10 disturbing forms of humor Narcissist parents use to sabotage their child

Hello friends. Today in my mission to heal from narcissistic parent abuse, I'll show how a narcissist outs herself by the things she finds funny. This will also help us understand how narcissist parents damage their children with seemingly good things like humor. Here are 10 weird forms of humor that narcissist parents use to sabotage their child's sense of self. Contradictorily, if anyone jokes in this way about the narcissist, they become enraged. Narcissists, especially malignant narcissistic parents LOOOOVVEEE to make their kid the butt of jokes but they HATE being the ass end of them. I'll list these 10 weird humor forms and explain what it says about the parent.

Just saying or gotcha jokes These are insidious demi-jokes in which the narcissist points out something in such a way that draws all eyes to the child. It's not a bad thing but it's embarrassing. That's why the narcissist points it out. The narcissist would choke on her own tongue before saying something positive about the child. She strategically does it at a time when the child can do nothing about it but feel embarrassed. Or she announces after the window to fix it has passed. And if she can't be called on it because everyone would say the narcissist is just being helpful. She's not. She likes seeing the victim squirm. And she can't even be said to be mocking because she says it seriously. But she hopes others will laugh. She does not chastise her children for laughing (Yes I'm thinking of my dad's wife). And interestingly it's not anything anyone else would notice or if they did would tell the child privately and help her fix it not save it to make a laughingstock of the child. When I was 14, stepmother loudly announced at Christmas that I had a run in my nylons. She and my aunt scoffed behind their hands. I wonder how funny it would have been if I'd said, "Maybe it's because you make me buy my own clothes and I can't afford new??" 

Teasing (heckling, kidding, razzing) I'm not a fan of teasing, period. Because it's never about something the person is proud of but embarrassed about. We don't jokingly say nice dress or good job on the math test because we mean it. What would be the point? If we sincerely mean it we sincerely say it. But the point of teasing is to make someone feel bad. If she laughs along, it's no fun. So teasing always has to sting, to hit a nerve. And for that to work, the target must feel the sting and know she's been stung. Nice people don't tease. Ever. They don't like to see people feel ashamed. They make jokes about innocent things that make everyone laugh. A narcissist's outs herself by the fact that she finds others' discomfort funny. 

Lampooning, mocking, roasting, ridiculing. Call it what you will, it all amounts to shaming the child, by making fun of her for things she can't help. It's no different that a bunch of playground bullies playing monkey in the middle, laughing at the poor kid with polio braces. Only these are grown adults who are supposed to be protecting their children FROM this kind of abuse, not leading the jeers! These aren't nice people. They are nasty bullies who get off on making others feel small.  

Cynical snark and snide sarcasm. And other such above-it-all-ness. With feigned innocence, they point out (loudly in front of others) something they know the child would be uncomfortable about. Because anyone would. They find a chink and poke at it till it's a chasm. Again, it's almost always something no one else noticed until THEY the parents pointed it out. My mother once announced that I had pubic hair at a family gathering.  My dad pointedly insulted me for something that inadvertently went wrong at a party for his son that I had planned. 

Shaming dressed as gentle reproof. They try and fail to cloak as "for your own good" correction what are actually smug, spiteful digs. And you know it's just that because if it were kindly meant correction, they'd do it privately and in love. So they do it in sneaky underhanded ways that they think others will see as loving. Because they either know it's not true or they've exaggerated it and will look like the nasty people they are. Sometimes other folks catch, sometimes they don't. But the child always gets this sucker punch for what it is.  

Scolding mockery (loudly in front of others) They use this kind of "humor" as a form of correction to make the child feel foolish and chagrined about something she supposedly did wrong. Supposedly, feeling stupid will make her perform better in future.  I don't know about you, but humiliation never taught me anything except that I'm a worthless piece of shit who doesn't deserve gently, loving parent correction. You've seen the parents on Youtube shaming their child (on the Internet, as you do) for some offense. But it always has the reverse effect of making the parent look like the idiot and the poor child someone you want to rescue from them. 

DARVO mocking. The narcissist parent continually provokes a response in the victim. My dad would endlessly rage bait me. If I cried, got mad or reacted he loved this even more. He weaponized my  reaction to DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender). Now the narc is the  poor misunderstood victim who was innocently JUST JOKING! What's wrong with Mari? She's too sensitive! She can't take a joke? He then proceeds to prove that he started it. Instead of apologizing he doubles down by mocking his victim for being hurt. 

Pranking. Narcissist parents will set a child up to fall and then laugh like hyenas. These are the ones who shove cake in their kid's face at her birthday party. Or leap out to scare her and make her cry. Or who start food fights like frat boys. Which having made the comparison, some of their pranks are more like hazing. My mom would look on approvingly while her boyfriend (later husband) pinched my little finger in such a way that he almost broke it. It felt like he did. He'd say "holler Uncle" or I won't quit. Child abuse passed off as a game. So disturbing. Out of the blue, my mother threw a pie in my face and at one of my children at her company work party. The only one laughing was her jackass husband. And that led to...

Vengeance jokes The narcissist parent in her entitled arrogance, is the only one allowed to mock. If his target should turn the joke back on him or even if it just accidentally backfires, look out. A humiliated narcissist is terrifying. This is where the mask slips, revealing unbridled malicious cruelty. In the pie throwing incident, my narcissist mother's coworkers didn't respond as she expected. Because they were adults not immature exhibitionist attention-seekers. Instead of laughing, they looked disdainfully. She was reprimanded and oh she did not like that. Her "jokes got even more caustic to punish me for accidentally showing up the egg on her face. This is where shit like revenge porn comes from. 

Terror taunting. Also called fear baiting. So here's where we veer completely off the path of humor to viciousness. This is kind of like revenge joking but more targeted. If the victim actually hits back the narcissist comes out swinging. But being cowardly, they do it in a passive-aggressive way which they call joking. But their jokes have sharp barbs and feel a lot like attacks. My dad would laugh while the rage glittered in his eyes. He was slobbering with fury and would say deadly serious things in a terrifyingly jocular way. He once threw a knife across the room with a smile on his face. I don't even know the words for this. 

Sexual harassment and dirty jokes. My mom and her husband used to tell dirty jokes around me from the time I was 9 or 10.  She laughed when he made fun of my "queer" cat who "humped" balls of yarn (his words). They'd mock me because I didn't understand the crude references. She laughed along and preened when he called me "Blisters" to mock my small breasts. (all while calling herself a Christian minister and thumping her Bible, but I digress) Then they kicked me out of the house for not being able to prevent a stalker stalking me. So worried about me they made me homeless. It made me feel so gross, like I was the dirty one. I struggled for a long time with intrusive thoughts of sex that I couldn't understand. Not fantasies of it but aversions to it. I never really understand what was wrong till one day, I finally heard what my husband was saying all along how they were the pervy-creepy-deviants and I was just a child caught up in their moral depravity. 

For all their sick humor, narcissists can't take a genuine joke. They personalize everything. If ever my dad felt uncomfortable about himself, he assumed it was someone's fault. He would rant about how everyone was soooo hard on poor Jack. Jack who loved making others feel small. Jack who was the first to tell my how I was too sensitive was a snowflake that melted at the first breath. My mother was a paranoid mess. My stepmother was enraged when I invited a friend to dinner that I cooked and cleaned up after because I forgot to ask her. She didn't want the friend seeing how she made me slave. 

My mom's husband started nailing me and my then boyfriend with snowballs. He packed them with ice and they hit hard and hurt and he cackled. When my husband threw a snowball back and it accidentally landed in the truck, stepdaddy dearest went ballistic. I guess hurting people was fine but getting snow in a truck was not. He would not speak to us for months. Over a damn snowball fight he started. Narcissists have a self-serving sense of humor in which they are the ones laughing at others' expense. They can dish it out but they cannot take it. 

Narcissist parent abuse cripples our development and makes us behave oddly immature

Hello my friends. Today I'm writing what might for me be my most embarrassing post. I'm looking (possibly for the first time ever) at ways that narcissist parent abuse has crippled my development and made behave oddly immature. Here's how that happened. And a BIG thanks to Youtube psychologist and trauma expert Danish Bashir for identifying this as a by-product of narcissist parent abuse. 

Narcissist parent abuse takes many forms: sexual, medical, physical, social, emotional, financial, plus  neglect, deprivation, exploitation, manipulation, child abandonment, child endangerment, scapegoating and triangulation (pitting people against us), bullying, invalidation, humiliation, gaslighting, double standards, inappropriate demands, infantilizing AND parentifying, expecting adult behavior of us while acting childishly themselves, enmeshing with us and making us their slaves, overburdening us with too much work, the list goes on. 

And it is all backwards and upside down from the way kids around us live. Our very self-centered, entitled, self-serving parents teach us different rules for interaction. All we know is trauma responding, in my case freezing, fawning and fixing everything they break. And what what's expected of us is not how they live. They are self-righteous, hypocritical tyrants who demand service and loyalty from us but give us none. We are taught no self-care skills and in fact, are told that self care is selfish. We're also groomed to keep their secrets. And we do. 

