Sick, abusive gaslighting crap my dark tetrad mother has said and done, part 1 of many

My mother has done a ton of abusive crap over the years and cloaked in all manner of gaslighting lies. She strikes a pose as the good Christian woman and sort of pulls it off because she SAYS she is. No one questions. Until she burns them, which doesn't take long. It's hard to wear a mask 24-7-365. We have a bad habit of taking people at their word despite seeing much evidence to the contrast. You can wear a white coat but it doesn't make you a doctor. 

All of my life and hers, she's covered up her horrendous actions with DARVO (defend, attack reverse victim offender) or lies and blaming or faking dementia and can't remember or claiming it didn't happen.  Which are all contradictions: which is it: you didn't do it or you can't remember or it was someone else's fault? Here are some of the sick, twisted abusive crap my dark tetrad mom and her boyfriend/husband did and said to me. This is not an exhaustive list and is in no particular order. I'm just writing it stream of conscience. There's a lot more. 

They constantly bought new cars, motorcycles and all kinds of stuff for themselves, and which they stole my child support and college fund to buy. Then kicked me out of the house at 16 and left me with so little money that I ended up buying a dangerous decrepit car. They were fine with this. My husband and I were very frugal and only had one car. When we got a very beat up new-to-us car, my mother said, "You should give your car to your (grown ass golden child) sister Joanie (name changed)" 

When they bought that adult sister an older car, she didn't like it. Supposedly it was "too big" and an "old person's car." My mother conned us into buying this piece of junk by offering to buy our nicer, newer, just as big, car for $100 while selling (flipping) the junk one to us for the full price they paid for it, $900. We fell for it because she triangulated and lied and told both of us individually that the other had already agreed. Neither of us wanted it but didn't want to go against what our partner had said. 

She jumped the title and I don't think we ever got the $100. It broke down immediately after purchase. I was left pregnant, stranded with three children and in another city. I tried calling her because my husband was working but she was "too busy" out to lunch with my sister. We never did get the car up and running. And she showed not one iota of concern or remorse. And they just  let our nice newer car rot in the yard because my sister didn't want that one either. It never occurred to me to demand our money and our car back and make them refund us the title fees she promised to pay and didn't. And the bloody towing fees. 

When I, at 55 years old, finally got my first new car in 2019, it happened to be a Yaris (cheapest they make). My sister had a 2008 Yaris. My mother's only comment was, "must be nice to have a new car. Did you get a credit for your sister (?!). When I asked why I would do that, she said, well, you got the idea for the Yaris from Joanie. (no we didn't) Don't you think she deserves some reward (?). When I asked how she thought the Toyota dealership was going to give my sister a credit, she just said fake sweetly well, you could pay her a little something if they won't. Dark tetrads do not want you to have nice things.

Bear in mind these are the same people who gave me money for my first apartment, telling me it was a gift and I could take over rent payments when I got on my feet. And I did just that as soon as I got a job. Then they started renting at the same place, using me as a reference. No mention of finders' fee owed to me then. Oh and a few months later, she gaslit me saying that money she paid never was a gift but a loan, with interest and I could start payments to her now. Meanwhile, she never paid back a dime of my college fund from gram and gramp, which they stole. She cashed in my savings bonds without telling me, AFTER they had kicked me out of the house AND were still collecting child support from my dad. 

Come to think of it, there were many promises of payment we never got. We were too polite to ask because "family does for family." Except that only worked one way, I see now. Because we were only family when she wanted something from us. We weren't family when it came to doing for us. We were buyers and she was the seller. She would come to our house, make a pretense of babysitting but really just looking for free stuff which she got (including hours of free counseling services from me). Then she'd say in an aggrieved way, that she had to get home to her (real) family. Usually when it was time to do the dishes after the meal she'd enjoyed. And she made sure to scoop up loads of leftovers for "her family." 

