mind as truth. Dark parents must scapegoat the child to take on all their sins. So they drill into her head all the wrong she's supposedly done. They catechize her on her many failings and sanitize their own wrong-doing. They gloss over their part in problems so all the child recalls is her wrong. 

Then they go even farther. They trump up charges, evade questions, feign ignorance, ignore hurts to the child, rewrite history, invent wicked things she has done. They imbed memories of transgressions that probably never happened. I say probably because I'll never know for sure, thanks to their complete gaslighting. I've always assumed they were true though I could never recall doing these things. And believe me, with all the self-hatred I had, if I'd done them I'd remember. 

So is all this newly remembered trauma just a figment of my imagination? Am I really just looking for attention? No. I know it was always there. It just wasn't safe to admit and and now it is. And I won't get much attention out of it because I've only told a few people outside this blog. Someday I may tell more when I write my book. If that's attention-seeking, it's about damn time. As for as using it against anyone, I have no intention of using it at all except for my own growth and healing. 

Bottom line, which I've said before and I'll say it again. If something is so bad it has to be lied about and kept secret, it must be pretty bad. Telling the truth about what someone did isn't what's wrong, it's that they did it in the first place.