Hello my friends! For the last few weeks this blog has been my recovery from covert and overt narcissistic abuse by my four parents. I've focused the narcissistic personality disorder but others were at play too including two other Category 2, histrionic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. And before you ask, no none of these were diagnosed professionally because true to form none would admit to the problem being anything but mine, let alone submit to any kind of professional. Which as you may know about narcissistic, histrionic and antisocial, just reinforces that these issues are present.
What I want to consider today is breaking free from covert narcissistic abuse by seeing the "ostentatious displays of vulnerability" for what they are. A simple way to describe these acts I saw them were manipulative attention-seeking ploys. They were emotional blackmail. On the surface they might look like cries for help.
But the outlandish, manipulative and weaponizing nature of these "cries" is what finally made me see them for the coercion they were. The most terrifying, but obvious, were the casual suicide threats my father made to me, to get me to do whatever he wanted. With a stare that I now see what sociopathic, he would calmly detail how and why he needed to do this. Little 5-year-old me would cry and beg him not to and to please tell me what I could do to fix him. I would ask if he'd miss me as I would miss him. He said no, not really and that nothing I could do would help.
But he did allow (expect and demand) me not to let that stop me trying. So I did. I did everything, always. I never let him see how this devastated me because, wait for it, this would hurt him. I did what I read a Youtube commenter put so well "betray myself to avoid betraying him." He encouraged his wife and kids to abuse, exploit and work me like a slave. And I let them. Anything to keep daddy from the drop.
He pirated my entire childhood psyche with his nonchalant death threats. His ostentatious displays of vulnerability were actually weapons of mass destruction for me. But I reaped what he sowed. He never attempted anything (I think he never intended to. It was just a ruse to keep me subservient and self-hating) while I, had to, sometimes daily, talk myself out of doing what he threatened. Not because I believed he had driven me to it, which of course he had, but because I had failed them all so signally.
I'm not done with this post but I have to stop for now. I want to write more in case there is anyone else out there who has suffered anything like this. I want to comfort you and say, IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT. IT'S NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. They are using it as scare tactics to keep you in line. And it is sick, twisted, disgusting abuse on par with the torture of Imperial Japan against POWs or Nazis. Only against a child. It's spiritual warfare with a child's soul in the balance.
I have to stop because it is just so insanely painful to remember. I'm finding it hard not to dredge up all those horrific feelings and keep them in perspective. I will end with a tool I find useful and that's the Prayer to St. Michael.
Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, oh prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell, Satan and all the evil spirits that prowl the earth seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
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