Even people who should be seeing and caring how awful our lives are, don't. My living situations were so bizarrely and obviously different that someone should have noticed. CPS was called in at least on my mom, but that's only because she had a foster care home and she and her boyfriend were hitting the kids. No one thought to check on me as the primary caregiver, co-sleeping with four special needs little ones. While mom and her unvetted, unemployed, abusive volatile boyfriend slept two floors down. 

That is one tiny scrap of abuse in the crazy quilt of my life. Both my parents before their divorce were insanely neglectful leaving unsupervised from around age 4. They didn't provide even minimal care and both disappeared for weeks at a time to go on mission trips, abandoning me to strangers thousands of  miles from family. They were cheating on each other in blatant ways. Then when they found new people, the abuse escalated to 4x the amount from their narcissistic new spouses. I was forced to work like a skivvy for my dad and step mom. I was kicked out of the house at 16 by my bullying mom and jobless stepdad who were living off welfare and my child support. 

How did no one see how weird that was?? Why was it all okay? This happened in late 1960s thru early 1980s middle America, for God's sake!  My extended family were normal, law-abiding, loving, church going people who supposedly didn't approve of any of this. And yet they did by their keeping quiet. 

At least that's how I read their silence. As consent. Awful for anyone else but fine and dandy for me. I remember reading or hearing of kids in terribly abusive situations and grieving for them. I never realized that my own life was just as bad. Worse in some ways. I  never grieved for me because I assumed because I was indoctrinated by narcissist parents that this was God's plan for me. It was his will that I was abused. That was the version of God I got. A cruel, hateful, vicious, unfairly demanding, spoiled brat that wore my parents' faces. 

Needless to say this was confusing. That most healthy things kids got and learned, I didn't. What I saw was kids being cared for and loved and what I lived was chaos and abuse. I'm not saying I'm the only one who lived in difficult circumstances, as my former therapist suggested I was  (in a rather condescending, judgey way)  Which is why she is no longer my therapist. I don't need more invalidation and patronizing thanks. 

What I'm saying is that what I saw other kids having, I didn't. Even if abuse was going on, they at least had enough food, a roof over their heads and a bed to sleep in. They did normal things and were involved in stuff. I had no time being too busy with housework. I had no ride because no one would provide it. I had to get a job to pay for my own Kotex, a ride anywhere, a bike, a car, shelter.  My college fund from grandparents and child support was stolen to fund my mom's new family. 

No kid that I knew (or anyone else I've spoken to knows) had to care for her mom's foster kids while her mom and boyfriend absented themselves. Or had to do all their dad's and stepmom's work because they demanded she slave for them. And then didn't feed or house her right. None of us knew of anyone whose parents were divorced let alone who had boyfriends, one-night-stands, girlfriends, step-parents, new families etc. Not to mention foster care homes where they didn't provide care and made me. 

A friend recently validated just how extreme it was. She recalls her mother being worried about me because my mother had left me with a violent, unemployed layabout boyfriend and four special needs foster kids to care for. While she went to some pyramid marketing scheme workshop for a week. My friend's mom said they had to step in because caring for one special needs child was too much for an 11 y/o, let alone four overnight. My friend said they were both shocked at just how difficult the child was to care for. The agency said he had been battered so badly that he was blind, deaf, retarded (the word used then) or all three. And this is just one of the children my mom left me to care for. And not just for that week. I had to sleep (or not sleep) with him and he cried all night. 

I'm not saying other kids didn't have it rough. Obviously. I'm saying none of them experienced nor understood just how oddly rough my life was. It was only when the friend had to walk in my shoes that it made sense. Not her fault. My life was so weird that it made no sense to anyone. In fact,  I was ostracized because of my parents' bizarre, immoral, reckless lifestyles. Even family sometimes questioned me why they did what they did. Like I was supposed to know. And I always defended them so no one looked deeper. 

And because no one did, I assumed that this private hell was for me alone. I was smart enough to see how different it was for those around me but also damaged enough to think we each got what we deserved. They got good because they were good kids and I got shit because, well, good enough for who it was for. But being a conscientious kid, I didn't hold myself to lower standards, even though I didn't  have the resources or capability to meet the higher ones. I expected that I could make bricks without straw (or proper nourishment, a bed, home, adequate living conditions) because my narcissist parents always expected me too. 

So where does that leave me? With no ability to distinguish love from harm and a lot of weird coping skills. I somehow managed to keep up surprisingly good grades, despite not having time to do my homework until bedtime, being so busy with their housework. For a kid who had to get up at night with siblings so their mother could sleep, I was able to get up and function. Sort of. I fell asleep a lot and in dangerous situations. I ended up having to rely on a lot of scary unsafe people for things like rides. I ended up in bad situations because my parents neither protected me nor taught me I should protect myself. If I'm honest, they threw me at wolves and made me feel unChristian if I didn't let them take advantage of me. My loving now-family wonders how I survived. So do I come to think of it.

This has been a long, but necessary, explanation or maybe apology for my weirdness. And a plea for understanding and holding space till I can get better. If you see someone cringe in terror over minor things, don't judge. They probably lived in fear of constant retribution for no reason. If you see someone crumble and cry over an innocent correction, don't assume she cant' take criticism. She may have been beaten down by constant unfair attacks and character assassination since childhood. She may have been trained to cower by bullies who scapegoated her for everyone else's offenses. 

Because what narcissist parent abuse does is to destroy their child's ability to grow and develop normally. I have a permanently damaged spine from doing needlessly back-breaking chores too young. I've struggled with arthritis since I was in my teens from all the deprivations I suffered with. I can't do the simplest things like put gas in the car because I'm plagued by intrusive thoughts of disaster. Because I lived from one narcissist parent induced disaster to another. I'm always looking over my shoulder from all the times I was stabbed in the back, betrayed, targeted and ambushed by the people who called themselves my family. 

I'm perpetually confused. Because I was told to do one thing and shown another. I lived in my narcissist parent's parallel universe where right was wrong for me and wrong was right for them. They said they were doing God's will and serving him by violently and unpredictably punishing me. For things they did themselves. My mother's husband raged at me for "disobeying him" by not preventing a creepy stalker from stalking me. When none of them had ever protected and put me in the path of dangerous people, including themselves. They kicked me out of the house for coming in 15 minutes late. This man who wouldn't even hold down a job and who sexually harassed me as my mom laughed.  They were so concerned for my safety that they put me out on the street. Hmmm. 

I can't make decisions because I was faulted for every single thing I did. And then told I was too sensitive and too critical and manipulative and and lazy and attention-seeking and too angry and too needy and too demanding and too selfish, the family problem, immoral and a show off and a liar. By deceitful, oversensitive, overcritical, twisted, cunning, scamming, rageful, self-centered, self-righteous, hypocritical, exploitative, exhibitionist, morally degenerate, indolent, vengeful, bullying trouble-making slavers. 

So if you see a nervous, jumpy or people-pleasing woman, don't assume she's a weakling. She's probably been too strong for too long under too much pressure and stress in constant narcissist parent created chaos.  If she's terrified of guns, don't brand her an idiot because she wants to control them and keep people safe. She's seen too much violence in her life. She's been the target of unbridled narcissist parent rage. She's shell-shocked. She's not trying to control you. She's wants you to be safer than she's ever been. You're welcome. Is this a plug for gun control. Damn right it is. And it's a plug for protecting kids from arrogant, violent, AGRO narcissist bullies. 

Crazy things narcissistic parents say about their kids that prove wrong by their craziness: part 1 lying

Hello friends. Today in healing CPTSD from sociopathic narcissistic parent abuse, I'm looking at crazy things arrogant, entitled, manipulative parents say about their kids that prove to be wrong by their very craziness. The weird exaggerated nonsense itself showed by its own weirdness,  to be just self-serving lies, projection and scapegoating. The narcissist parent's purpose is to distract from the fact that they are the ones doing the things they accuse their victim children of. But it backfires because by their very oddness, these accusations served to point the finger back at them. Kind of a skunk smells his own smell first thing. Here are some of the more outré hypocrisies. 

My four narcissist parents called me a liar. Not just that I occasionally lied as kids. Or that I learned to lie to diffuse their anger and humor them. Or that I lied and said I didn't go in the bathroom where a pedophile hung out when I was FIVE and sent to play alone three blocks away. Or that I lied and said it was okay if my dad abandoned me in Alaska 1800 miles from home to go on some vague, probably non-existent "mission trip." Or when I, at 11, took the fall for my mother leaving alone with her boyfriend and four special need foster kids under five for a week so she wouldn't lose her license. Or when I faked it was all fine and told no one about the hell they put me through. Those were the kind of "lies" I told. they didn't hurt me when they did so they wouldn't feel bad about the hell they put me through. No, they claimed I WAS a selfish LIAR personified. Despite no one else in my life ever seeing that. 