Which, actually she never did much for us. When our kids went to visit, she conned them into doing her housework with promises of payment they never got because wait for it, "family does for family." She would offer to take me out to lunch then "forget" her purse, let me foot the bill, and order extra to take home to "her family."  Then she'd scoff at the large tip I left, saying it was too much. She tried to take it off the table and we had to have this embarrassing exchange where I told her to put it back. Or she'd say "I'd offer to pay but I know you wouldn't let me." She has deprived me all my life and I have parented her, then in adulthood, she decided to play the doddering elderly parent rigamarole starting when she was only 50. And said the Bible said I was  responsible for her. And she was grama when it came to ordering my kids around but not if they got something nice. Then she was playground bully number one, shaking them down for it. 

She stole, yes literally stole my 12-y/o son's cool new shoes because my adult sister wanted them. Then fobbed him off with an old used pair. He didn't want to trade either but her gaslighting is well crafted. She just told him he did and he believed her because he'd seen his parents do it so often. When I told her (more nicely than I should have) to hand 'em back, she angrily complied. But then when we moved, she was around, not doing anything, but I see now, looking for stuff to scrounge. Those shoes came up missing. I kept hunting and she chided me to "just let it go. They're only shoes (!)"

Lots of my stuff disappeared when she was around. Even my toys as a kid developed legs and left. I had a Canadian money collection worth about $50 in 1973 rates. It went missing and she blamed my friend. A ring and necklace from grama disappeared too. Actually quite often I'd come back from somewhere to find things just gone. I never really thought about it. I think that's part of how they funded their lifestyle both when she was married to my dad and with her new hook up. Cuz neither of them was much good at holding down jobs. I was in such a perpetual fog of gaslighting that I never connected the dots. 

And it wasn't just toys, cars and shoes she coveted. We lived in apartments and a small mobile home and finally got a house 12 years into marriage. It was so damaged that it would have been condemned if we hadn't bought it. But our church gaslit us into buying it off them. At full price and with no help on repairs. And then the former tenant trashed it further after we'd agreed to buy it. We never  made them pay for that damage either. We sure were suckers for gaslighting. Both husband and I were working 24/7 to get it livable. My mother's only comment was "must be nice to have a house. You should let Joanie and her boyfriend live in the basement." She didn't say rent free with we all know what she meant.

They moved back and forth and all over. Then finally came back to Michigan because she said "we want to be close to family." Translation nearer to my bank account. They'd been siphoning off tribal funds and living on a reservation. They claimed this right because she was supposedly working for the native domestic abuse council. So she was literally living off funds ear-marked for abused women and children. The council caught up with them and took them to court. She said it was her foster daughter's son who was found guilty but I finally woke up and realized this is why they high-tailed it back up north. Yet another place they made too hot to handle them. You can't make this up. 

She would mock me to my face and behind my back. One of my children told me that when we all went to a store to get her some clothes, she stage whispered sneeringly to my sister about me "look how she shakes her butt. Such a show off." This is the woman who dressed as a "hooker" (her words) to a church costume party. And who made sure to parade naked when she knew men would be around to see. What I did was to walk crookedly because of the spinal and hip damage they did shit all about to fix when I was young. She didn't get me glasses till I was 12 and nearly blind. She herself had several pairs of fashion glasses. 

And it wasn't just medical abuse, it was sexual. From the time I was 7, she was telling me the "facts of life." Not only was I too young and did I not want to hear, she told me her anecdotal experiences of sex with quite a few different men other than my dad. Several while they were still married. She would make out with men at our kitchen table. While she smugly preached God's commands, she was committing adultery in front of her daughter. And telling me she was right to do so because she was "leading him to Jesus." 

One guy's wife didn't see it that way. She came over, belted my mom across the face and knocked her down the stairs. I was so scared for my mom but she said just go to school. We never discussed this again. In fact, I  have a lifetime of experiences that she's redacted and sealed. If anything should be brought up, she turns up the gaslighting, saying she doesn't remember and it never happened. 

Yes, this is sexual harassment and emotional incest. She told me that when she and my dad were dating he would "c-m in his pants." She spared no gory details. She quietly approved her live-in boyfriend calling me "blisters" starting when I was 11. Referencing my pre-adolescent breasts. They would tell filthy jokes and use crude terms like "jacking off" around me. 

I've been her sex therapist all my life. She has cried on my shoulder about how men "molested" her. The guy was the father of a 13 y/o kid who actually did sexually harass me sending me dirty letters about how he would "jerk off" to the image of me in the bathtub and what he'd do to me if ever we were alone I had a full blown panic attack and my mother just laughed it off saying "just ignore it." Then proceeded to hook up with his dad forcing me to be around this perv who had basically promised to rape me. 

She has told me intimate details of she and her boyfriend now husband now divorced husband all my life. She talked to her doctor, in front of me, when I'd taken her to an appointment about ways to perform for her husband when they couldn't have sex. She pretended ignorance when both the doc and I said, hand and mouth, trying to be tactful. Finally I blurted out "blow job." She smirked because she gotten me to say it. Then teeheed like an ingenue. It took me till I was 60 to realize she gets off on this shit. She loves being promiscuous, provocative, dirty minded and mouthed as hell around me but all while feigning the good Christian lady act in public. 

When I was 11, she had a foster care home. And a live in boyfriend she flew under the state radar. She made a little apartment for them in the basement. Then moved me out of my room and into the room with all four special needs kids ages 6 months to 4 two floors up. She moved her brother and  his pregnant girlfriend into my room. She let him keep dirty magazines under the bed. She let a 15 year old foster kid and her 26 y/o boyfriend sleep together on the main floor. A girl she had taken to have an abortion all while playing the organ at church and preaching on the evils of immorality. All while running the equivalent of a whorehouse. 

Then she took on a 15 y/o kid with a history of  creepy perv behavior for a trial weekend. She took us to the beach telling me to "include him" while she laid on the shore in her bikini. That ended up with us all getting kicked out because he was feeling up girls and trying to drown us. When I told her she got mad, took us home and told me to take him to the neighbor's pool which I had just managed to secure an invitation to. That ended after he kept up with the pervy antics and got us kicked out of the pool too. 

 I think I was back in my own room by then, I can't recall. What I do remember is him coming in bold as brass and plopping down on my bed and trying to rape me. I managed to get out, went to tell my  mom (even though I somehow knew I shouldn't). I should have listened to that inner voice. Instead of helping me, she got angry that HE now had to go back to Child Haven. I was told to keep quiet and you can be damned sure I did. She never addressed it or got me any help. Then she loudly announced it at dinner table and praised her boyfriend for how he handled it. That summer was shot to shit. 

My cousin who I thought I'd only met as an adult, told me that we used to hang out at family get-togethers frequently around this time. I have no memory of any of it. He says that he and his brother thought I was a snob because I was so withdrawn. He said I always looked miserable. Small wonder. 

She also approved her husband screaming, threatening, intimidating, bullying and attacking me, throughout the years, randomly, for no reason. He accused me shaking a baby in her foster cares when he was still her shack job and she'd left me, him and the four little kids to care for a week. He was unemployed, sleeping on the couch and the baby woke him with crying. My mother took his part over mine. And punished me. When I brought it up years later (one of the few things I did ever confront) she lied and said she never left me with the kids because she'd have "lost her license if she did." 

She didn't need my help for that. She and her abusive bf were found guilty of beating the kids. And possibly for how they treated me, too. She never told me. I was just summarily sent to live with my dad. She says I volunteered to because I wanted to give them "time alone." (gross). I don't remember ever saying that. It was no better at my dad's. But she never cared. Actually she let her boyfriend now husband do and say all kinds of crap to and about me.

When I was married and pregnant, I was babysitting, for free his daughter, all summer long. He raged at me and threatened bodily harm because I had corrected her. Kindly. Lovingly. I noticed he wasn't so worried because he still allowed me to babysit her for free.  He even attacked me with my new baby daughter in my arms because I woke him up.  I was so terrified I fled.  And mommy dearest took his part again. 

Funny how normal parents worry that kids will learn those kinds of things on the street.  I learned sexual deviance at mother's knee. Normal moms try to protect their kids from predators. Mine capitalized on it. She ran around in mini skirts and go-go boots. Then as a senior, she wore nightgowns to special events. She tells everyone she had to because her "hooha" (sp?) is itchy. She shamed me for repeating what someone had said about the c-word. But all her crude reference to her genitals are fine to use because my sister says them. She kept up the sex talk, telling my teen sons how she slept naked. She did sleep naked when she stayed out our house and came out naked in front of us. 