My mother and dad would say that no one else knew me like they did. I was cunning and had grandparents hoodwinked, they said. They were gulled by my lies. I was untruthful by nature and weaponized deceptions. Funny, they expected grandparents to pretty much raise me. My parents spent virtually no time with me. If I was so awful, why let me spend time with them if they expected I would lie so much? I think now the problem was they were afraid I'd spill on all the dangerous, scary, abusive things they did. They  needed have worried. I was loyal, far too loyal. If I lied at all, it was to protect my parents from censure. 

And then they double dealt, too. They hinted that I was untruthful, expecting them to believe and not trust me. To plant seeds of doubt. It's all very twisted and far above my paygrade as a kid to figure out. So I just assumed they were right and I did a lot of things I didn't know I did. This explains the horrible dreams I have every night regarding situations such as this. I dream that everyone has formed a tribunal against me and found me guilty. But they won't say of what. I just know it unspeakable. People are always angry with me for failing to do all the impossible tasks they've set me to and given me no tools or help with. It's endless expectation, moving hoops and tyrannical demands. 

The craziness of these dreams shows they're probably more memory than dreams. Because this is my parents' modus operandi: vigilante smear campaigns, witch hunts, kangaroo courts, water-boarding, posse ambushes.  Being very arrogant self-righteous Christian "evangelists", they believe they sit in judgement from which they are exempt. They think they know peoples' minds. They believe they are God's little KGB agents sent to sniff out duplicitousness in others. They went looking for dirt and if they didn't find it, they planted it. Immorality, disobedience, commandment-breaking, sinning, they were tasked with unearthing it all. 

Which is all really ironic because there were no commandments or rules my parents didn't flout. They got divorced for no reason in a time when it was not cool. They had affairs, lived in sin, fornicated, had and paid for abortions, were convicted on child abuse charges, stole, cheated, lied, exploited, kicked their parents in the butt, scammed, dealt drugs, evaded taxes, allowed their children to be harmed, you name it. All while sanctimoniously playing the organ in church. My dad, after abandoning me in Alaska, felt entitled to preach in any church he wished, just cuz he was special. How they got away with it all is the boggling things. A jobless man leaving his neglectful wife sleeping around while the child wanders alone, penniless, hungry and homeless 3K miles from the child's home so he can "preach the good news." I challenge anyone to find a precedent for that. But don't forget I was the lying bad seed.  

Now that one is just funny because my mother lies so much she can't keep her lies straight. I'm not sure now if she ever really told the truth or if it all was devious deceit. Because she lies like breathing. I've caught her in or remembered so many it's exhausting. Her lying nature is and has been so prevalent that even she finally admitted that she has a "little trouble with the truth." A minimized understatement, to be sure. And one which required "God to reveal to her" before she'd fess up. She never enumerated the actual lies (no one has that much time). Nor did she apologize for all the hurt her lies caused. It was just another of her plea-bargaining pity moves. My other three parents just never admitted how many times they bent the truth to suit themselves. But the damage  is already done, like with so many of the awful things they said about me. I believe them that it's my fault. I'm the problem. 

This lie proves itself untrue just by its very self-serving, exaggerated, gotcha-ness. Now that I'm a parent and grandparent myself, I see that. I didn't then. When they accused me of things, I was so confused, bewildered and shell-shocked. I couldn't think straight. I still can't see through the clouds of gas. I didn't remember doing anything wrong but then my memory is notoriously fuzzy. Gas poisoning will do that. And they attacked with such venom and anger that I figured that no parent would do that unless what I did was really bad. What I see now is that GOOD parents don't. But self-important, haughty, cruel, Machiavellian ones do. 

I try to be a good parent. So I don't go looking to entrap kids in lies. I don't put them in situations in which they have no choice but to lie. I don't make it unsafe for them to tell the truth. I don't take other peoples' part against my children to set them up. I don't allow my partner to falsely malign my child to feed his ego. I don't let my partner make up shit about my child to shame her into being a groveling servant. I don't exploit weaknesses. I don't dump my crazy shit on my kid to break her spirit so she'll be more amenable. I don't expect her to take on adult responsibilities and do all my work and then cut the legs out from under her. I don't patronize or condescend to humiliate her and then gaslight her that she's too sensitive. I don't lie myself and expect her to cover for me. I don't triangulate or manipulate or put her in the crosshairs. Like my authority figures did. They called me a liar to shield their entirely false fabricated fantasy cult. 

You can be sure any parent that accuses their child publicly of being a liar is 99% certain to be a pathological liar themselves. You have to ask what does the child stand to gain versus the parent. Children do it because it's expedient, either to protect themselves or because they have no one to advocate for them. Anytime I have discovered that a kid lied, it always has a common sense reason. If they do frame someone else, it's not to be cruel. It's because in the child's mind, they deserved it. And with a little mercy and guidance the child can be helped find healthier patterns. Sometimes it'd just a matter of hearing and acknowledging them. Not true the lying narcissist parent. They lie purposely to throw the kid under the bus because they don't want to admit to the abusive, neglectful, endangering and exploitative things they are doing. 

Ignorant invalidating nonsense I've been told about my experiences with narcissistic parent abuse

Hi friends. Today on my path to healing CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse, I'll share some stupid things people have said to me in response to hearing my backstory. I come from a Christian background, so a lot of it is quasi religious and said by fellow church members. Some of it is just faux positivity nonsense. It was all said in in hypocritical, ignorant arrogance (a deadly combo). And all of it has hurt like hell, kept me in confused conformity and set me back decades in healing. This gaslighting invalidation happened even in counseling which I why I quit going. It convinced me that I really was the problem my family said I was and that keeping silent was the only option. 

So to start, I rarely ever tell anyone outside of a few trusted people and this blog, about the neglect, endangerment, abuse, abandonment, scapegoating, invalidation, enmeshment, manipulation, exploitation and cruelty I experienced from my four narcissistic parent figures (two bio and their new partners). And for the very reason outlined above. I have rarely ever experienced compassion, just shaming, blaming and self-righteous judgementalism. And if I needed more of that, I'd just go visit my family of origin. 

The most baffling things people have said in response to things I've shared is to immediately defend my parents. No matter how shocking their behavior. Like abandoning me or sending me to play alone at 5, 3 blocks from home in a park where a known pedo hung out. Or exposing me to sickening sexual deviance. And openly having affairs and living "in sin." Like making me slave for my dad and his new wife on my hands and knees. Like leaving me with strangers in a strange place 3K miles from home, so my mother could go God knows where. Like dumping me at a camp, at 6.  Like my dad leaving me alone with a very dangerous mother for two years while he went on a "mission trip." I put that in quotes because turns out it was just a big adventure. Like mom turning a blind eye and quietly approving her boyfriend screaming and threatening me. And then leaving 11 y/o me with him and four special needs kids under 5 for a week. All while marching us all off to church weekly, and praying, preaching and Bible beating. These are only a few of the terrifying things they did. 

I don't dare to tell anyone because they somehow always seem to find a reason why these behaviors weren't so bad. Well, the few I've told. I've learned from experience not to share because I only end up getting burned. I'm serious. I told a church friend about my dad abandoning me to be a missionary to the "Indians" his words, in Alaska. And she said "oh that's so noble of him (!)." Noble? To leave his 6 year old daughter??? 

My father has also, since I was 5, been threatening to kill himself. To me. I was the only 6 year old who knew what suicide meant. I would cry and beg him not to and say how I'd miss him. And he glibly said he didn't care. He weaponized his own self-proclaimed depression to get me to exonerate the bad things he did to me. He told me how no one understood and everyone was so "critical" of him and then called me "too sensitive" when he continually berated and bullied me. But when the few people I've told always feel sorry for HIM! Oh poor Jack, how he must have been hurting. Now I see it was just a power move to groom me into feeling sorry for daddy and letting him exploit and abuse me in anyway he wanted to keep him alive. The one who actually self-harmed, and didn't tell anyone, was me. I've contemplated ending my own worthlessness so often. Alone. But God forbid Jack feel any guilt for his actions. 

After moving us to Alaska when I was 5, ostensibly to mission to the Indians, their neglect of me went off the charts. No one saw to it I ate or had a bed, clothing or a place to go to the bathroom. I have almost no memory of either of them being around much. I have no idea what they did. I do know that my mother and probably dad was cheating on the other. And on me.  In a town where I  knew no one. I wandered by myself down by the docks. The random fishermen who happened to be there were more concerned for my safety than my parents. 

Then, out of the blue, my mom decided to divorce my dad. I didn't know what this meant. I'd never heard of anyone getting divorced. No one I knew was.  Another word I  had to  learn to young. She coldly told me and said to get over it. And so I did. No one has ever since asked me how I coped. Except my husband and a friend when I was in my 50s. 