And the abuse wasn't just medical, emotional, sexual and religious, it was physical. She hit me quite a lot, saying I was "mouthy." I never said boo to a goose.  When I finally hit rock bottom around age 40, after losing two babies, I checked myself into a mental hospital. My mom accused me behind my back of child abuse to my kids. She said she and her abusive husband (who had lost their foster care home due to abuse and their son due to negligence and let their other daughter get worms and fleas and made me sleep on an unheated porch before kicking me out) might  have to take my children. 

Over my dead body, lady. Oh wait, was that your end game all along...?  

Why I didn't see the narcissist smirk in dark tetrad parent abuse

 Hello my friends. Listening to podcasts on narcissistic parent abuse, I came across a term I'm embarrassed to say I just heard for the first time at almost 61: the "narcissist smirk." Why am I embarrassed? I don't know. Good question. But welcome to the world of childhood trauma. Everything I did felt awkward, embarrassing, and stupid. I didn't know it or should I say accept it, but they were making me feel this way to shield them from the consequences of their own actions. What was actually embarrassing me was their oddly arrogant, self-righteously polarizing behavior. Or my uncontrollable trauma responding to that. 

So getting back to the narcissist smirk. When I heard that described, I had to look up what the smirk looked like. I had an idea but it was worse than I thought, this smug, conceited, self-satisfied smile. So then, the devil on one shoulder said "your parents never did that so you must be making it up again." But the angel on the other said, "hold up. If you'll recall they did smirk just like that and in the circumstances described. You just didn't see it."

And I realize that the angel was right. The narcissist smirk was and is always there. I can even hear it in their voices and the memory of  their voices in my head. If you know what I  mean, you'll know that yes, you can hear as well as see it. Their voices ooze sardonic, contemptuous sarcasm. Their words are passive-aggressive, aggressive, nasty, spiteful, bitter and cutting.  

That dark tetrad condescending, holier-than-thou sneer that takes pleasure in seeing someone humiliated and attacked. They'd gag on their own tongues if they actually said a genuinely kind thing that wasn't prompted by theatrics or hidden agenda. They undermine and second-guess everything you do. They assume you are always guilty. Or they want you to think you are so they can feel better about their own shitty behavior. I was their handmaiden who just sopped up their shame and mopped up after them. 

Oh yes, I am very familiar with smirking talk. And self-righteous accusations and punishment. But what about the looks? So why didn't I see the smirk? Because as I look back, I never made eye contact. I didn't want to see their faces while they were mocking, shaming, belittling, hitting, raging at, ambushing and attacking me. I didn't want to see the hatred from people who supposedly loved me. I didn't want my fears confirmed that this hell was actually God's plan for me like they said. They were damn lucky because if I had, I might have seen the evil inside. 

But I was conditioned not to look. I was told to humble myself (lower myself, bend the knee and hold up my ass to be kicked). And you can be damn sure I didn't. Putting your head above the parapet got it shot. Just standing up straight was being proud and arrogant. While they strutted like showmen in a circus. I can't imagine what would have happened if I stood up for myself. It wouldn't have been good. Ironically, I've been letting myself imagine what would have happened. It's part of my self-styled therapy. 

At the time, all I knew was that ugly naked rage was terrifying enough. It sprayed out all over me like battery acid. It burned and corroded me. What's weird is that I was also harassed for NOT making eye contact. I was told I must be guilty and ashamed if I couldn't look them in the eye. Fucking terrorists. But I believed them, dutiful slave that I was. I just absorbed all that into my ocean of shame. 

So I didn't see it because if I'd looked I think my head would have exploded. I see now that this was my body protecting my mind from the knowledge that the many people (two parents and their partners and their kids) who called themselves my family were just venomous snakes. Yes even their kids to some extend. They weaponized family to get what they wanted. I was their daughter and sister when they expected something of me. Which was all the time. BUT I was also oddly not allowed think of them as family. I didn't even have a blasted home. I just lived in theirs. I was to have no expectations, even normal stuff kids need. They could do as they pleased and I had to just like it. I succeeded in doing that shockingly well. But never good enough to earn respect or love. 

And that's where the smirk comes in. I saw it especially in my mother, her husband and my dad's wife. My dad was just flat out sociopathic. The harder I tried, the more they mocked. They thought they were so coy pulling a fast one. Look that idiot. She doesn't even get it that we have nothing but contempt for her. She just keeps dancing like a clown with a pasted on smile. Now I understand that they accomplished this at their souls' peril. They made themselves god and puppet masters. They used people and loved things. They burned through relationships like kindling. They all either are miserable or died in it. Alone. I guess that's saying something against the devil's assertion that I was making it up. 

Now that I've started looking, I see how they gloated over other people's suffering. They got high on seeing people fall. They had no empathy and always pratted about how people had it coming. They actually laughed in this sickening way behind people's backs. The same people, like me, who had done so much for them. They still preach what they call God's will while living in constant unconfessed mortal sin. God must be so frustrated. My prayer is that nobody believes them and that they them for what they are. 

Do I pray for the dark tetrads? Eh, sure in a general way.  Should I worry more? Nah. Narcissists spend too much time worrying about themselves. The only thing more attention on them will do is hurt me. And I only have so much bandwidth and I need it for helping myself, my loved ones and all those who have been burned as I have. Yeah, I just realized it. You guys who are reading this, you're my concern. I want you to have lovely, joy-filled lives free of the suffering you've been buffering. 

Love mar

Odd trauma response triggers that make sense when you see the emotional flashbacks behind them

Hi friends. I did something really strange and dysfunctional yesterday. And since I'm learning new healthier behaviors, I did what I've never done and looked deeper instead of just assuming it was failure on my part. The microscope revealed that my emotional pool was a cesspit, teeming with all kinds of trauma pond scum. Decades of dark tetrad narcissist parent abuse has created a legion of weird trauma responses in me. They are triggered by things that seem odd or unrelated but  make sense when you see the emotional flashback behind them. So I've made a kind of working flow chart of triggers, trauma responses and emotional flashbacks. 

Trigger one: husband forgetting phone. I was out in the yard and I called him only to hear it ringing in the house. This set off a chain of trauma responses: panic (freezing) fear of abandonment, ridicule, humiliation, flight (immediately taking off in car so without leaving note so he would feel the fear, panic and insecurity I was feeling). Rage at both him and myself, him for "kicking me to the curb" and me for reacting. For letting it get to me and not being stronger. 

And when I dug deeper I found that I was frustrated with him for carelessness but I was also angry at my parents and their spouses and children, for consistently doing shit that left me alone, humiliated, afraid and vulnerable. And that is the emotional flashback. It's also the healthiest, most justifiable anger I could feel. 

I was able to regain my composure before I talked to him. And that's thanks in part to giving myself permission to use my best judgement and not immediately return his calls and texts. The old trauma responses told me that I had to fawn and jump to answer, that "two wrongs don't make a right" and that it was petty retaliation to ignore his calls and texts. I have been gaslit into believing that it doesn't matter what anyone else does to me, how they provoke, bully, manipulate or harm me, I must always respond with what the bully deems the "right" response. Ergo, people pleasing, absorbing the shame, fawning, groveling, bending over for punishment.

And I will admit that on some level I did want to show him how it felt to wonder where someone was and why they weren't answering. But that's healthy too. It's the only way to get the point across that being unavailable when you need to be is disconcerting and very risky. Sure, now that we're older, it's not such a big deal. But there were too many times when our kids were young that he left me stranded. He would say he'd be back in 15 minutes, taking our only vehicle and leaving me with the kids. Two hours later, no Albert. 

He always had a perfectly logical answer. And I believed him. Yes, I know that sounds really sketchy but it was also true. He did have a good reason. But not good enough for leaving us stranded. Countless times I had to remind him, what if one of the children got hurt? He'd give the classic response--they didn't. Yes, but not by any intelligent design on your part, I'd say. You didn't follow through on promises. You put whatever agenda you had in your head before your concern or responsibility to us. You took chances and just expected that I'd work out whatever came along. Most frustrating of all, you didn't even think about how I'd work it out. You felt no concern just diddled around, oblivious to your family. Hurt, fear and anger made me lash out or sometimes just explain why it was a  problem. 