And being their only child, and them being narcissists, they set about remaking their "best new lives" without me. Well, I say that but really it was without responsibility to me. They were never what you'd call responsible but now they rewrote it that their marriage was a  mistake and so apparently was I. And  one they could just erase on a whim. Yet I was expected to be completely obedient, subservient and cultishly loyal to whatever new reality they chose to dump on me. And what's really galling is to realize, at 61, how they managed to con everyone else with this nonsense. 

I've since realized that they didn't divorce each other as much as they divorced from me. I didn't know that children are the biggest losers in a divorce. I didn't know because the focus was always on my "poor mom and dad" and how they'd suffered. Even though there were no real grounds. And believe me, if there had been, I'd have been the first one they dumped it on. I see now that my narcissist mother just wanted a cast change in the Nancy Show. She was bored. I was actually told I was "lucky" because theirs was a "good divorce." Whatever that means. 

But there again, people always get the wrong end of the stick. I said before that I knew no one whose parents were divorced. It was so uncommon in our time and place that there was no real frame of reference. And I was harassed by kids who didn't understand. I must be spoiled because I had "two homes" when actually I had none. And then factor in them getting remarried and having new families. There was no one to talk to about it because no one understood anything about it. 

But now that we've all grown up,  these same people whose parents weren't divorced, who have no clue what it was like to live with back then, suddenly are experts on it and very shaming, invalidating ones at that. I've actually been told "oh lots of kids' parents were divorced. You're not special." I never claimed to be but, yeah, now that you  mention it, I am very unique. Because when I say "name me one." And then they gape like fish out of water because, looking back, they can't. They have to admit that yes, in that time and place, it was very strange. 

And then add stranger to strange, living in 34 different places before you were 21. Being bounced from place to place. Having a dad running around on some frat boy long vac, claiming to be a preacher, unable to contacted, and a mother just running around. And then bringing in a string of boyfriends and making out with them in front of me and accusing me of being jealous and them moving the most vulgar abusive one in with us and quitting her job to have a foster care home in which she didn't take care of the kids and I did. And letting him sexually harass me. And then a dad dating a 17-y/o when you're 9 and then marrying selfish, lazy tyrant who used you as a servant and surrogate parent to her kids. I was deprived of all the basics, enough food, rest, shelter, medical care, a decent bed. A space of my own where I didn't have to co-sleep with their latest baby. And for all this I provided them, being the ever-lasting scapegoat, bullied, humiliated and blamed. Being both parentified and infantilized. Being expected to be the parent and adult as a child, with no power or control to actually do what was expected. While being treated like a child with no rights or privileges, by immature, irresponsible parents. And the list of weird goes on and on. It's so bassackwards my brain hurts trying to wrap it around. 

And the worst, the very worst part of all, is that NOBODY DID DAMN THING TO HELP ME. Not one person acknowledged how very strange and difficult, neglectful and abusive this was. They, who were good Christian people, turned a blind eye and let me believe it was all fine and part of God's will for me. They just rolled over with my parents con job that I was their possession but never their responsibility and that their shiny new people were their real family. That they could use and abuse me at will like some kind of gardening tool you let rust in the shed till you need it. That I was just an oops and not a real person. 

And so I did likewise. With no one to tell me otherwise, I just accepted all their chaos, endangerment, lies, gaslighting and exploitation like it was normal and healthy. I assumed I was just their drone, no life, no goals, no hopes or identity. And I spent my life in servitude to them all, despite their despicable treatment. Because no one said anything against it. Ever. These good Christian people all turned away like the Pharisees who walked on the other side to avoid the injured man. And what do we know about silence? It implies consent. 

When once I asked an aunt and later an uncle, I got nothing but more silence and/or backpedaling. These very people who eschewed all the things my parents did, just enabled it all. You'd think that 60 years on, someone could have at least thrown me a bone and said, yeah, it was wrong. They were wrong. Or we were wrong to let you think this was okay. I never expected anyone to fix anything for me. But a word of support would have helped. 

But even in this, I get more toxic positivity shit about forgiveness and rising above and understanding them. Cut them slack, you mean. Say it. You think and you have always thought, that it's my problem and not  yours. That I've always known. So then why are you defending my parents? If you've kicked me to the curb, fine, get out of the way so I can try to move on. Stop shaming and invalidating me. 

And then, more shaming. Oh, well, they meant well. They probably didn't dare to, were afraid, yada fucking yada. Okay so they were afraid of my parents. Well how do they think I felt?? THEY WERE GROWN ASS ADULTS AND I WAS A KID!! My sympathy for adults who can't hack it, leaving a kid to cope alone, has worn thin. Sorry not sorry. 

I'll never get any help from my narcissist parents. Two are dead and the other two are soul dead. And I wouldn't want their eleventh hour repentances if they would which they won't. Save it for your God. You've slammed the door on me all my life and I'm just removing my foot from it and letting it stay closed. Unforgiving? Eh, realistic. 

I think the reason that my family dismisses me is that they know they dropped the ball. They left me to carry it alone. And they are ashamed. But instead of being honest they gaslight. Fine. I don't care. At least I know now where not to look for support. I think the ones that piss me off the most are the ones with no knowledge of me or my background or family, pontificating out of their asses about how I'm supposed to handle it.  . 

I have no patience for belittling of others' experiences. I have less patience for judgmental, self-righteous advice. I have least patience of all for condescending, pretentious Christian pratting about what God expects of us. It's so damned pompous and ignorant and misguided. You notice they don't say we should do these things only YOU should do these things. Where were you when I was alone and suffering? In your own comfortable world. And until you have walked 61 years in my, just shut it. You do not know what you are talking about. 

My religious narcissist parents' shockingly hypocritical double standards make my story extra weird

 Hello my friends. Today I'm going to show you how my Christian narcissist parents' abusive, hypocritical double standards make my story unique. Now, if you know about narcissists, you'll be asking, aren't they all hypocritical, holding themselves above rules they place on others? Yes they are and do. But the Christian narcissists take it to the next level dressing up their arrogant, entitled expectations as gospel truth and placing burdens on people that they don't carry. And then Christian narcissist parents level it up again, by grooming their child in the parents' self-serving, self-styled cult. And then my parents (all four, two bio and their new partners) took it nuclear. Here's how my backstory of abuse differs radically from any I've ever heard. 

So your garden variety religious narcissist is an inflexible, bossy, binary know-it-all. It's their way and nothing else. They gaslight that what they are teaching (or beating you over the head with) is God's way but it's not. Because by their very rigidity, they violate basic Biblical principles. BUT they also, at least ostensibly, live by these principles. Sort of. 

For example, they preach against abortion and would never take someone for an abortion. And they would NEVER have an abortion. Or at least if they did, they admit and recant. My mother did both (having and taking someone for an abortion). While still preaching that it was wrong for everyone else. She never admitted to doing this nor did she repent. But I remember because I got left behind alone with strangers on a remote island of Alaska while she went to Seattle. My father was wandering around in the wilds of Alaska and she'd had at least two affairs. She said it was for a bladder infection which she would not need to have traveled 1,800 miles to have treated when there was a clinic on the island. And I know about her taking someone because I sat in the car and waited.  It was just another rule she felt entitled to pontificate but not practice. 

Mainline religious narcissists also preach against adultery, pedophilia, divorce, infidelity, promiscuity, fornication and "living in sin." And so, ergo, don't do these things. My mother and father did all of these with various other people while married and after divorce. Blatantly. Openly. While still Bible beating and actually preaching and even doing "mission work." 

Now having said that, I'd not be surprised if other judgmental, self-righteous Christians lived hypocritically. We know the anti-abortion folks of MAGA for instance, have had and paid for abortions. We know that they get divorced, remarried and cheat while still telling others not to. But the difference is, most of them are clandestine about it. A dear friend's husband was able to keep his adultery secret for years. So, while not defending him, at least he felt some shame about it. 

My parents felt none. Zero. My 36 y/o dad "dated" a 17 year old and took me on dates with them. I remember sitting on her bed and seeing all her stuffed animals lined up. And my pushing-40 preacher dad arrogantly claiming this was all fine and dandy. He gaslit me saying this was all part of God's plan. My church organist mother had a series of affairs (such a nice word for such a disgusting behavior). She made out with her creepy boyfriends in front of me. She accused me of being "jealous." I was 8.Then she moved her boyfriend into our home and  made an "apartment" for them in the basement. 

She was running a foster care home and kicked me out of my room and made me sleep with the four special needs kids under 5. (I said you can't make this up). She allowed several unmarried couples to sleep together in our house, one couple in my room. This was NOT kosher in our quiet family friendly neighborhood. And yet she read her Bible daily and ostentatiously prayed and bragged about leading people to Jesus. In fact, that's how she spun having her affair with a married man: witnessing to him by sleeping with him. 

Mainline Christian narcissist parents may be PITAs to live with but they do at least provide basic care for their children. By basic I mean food, a bed, shelter, clothing, medical care and safety. They don't make them do all the chores, including heavy housework, co-sleeping with the babies and waiting on them and their new spouses like a servant. Mine did not provide much of anything. I've been pretty much on my own all my life often not having a clue where my parents were. My dad went on a two year "mission trip" when I was 6. I just learned last year that this constitutes child abandonment. 

This is a very small snippet of the insane chaos I've lived with all my life. But don't hear what I'm not saying. This is not a competition to see who has the worst story of parental abuse. It is me trying to get myself fumigated from all the gaslighting so I can be healthier. And it's also about me recognizing that my personal story is so extra weird that it's uncharted territory. I've never been able to address it because it's so hard to explain because there's no precedent for it. 

And because people bring their own life frame of reference and mine doesn't fit in any. What they can't understand, they minimize, invalidate, deny and gaslight. Instead of just accepting that wow, Marilisa, you've lived one hell of a nightmare. I've been dismissed and pooh-poohed often enough to make me disbelieve my own experience. 

Toxic positivity BS that Christians gaslight kids of narcissist parents with

 Hey friends. I'm going to start with a very frank admission. As an adult child with CPTSD from Christian narcissist parent abuse, I don't have much use for churches or Christians. I'm don't hold God responsible as such for their behavior. I've been told that through all their abuse and neglect he was there with  me (by people who weren't there and didn't experience what I experienced. And they may be right. I don't have a lot of memories besides bad ones. But I can remember this. It was just me in those situations and I didn't feel like anyone was there. No family. Neither of my parents. Not their new people. No church or friends. And that was a bitch. 

When I say I have little use for church, I'm not trying to sound above it all. I didn't arrive at this from any esoteric, intellectual quest but from a lifetime of pain, suffering, abandonment, endangerment, manipulation, exploitation, parentification, invalidation, cruelty, deprivation, humiliation. From living in in the impossible  hypocritical double standards of four malignant narcissist parents who were supposed to love me but didn't. I was their scapegoat. Nothing about the lives of normal people was part of mine. The only consistency was chaos. I had to earn any good thing I needed with unreasonable demands that I never managed to meet. I was a slot machine always paying out at my expense. 

So the nice Bible stories, prayers, songs and sermons never seem to apply to me. I can't hear the love in scripture because I was raised to make my selfish arrogant parents gods.  I don't hate anyone. I just don't get anything much from religion besides more shame and pain. Because, and let me be clear about this, most church people don't know jackshit about childhood trauma. And they care even less. I've been so damaged by so many "christians" in so many churches through my 61 years that I doubt I'll ever recover fully. 

My parents gaslit everyone, calling themselves Christians while treating me in ways completely contrary to the Bible. They lived immoral lives and were completely neglectful of me in the name of religion. They left me alone in strange  places starting at age 4, so they could do their "mission work." I have no idea what they did because I was never part of it. I was along for the arm candy I could provide. 

So all these sweet sounding injunctions about how to get along with people and how I'm supposed to act as this brain damaged kid. Most of it is irrelevant and best and toxic gaslighting and abuse at the core. Stuff like, kill them with kindness, rise above, be the bigger person, forgive. If you've been abuse you know that you already did and do all these things and it makes the narcissists more entitled and abusive. 

So before anyone even begins to try to advise a child or adult child of narcissist parents, they need to know their audience. Read the room. Watch this child's behavior. Listening won't tell you much because we abused kids are just one big trauma response, mostly fawning. We will not give you the real story about how they treat us. But it's there if you look. 

And please for God's sake stop with the toxic positivity horse crap. Actually don't do this with any child or any adult who comes to you humbly seeking help. If all you have is your religion's patois save it. Remember, fools rush in (with advice) where angels fear to tread. Just admit to them that you don't have experience with this but that you care and will hold space for them. Know that these are people who are hurting from decades of abuse. VALIDATE them because no one else has. 

Also know that suicide is off the charts high among kids who've suffered narcissistic parent abuse an neglect. Especially those of us whose parents said they did this in the name of God. We've endured so much deceit, shame, cruelty and gaslighting. Pause to consider that you may be their last hope before they end it for good. Do you really want to assist them on their way out the door? 

Narcissist parents lie and gaslight kids to damage the child's sense of self

, Hello my friends. Today I listened to a talk on Youtube by psychologist Patrick Teahan about how narcissist parents destroy a child's sense of self by creating a false narrative about the child embedding their wrong version in her mind. In laymen's terms, they lie to and about their child and gaslight her into believing wrong things about herself. That is spot on what my parents and their new spouses did to me. The image they painted of me was of a disobedient, stupid, mouthy, bitter, jealous, selfish, arrogant, stingy, lazy spoiled brat. I was too sensitive but also too critical, a show off and a liar. That's all so rich coming from them, I see in retrospect. 

And I believed them that I was the cause of all their problems. I was continually working to correct these "character flaws" I supposedly had. I was too obedient, to the point of doing all their work. I kept quiet and rolled over for everything including neglect, abandonment, endangerment and abuse. I was so humble I groveled. I endlessly gave away things I needed to survive and they endlessly took, depriving me of even the most basic care. I welcomed any  new person they shoved on me and bent over backwards for them. When they raged at, threatened, hit, stole from, humiliated, mocked, kicked me out of the house, made me do all kinds of inappropriate things, I just assumed it was what I deserved. I have felt this way all my life. I was groomed to expect poor treatment. 

You might think this sounds a bit exaggerated and it was, but not by me. I downplayed it. All my life I did what I call the 6 Ex's of their abuse. I excused, exonerated, expunged, excepted, explained away, exempted all the wrong they did to me. I took on myself the consequences of their bad actions both in the harm they caused and by allowing myself to be scapegoated. I was blamed for every bad thing they did. The exaggeration of my "terrible behavior" was on their part. But they did their job well and their version of me is the one that sticks. 

I now have the onerous task of sorting out what was true and what was false and then trying to rewrite a more accurate understanding of myself. And I see that their scapegoating of me served their malignant narcissistic agenda. And as such it  renders everything they said, wrong. I'd have an easier time sorting fly crap from pepper than figuring out what parts were accurate. So I've decided to throw the entire thing out because it's all fake. I was framed as the problem to distract from their wrongdoing both to me and to a lot of people. Each of my four "parents' has burned through many relationships. Unfortunately, that didn't occur until later. 

When I was young,  they were able were able to con a lot of people. People who should have helped me but didn't. Either because they didn't care or  because they believed the lies. So this is how a narcissist parents creates a false self-image in their children. They design a fake ID of the child. They lie and get their version in first before the child is old enough to see it as fake. They hurry to tell others their false version because as you probably know, the first version of a story is almost always the one believed no matter how untrue or ludicrous it is.  That's how false accusations perpetuate. And the innocent victim of the smear campaign has a devil of a time changing people's minds. 

The liars don't have to prove their lies. They just accuse and then the victim has to disprove lies that if they'd never been told no one would even think about. Often the lies are so patently stupid that they're obviously wrong. But they're cleverly said by the liar to make them sound convincing. Narcissists aren't amateurs in the deceit game. They know what to say and how to say it. Such as my dad calling me "disobedient" when everyone knew I was doing the lion's share of the work in his foster care home. They knew because they said that them having an adult foster care home with young children was a terrible idea to begin with. 

They knew I was doing work that was far too heavy and dangerous. They knew that everything he was accusing me of was kid stuff that all children do. Stuff he did as a kid and even as an adult! And yet somehow, no one stood up to Jack when he would rage at me in front of them. Did no one else see the irony in that?? My dad raging, as in spitting in my face, about how I was angry?? But yet, they must have believed that I was the problem. At least that's how my 11 y/o self interpreted their silence. As consent. Ergo my wrong assumptions that it was all my fault. 

Narcissist parents also use partial truths or they tell half the story. The half that paints them as the hero-victim-martyr. And the child as the perpetrator. They say the child got angry but they don't tell how they enraged their child. My mother told everyone I was a liar and untrustworthy (that would be her). She said I was forgetful and that I lost things. To explain away why so many of my things disappeared when she was around. 

Now this is also obviously wrong and why they believed her, I don't know. Everyone that knows Nancy  knows she's "tricky" as one aunt put it. They also know she's deceitful, arrogant, entitled, haughty, demanding, two-faced, hypocritical, adulterous, serial cheater, neglectful and abusive mother, an exhibitionist, attention-seeking liar and thief. Definition of a malignant narcissist. But yet these same common sense people let themselves be gulled by her so often. They never, ever tried to help me deal with her. They never even acknowledged any of her horrible behavior to me. They (as in my entire family) left me to cope alone. Which is yet another reason I thought the problem was me. 

Which leads me to the next gaslighting trick narcissist parents use against their child. They rely on the fact that the things they do are so outrageously, egregiously, blatantly wrong that no one believes any parent would or could do these things. But believe me they can and do. Just the fact that my stories sound so outlandish (like them abandoning me alone at 6 3K miles from home with strangers) should be proof that they happened. I could never make this up! 

They also use the aforementioned exaggeration and manipulation to make the child's normal behavior sound like selling state secrets. That's what actually got me understanding where the problem lay. I think of how I do things with my children and grandkids, that were the opposite of what I experienced.  And terrible things I'd never dream of doing were done to me. And I realize that I was a child too. 

Exhaustion and ill health from narcissistic parent abuse follows us into adulthood

 Hello my friends. I am exhausted and I have been for as long as I can remember. I could sleep 12 hours and wake up more tired than when I went to bed. I can't breathe when I sleep. I wake up choking. I nightmare all night long. This is not laziness. This is from chronic expectation, demands and abuse from narcissistic parents that has followed me all my life. My brain hurts from the constant gaslighting, invalidation and shaming. 

Normal things require far more energy than they should. I don't eat right because my stomach hurts and if I do eat, I can't stay awake. Every muscle aches and burns. This is not exaggerated. It's downplayed. I've felt like this all my life but it took me 6 decades to articulate it. And I've not let it slow me down. I'm the power through girl because I had to be. There was no excuse my mom and her husband or dad and his wife would except for not doing their work. 

And I do mean their work. My "duties" as a kid were not kid appropriate. I had far more chores than anyone else I knew. I see now that I didn't just do my work but everyone's. And under conditions that no one should have had to do. For example, twice a week, I had to mop the floor on my hands and  knees when mops were readily available and cheap. If they'd done it themselves they'd have used one. And they  made me vacuum with huge heavy antiquated vacuum when everyone else's family had a lightweight upright. So it must have been some kind of sadistic thing watching me crawling around with a rag or lugging a heavy industrial size vacuum. My dad would say "well I have to use this, you can too." But he didn't. Nobody did but me. 

I had to make supper and clean it up, set and clear the table and do dished, plus make lunches for everyone. I was still in the kitchen at 8pm while everyone was in front of the TV. And I still had all my homework to do. I wasn't able to participate in any after school activities because there were always chores to be done. I had to babysit whenever they demanded it. I had to co-sleep with their babies because my dad and his wife "needed their rest." I was locked in with one of them. 

And then there was all the ironing to be done. And clothes to fold. My husband he remembers helping me fold clothes while my siblings played and my stepmother watched TV. In fact, she'd sit there on the couch ignoring the three baskets of clothing waiting for me to get home from night classes in college s o I could fold them. I was taking a full load of classes plus teaching full time and doing homework. And I was still responsible for them. 

I also had to clean the bathroom (including when they had a foster care home, cleaning up after four adult men). I was responsible for dusting their furniture, feeding the pets and cleaning the cat box. I had to help shovel snow. I had to help put groceries away. I changed diapers and bathed the children. I read them stories and tucked them in. I got to thinking not too long ago. If I did all that what other housework was there to do? And I realized, nothing more. My step mother did nothing. My half siblings did nothing. My stepfather did nothing. My mom and dad puttered. So I feel justified in saying that I ran their households. 

But I didn't understand that till just recently. My husband has persistently said that they overworked me and subjected me to inhuman conditions no one else in my two families lived with. I was exploited and manipulated, parentified and scapegoated while also being abused and neglected. And now I have the back, hip, shoulder and neck problems to prove it. And autoimmune and arthritis and breathing problems. These didn't just start. I've had them for as long as I can recall. 

It's frustrating because now I can't enjoy the things I should be able to because I'm so burned out. That's the image for it, too. Not just burned but burnt out. Used up. I've cut contact with my narcissistic parents but they still have a hold over me from all the gaslighting, invalidation and deprivation. I would love to let it go and I have but it won't let me go. I'm writing a lot about this now to try to evict them from my life. To purge the indoctrination, the trauma memories. 

And yes, before you say it, I've prayed. Oh how I've prayed. And I'm too empty to have any more words. I'm tired. I just want to sleep well and heal from all this. My narcissistic parents  have never suffered any consequences. They just maintain their entitled arrogant denial of it all. My mother endlessly lies and distorts. It's bad enough to be abused as a child and teen but for the abuse to continue hurting the victim and never the perpetrator is just so wrong. 

Malignant narcissist parents systematically invalidate and gaslight their scapegoat kids to break them

 Hello my friends. Today, I watched a Youtube vlog by Dr. Ramani explaining how narcissists invalidate (shame, dismiss and criticize)  and gaslight (lie and twist to deny someone else's reality) and the difference between invalidation and gaslighting. Today I'm going to explain how dark tetrad malignant narcissist parents invalidate and gaslight  their scapegoat kids. They don't just do this occasionally. It is their modus operandi. Using a cocktail of invalidation, coercive control, deprivation and gaslighting, malignant narcissist parents systematically and strategically break their scapegoat child. 

They are playing a long game of death by a thousand cuts, with the intent to destroy any good thing their child has, thinks, feels or does. They parentify the child, making her responsible for them and anyone they drag into her life and subject her to (hookups, boyfriends, girlfriends, new spouses, new kids). They also infantilize her, undermining her confidence, shaming and criticizing how she parents them. Yes I said that. They force the child to take on their adult jobs and responsibilities which the child isn't capable of doing. They also don't model, assist or give adequate resources for completing these tasks. The child is expected to complete tasks like an adult while being given no authority or power. They demand all kinds of unreasonable things of her. They indoctrinate her to believe she owes them everything and they owe her nothing. My husband has said that all four of my narcissist parents treated me worse than an indentured servant in that I could never work off my indenturement. 

They also use coercive control plus deprivation to weaken the child and cripple her ability to see what they are doing or protect herself. They move the child far from any support.  They deny the child basic needs and rights as a family member. They cut her short on sleep by making her co-sleep with babies in cramped rooms. They deprive her of a proper bed. I've spent many nights on couches, sleeping on the floor, in camp cots or on the ground. I rarely had any space of my own. There was not enough food provided for me while they had plenty. I didn't take a bath for my sixth year of my life because no one saw to it I had a roof over my head let alone running water or a bathroom. We were not poor. They had just decided to up and leave to be missionaries. What they ended up doing was abandoning me and then divorcing. 

I've been tired and exhausted since childhood. I can't sleep without trauma nightmares. I'm too weary to fight it and they know that. They are not weary because they have always had me to do the heavy lifting. They are energized by their own arrogance. They are well fed at my expense. They've always seen to their own medical care even to the point of factitious ailments. Yet neglected my basic care which has rendered me even more run down. I have back damage on par with someone on a chain gang or who did hard labor. 

Then they swoop in with the gaslighting and invalidation. They lie and manipulate memories painting the child as the problem. They deny that what happened happened. They downplay it. Or they twist it into something it wasn't. And they blame-shift. My memories are very, very confused and distorted. I've forgotten large chunks of my life. What I do recall is very bad. This is the effect of gaslighting and invalidation. I sometimes call gaslighting gassing because it damages the brain so badly. But they can't gaslight away the nightmares and physical damage they caused. 

These conspire together to squash the child's sense of self and then to create a false sense that the child is nothing more than their scapegoat, slave, surrogate spouse and parent. The child is groomed to believe that she is not a unique self but just a possession to be used by her narcissist parents however they want. And as a possession, separated parents enslave her to any new person they decide to hook up with as well. So affair partners, boyfriends, girlfriends, new spouses, new children. And they categorically deny and ignore all that happened as if it never did. My first 21 years of life might never have been because no one has ever acknowledged any of the crazy. It's like they were keeping me around for their convenience yet trying to erase me as a person. And they succeeded in many ways. 

Adult Kids of malignant narcissist parents endlessly trauma respond

 Hello my friends. Today I'm going to share some discoveries I've been making about myself. As an adult child of malignant narcissist parents (4, two bio and two stepparents) I suffered a great deal of abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, manipulation, triangulation, parentification, scapegoating and gaslighting about it all. This doesn't end in childhood. It continued all my life with these people and would till one of us died, had I not cut ties. Adulthood for children of narcissists isn't the same as it is for non-abused kids. We grow up in it and it forms our core being. We get used to be stolen from, lied to and exploited. I expect to be treated badly. That's how they groomed me to to not only tolerate but believe I deserve mistreatment. 

So as I grew, I didn't develop healthy coping skills or even survival skills. I learned only to trauma respond with fawning (groveling, dogged obedience), flight (running away when possible), freezing (staying small and quiet) and fighting (rarely and only when provoked beyond endurance and I had a surprisingly high pain tolerance for someone whose resources were so depleted). There's another trauma response I'll add which I did a lot and that's fixing. I constantly feel the need to repair for people, at my own expense, things they break. I let them gaslight me and put responsibility on me which is not mine. I placate, people please and endlessly serve. I hate that word. All the joy was stripped from it by unpleasable, relentless narcissist parents' inappropriate expectations and demands. 

What I've discovered is that basically all my kneejerk behaviors are trauma responses not healthy choices. I never do what I want because I want to. I only donwhat I think I SHOULD do which is what others' expect of me. If that happens to also be good for me, okay. If not, okay too. I'm over-giving and riddled with guilt for not giving enough. Boy does that come in handy for the narcissists. I give too much and they take too much and then exploit my constant shame to get more. And they never face any consequences. I take them all on myself. I'm a broken slot machine that keeps paying out her own pocket and apologizing when I run out. Plus they get they malignant, safistic narcissistic supply from seeing me ashamed. Yes that's disgusting. 

I give in and retract when someone eschews my ideas, puts me down or criticizes me. My first response is to believe they are right, then feel ashamed and apologize. Without thinking. Then I self flagellate myself for being so stupid.  I'm raw meat for a malignant narcissists voracious appetite. 

Lowdown, dirty tricks malignant narcissist parents play on their scapegoat child

 Hi friends. Today in my quest to heal CPTSD from malignant narcissist parent abuse, I'm looking at lowdown dirty tricks that narcissist parents play on their scapegoat child. Very often these tricks are insidious, passive-aggressive and sneaky that the child (raising my hand here) doesn't even realize she has been pranked until decades later. 

Hide and never find. Also called let's see how much we can steal from our child without her knowledge. Malignant narcissist parents are incredibly underhanded, secretive and cunning. They also think that they own their children and therefor their children's possessions. Even things other people give the child. It just occurred to a few months ago to wonder where all my toys and possessions went. There's literally nothing left of my childhood to prove I even existed. I'm not talking things that disappeared in adulthood. My things disappeared from my mom's house when I left to go to my dad's house or vice versa. Money just mysteriously evaporated out of my bank. My entire Canadian money collection vanished. My mother got mad at me for wondering and blamed my friend, suggesting she took it. If I asked about missing things, I was snapped at to stop being so greedy and possessive. (?!) And then they, who always skint suddenly had money for new things for boyfriends. 

Narcissist parents invent a false version of the child that gaslight people and the child. To cover their light-fingeredness, they told people and me, that I lost a lot things. They groomed me to expect to be stolen from, by making me think the problem was me. That I was forgetful and didn't take care of my belongings. It also painted me as unappreciative.  So I began to think of myself as careless. I got so used to my stuff coming up missing that I stopped searching.  As I look back, that was completely untrue. I've always been a neat, tidy and conscientious person and others will tell you that. 

Malignant narcissist parents weaponize carelessness and recklessness to frighten and confuse the child. They had me believing I wasn't careful but it was them. Many of my things "accidentally" got broken, too. Because they let their spoiled golden children mess around with my things. If I said anyone I was scolded for being selfish. My mother let her kids get into my makeup and they ruined the prom dress I bought with my own money. And she and her husband are ungrateful slobs. And if you think about it, a messy house is the perfect hiding place for things you steal from others. I bought her several mobile phones which she promptly lost. 

Narcissist parents lie about their finances to scam their kids into giving them things. Neither of my parents ever had any money when I needed things. I've been buying my own food since I was 16,. But there was always plenty for themselves and their new families.  This continued all through their lives. They always show up with hands outstretched, begging and demanding. When I finally got my first new car at 55, mom sniffed, "must be nice. Did you get a credit for a new car for your sister?"  When my mom's second husband divorced her, she claimed he took all their money and left her with  nothing. She hinted that I should feel sorry for her and help her out. While she is still living with him and looking plenty well-fed. I'm guessing they conspired to spin me that yarn because they know I'm generous. The gravy train named Marilisa derailed when I went no contact and I'm sure a lot of nasty things are being said about what a terrible daughter I am not to care for her parents when they are old (he's not my parent and she's never been one to me, so, no.) 

Malignant narcissist parents are completely negligent about their scapegoat kid's real medical issues and complete frauds about their own ailments. They fake illness to get sympathy and to get our of consequences for things. My mother is a raging case of  factitious disorders. She malingers and then threatens lawsuits of her symptoms are questioned. Yet she let my vision get so bad that I was almost blind before getting glasses. I spent a year  of childhood on penicillin, missed 8 weeks of school and had back to back strep throat infections because she didn't want to bother getting my tonsils out. My grandparents had to threaten her. Despite having congenital hip dysplasia, scoliosis and spina bifida as a child my dad and his wife made me do all kinds of back-breaking chores, like mopping on hands and knees, loads of ironing and vacuuming. They made me co-sleep with their babies in very uncomfortable beds. I now have back issues similar to children in undeveloped impoverished nations. I was told I had to do these things because my dad's wife had a bad back. What she was, was morbidly obese. There was no money for me to have a decent bed but my stepmother had a water bed. They had an expensive AKC registered dog who went to the vet more than I went to the doctor. 

These are a few things. There are lots more lowdown, dirty tricks malignant narcissist play on their scapegoat children. 

Hypocritical double standards malignant narcissist parents use to control kids

Hi friends. Ever seen someone who acts very insincere, smug, self-satisfied, arrogant and yet also very fake? It could very well be that this person is a narcissist. And the more time you spend around them the more weird behaviors you notice. If they think they have you under their spell (such as if you are their child growing up in their abuse) they get even more entitled and start to exhibit increasingly weirder behavior. I know because I was raised (if you can call it that, groomed might be a better word) in the cult of four narcissistic parents, two biological and their new partners. Here are words folks have used to describe narcissists in general and malignant sociopathic narcissists in particular and the bizarre behaviors they engage in. One thing all these things share is an element of hypocritical double standard. They arrogantly act one way yet just as arrogantly preach the opposite to others about how they should behave. For the child of narcissistic parents, these behavior make life one endlessly frustrating and confusing game of gaslighting and randomly shifting rules. 

easily bored by others' and boringly repetitive on their own pet themes

precious and hyper picky with their own stuff and careless with others. 

opportunist, chancer, capitalizes or even creates others' misfortune. Yet quick to finger point anyone who takes advantage of him, even accidentally. 

giddy, goofy, childish and immature, says she's never grown up as if this in an attractive trait. Scorns others who are genuinely children or who act child-like. 

coy, arch, flirty in creepy ways, is cougar with  younger men and sugar baby with older men (disgusting). Wears mini skirts and go-go boots when everyone else's mom is wearing Bermuda shorts. Self-righteously calls women tramps who act and dress like she does. 

shady, sketchy, con artist, scammer. Calls herself a brave risk-taker when she does it and other people liars for doing the same thing

coercive, controlling, intimidating, threatening, bullying, especially with her scapegoat child. Doesn't ask, expects and demands. 

punitive, arbitrary and Draconian in punishment. Calls it Godly discipline when she does it and abuse when you correct your children

disloyal, unfaithful, but expects loyalty from others

possessive of children but also neglectful of them

Self-centered. refers to everyone as hers "my family" even to children to whom they are also family. Treats child as extension of herself and not individual in her own right. 

light-fingered, thief, pick pocket. sees child as possession and so child's possessions as her own to do with as she wishes, owing no explanation to the child. things disappear when mother is around. Everything I owned when living with them disappeared and I got used to it and never wondered about it. 

greedy, covetous, hoarding. Scoops up free things and then complains about them. Goes to food pantry and whines about how they don't give out any meat. Skimpy and stingy with her own stuff. 

transactional with the few things she gives, expecting payment, reward or reciprocity. Then bails on agreement and returns nothing that has been given to her. Arrives empty handed and expects hands to be filled out of others' coffers. Calls it "just family doing for family" when on receiving end and business transaction when on giving end. Steals college fund and child support to lavish gifts on new boyfriend. Gives daughter money then claims it was a loan with interest. 

petulant, petty, easily angered over nothing and dismissive of actual hurts perpetrated on others

Belittling and mocking. Says she's an outspoken truth-teller who just says "it like it is" or says "what  other people are thinking." 

pouty and sulky yet quick to point out anyone else acting this way even when they aren't or are children just being children

vigilante always on the alert for others' wrong-doing yet cagey and secretive about her own awful behavior.

humiliates and shames child, actually saying "you ought to be ashamed of yourself" (check, done) for being a kid and acting like one, while blatantly behaving in shameful, licentious, immoral ways 

Smug, smirking, sneering, sanctimonious, self-righteous, supercilious above-it-all when telling others off for things they do themselves.   

hyper-sensitive yet tells you you're too sensitive

hyper-critical, nit-picky, fault-finding while calling you too critical AND too sensitive

Endlessly judgmental, in fact considers self God's mouthpiece to call others to repentance. Never repents or even admits to any wrong-doing. If caught, cries judgmental on others. 

Claims benefits of forgiveness and salvation like free pass but doesn't abide by terms. Says all his many wrongs are "covered by the blood". Preaches own weird and highly edited version of God's word Does not confess nor apologize. Does not extend actual Biblical forgiveness to others. Retains others' sins and browbeats them with what he defines as sin. Gives self special exemption, exclusion and exception. 

Insanely hypocritical. Wrong is right when he does it. Right is wrong when others do it. 

Entitled to do as he pleases no matter how wrong or hurtful that is. No one should ever question let alone criticize. He can abandon his 6 y/o daughter 3,000 miles from her home, on a whim and she must be completely on board. Then when she does because she has learned to kowtow, he faults her for "not being sad he went away." 

Know-it-all about things he knows nothing about. Pontificates, everything word he utters is ex cathedra. Sounds ridiculous. Then scolds daughter for explaining something she actually has a degree in. 

Pathologizes, labels (wrongly). Faults others for "showing off" by using real psychological words correctly then turns and uses them against people, wrongly. 

Pot stirrer. Creates drama. Then cries foul when burned by it.

Showy, exaggerated, artificial, counterfeit. Constantly in reaction formation mode. But quick to call others fake or frauds. 

Melodramatic yet calls out child for showing off often when they aren't. 

Invalidator, dismissive,

Questions to undermine, second guesses, plays Devil's advocate, picks apart what others do and say. Goes looking for inaccuracies and when there aren't any, makes them up. Is enraged if anyone dares to just ask him an information seeking question. 

Disrespectful, disobedient, insubordinate by nature. Can't handle authority. Rebellious like a bratty 13- y/o as an adult. Calls it obeying God's law by disobeying "man-made" laws. Considers self brave firebrand. Yet remonstrates with actual 13 y/o for her supposed disobedience which is just misunderstanding his unclear demands. Rails that child is insubordinate and disrespectful when neither he, his wife nor their children are ever respectful to her. 

Disloyal, unfaithful, cheater, adulterer by nature. Cheats on everyone, especially her child. Backstabs, conspires against child. Chummy with other cheaters. Calls herself open-minded and welcoming. And even preacher who is leading others to God (by sleeping with them). Expects dogged loyalty from child. Then twists it one step further and shames child calling her a "sheep" who follows blindly. 

Intimidating, threatening, menacing, coercive. Terrifying. 

Seductive, sexually and generally. Lures others to sin, uses people as cat's paws. Likes the rush she gets from the feeling that others are lusting over her. Flaunts self. Literally runs around naked and teehees when seen by a visitor. 

Triangulates. Pits people against each other by lying to and about each to the other. Sets people up. Secretly plots. Machinates. Orchestrates from the wings. Delights in creating chaos and then watching other people duke it out. Especially over her. Then fakes innocent concern with subtle shaming, claiming she had no idea why they are fighting. If called out, can't remember any of it. 

Two-faced. Betrays people. Traitor. Takes sides with aggressors, against children. Endangers child then defends perpetrators. Scolds and shames abused child. Blame shifts. Put responsibility for abuse on child. 

Self-pitying, plays victims. Does DARVO if confronted with behavior. 

Main character in all situations. It's all about her. Nothing matters unless it affects her. 

Liar, deceiver, back pedaler. Future faker, Promise breaker.  

Twists, rewrites history, gaslights. She can do as she likes including all manner of evil behavior and calls it being a Godly Christian. 

Misogynistic. If female, sees women including daughter, as competition. Hates them. Punishes them. Sees men as targets. If male, subjugates, demeans and enslaves victim women (daughter) to curry favor women who have authority over him. Hates them all. 

Shaming and shameful

Condescending, haughty, patronizing yet despises people who treat them this way. 

Vain, conceited, arrogant, proud, sneering, scornful, imperious Yet always looking for and calling out these traits in others. Even if they aren't there. 

Cagey, twisty, slippery

Superficial, artificial, fake, gamers, role-players, mask wearers, woman of a thousand faces

Exaggerated expressions, theatrical tone of voice, strange nonsensical word salad language

Show off, exhibitionist, will do anything for attention. Particularly favors things that make others uncomfortable or embarrassed. 

Vulgar, cheap, crass, crude, obnoxious. She loves to call others "rude, crude and lewd." Thinks she's cute for making up this epithet. Is actually those things. 

Loud. Brash. Brusque. Arrogant. Especially in inappropriate situations. Adores attention. 

Gossipy, rumor spreader. Stage whispers insults behind people's back. When on high horse will arrogantly "confront" others with their "sin." Calls it bold and Godly. Is affronted if legitimately confronted with her own actions. 

Easily offended over perceived slights. Yet dismisses any question about her own nasty hurtful behavior as people merely "choosing" to be offended. 

Lives by two personal rules. Is always right. If wrong, see first rule. Calls own bad choices accidents or mistakes and others' actual accidents or mistakes, choices. Or, she loves this one, when she does wrong, she was actually a victim who was led astray by evil doers. It's always someone else's fault. You should pity not censure her. In her book, others choose to do wrong while she is always the innocent good Christian martyr. 

Plays martyr. Hand to forehead oh how she's suffered at everyone else's hand. She manages to extract pity even from others' suffering she has blatantly, intentionally caused. 

Uses word I, me, mine a lot. Everything is always what about me? I'm hungry. I'm tired. I hurt. I'm sick. It's all about me. Pity me. Admire me. Support me. On and on and on. And all while neglecting her child's very basic needs. 

Atmospheric (you feel they are doing things to create a mood or effect.) Inauthentic. 

Loves tension and friction between people especially that which she created. Feels powerful. Large and in charge. (another of her cutesy accusations leveled at others). Sows dissention not peace

Agenda based interaction. Is always trying to persuade or convince, saying they need to be brought round to the right way of thinking. Which is confusing because the person usually already knows this and she knows they know it. She just wants to make it look like she has converted them. Or single-handed (you're welcome) turned them from their sinful ways. Has done this by having sex with them. True story. 

Always trying to sell something. usually an embroidered sob story, a better picture of herself than she actually, a lie that she didn't do something awful thing she did, or a very amended version of truth. Always a con or scam. 

Entraps people Calls herself convicted by God to show you the error of your ways. Very unclear what those are. You feel like she's trying to con you into admitting something because she is. Whatever it is, it's always something she herself does but has a good reason for doing. 

Loves to play Gotcha cop. Always looking to catch someone in a lie or misdeed. Is not picky about veracity of said lie or misdeed. Is just as content with fabrications and trumped up charges, maybe moreso. 

Truth is situational and changes to suit their needs

Risk-benefit analysis guides behavior (they don't think about doing right or good, only what seems to benefit them most). 

More concerned with personal gain (will sell out anyone to get what they want, Machiavellian, utilitarian)

kindness is conditional (you must earn any good from them and they never do good without expecting something in return. Evil, unkindness, cruelty they give away freely. But you mustn't give them any ever.)

They make false bargains. Help is transactional and they expect full repayment with interest for lost wages. And then they renege, retract and and pull out support once you have paid your part in full. You throw good money after bad with narcissists. 

Pathologically jealous then accuse children of jealousy when they find a new person to wave in her face. 

Disingenuous, sincerely insincere, salesperson. Is in marketing, not customer service. 

Oddly and exaggeratedly intense about inconsequential things. It feels scammy because it always is. Then also oddly callous and unconcerned about critical things, like their child's welfare, safety or health. 

Love to hear themselves talk. And talk is all they do. They don't walk the walk. Yet others must constantly prove themselves with deeds. 

Disagreeable. Need things done their way. They call themselves uncompromising on the "truth." like they're some kind of hero. Yet they lie all the time. They're just control freaks. 

Sets people us and pits them against each other for fun and profit. I know I mentioned this before. But it bears repeating because you need to be wary of this. If a person is smearing someone behind their back to you, know that they are doing it to you, too. Usually with an end to getting something. 

Very binary about her definition of right and wrong for other people but fluid about right and wrong for herself. 

Constantly rewrites double standard rules for herself and others. She changes rules without warning to keep others' hopping while changing rules for herself to avoid culpability and stay one jump ahead. Or so she imagines. For example, says abortion is wrong but only after she had one and also took a girl to have one. 

Is very Pick Me. Says whatever she thinks will make those she thinks are cool kids applaud her no matter how stupid, hypocritical or deceitful it is.

Polarizes and then reverses polarity. Says now that being anti-gun and supporting abortion is hypocritical for liberals but her MAGA cronies being pro-gun and anti-abortion is righteous and Godly, despite her knowing nothing about guns and never caring about them till she wanted to be a cool kid.  

Repeats gossip, rumors and falsehoods without verifying. In fact, prefers it as nonsensical as possible. Adds to rumor like a game of Telephone. 

Thrive on their own manufactroversy (manufactured controversy over things no one disagreed on till she created it--be very wary of this) 

Use people, love things. They play people like snooker balls against each other

Confides inappropriately in child to make her feel special. Mother has graciously deigned to dump all her weird sick shit on you, kid. So be grateful. And keep my secrets, damn you. What it actually does is to groom the child by isolating and making her feel icky. She feels too ashamed to tell anyone or get help. The child (raising hand here) absorbs and takes all herself mother's disgusting actions. For the longest time, I dreamed and thought that I was a dirty, pervert (as a kid) because I'd heard so much of my mother's dirty, perverted crap. I confused myself with the offender. It is covert sexual abuse. 

This is only a snapshot. There's more. Suffice it to say that to understand a malignant narcissist, you have to flip-flop everything you know or believe about right and wrong.