But either way, he would get defensive because he knew he was in the wrong. And either way, I'd feel in the wrong because there is no right way to deal with  someone else's hurtful choices. You can't make them stop. You can only take care of yourself. And I was taught that self-care is selfish. So there's that. Plus, I've yet to find the manual that explains how to navigate in a relationship with a very self-absorbed, stubborn person who refuses to cooperate. That's why so many end. I knew he was responding to his own trauma but that only made things worse for me. I already took on too much responsibility and that triggered even more caregiving at my own expense. 

And it also triggered endless emotional flashbacks to a mom and dad who from the time I was 3 or 4, were randomly there and randomly nowhere to be found. And who put no care into seeing to it that someone was responsible for this little child. Or they dumped me with strangers and dangerous people. They purposely left me exposed and confused to groom me. I don't know what they did but they were sure as hell gone. I have been left to fend in shocking situations that I normalized and internalized. I think they did this to achieve exactly what they have achieved. That I'm anxious, confused, awkward and scared and don't have proper self-care skills. The point was to render me helpless, starved for love and desperate for bread crumbs of care which they would withhold until I was so conditioned that I thought it was a banquet. 

So, stranded and desperate are not good places to be. It makes you do weird things. Like panic. Especially when you're caring for other people besides yourself. I have trauma nightmares that not just I but a bunch of children I'm responsible for, have been left in dirty, dangerous and unfamiliar situations to fend. It's terrifying and mind-blowing. Terror makes you react in unglued ways. Yesterday's situation was not at all the same. My husband understands now how his past irresponsible behavior has caused so much trouble even now, in emotional flashbacks.  And he is very careful and responsible now. Forgetting the phone was an accident. 

However, my trauma didn't understand that. All she remembered was the sick dread of it happening again. So I did new things. First, by not responding immediately it gave him some uncomfortable moments he needed to feel. More importantly it gave me time to process and work through what I was feeling and how I could get to a better place. I explained to him how him forgetting the phone made me feel. 

I felt humiliated, like someone had set me up to look foolish and was jeering at me. It is yet another pie in the face (my mom once threw a pie in my face at her company picnic). I felt let down and worried. I felt mocked. I felt betrayed. I felt anxious and like fighting, fawning, freezing and fleeing all at one. This will make sense to you if this type of thing is a trigger for you. It doesn't' really matter if it does or not. Because it does to my brain. It senses threat and is firing on all neurons to protect itself. 

It's amazing how therapeutic it is to talk it over with someone who cares. Who doesn't weaponize or punish. Who wants to work for harmony. Who gets it. My brain was able to comprehend that though it looked the same, it was not a threat. It's going to take time, however, because old traumas and gaslighting about them cast long  shadows. 

Relationship status with narcissist parents once you go no contact: it's complicated

Hello my friends. Many of you may be wondering, so I've gone no contact with my narcissist parents, now what? Do I still love them? What does that look like? What is the relationship status with those I've cut off? You may also wonder how I know that my readers aren't also narcissists themselves. For the same reason I know I'm not or at least have fewer tendencies than normal (we all have some for survival). Narcissists and dark tetrads don't go looking for help. Their victims do. So I know because you're reading, that you're struggling too. 

So back to the original question. What's my relationship status with parents I've gone no contact with? It's complicated but also simple. And MMUUUCHH simpler than being in a relationship with them. Do I still love them? Eh, only in the same general way that I love all personkind. I don't want to see them suffer but I'm not buffering it anymore. I'm not absorbing. Not shielding them from the logical consequences of their own foolish, irresponsible, hurtful choices. I don't care in that obsessive way that I worried over them when they were enmeshed in me. I never spent a moment considering all the damage they'd done to me. I just agonized over them. How I'd let them down, supposedly. 

Because DARVO is the name of the game with dark tetrads. Deny (all harmful behavior wreaked on their victims) Attack (the victim) Reverse (roles of) Victim and Offender. Narcissists love to play the martyr. Oh how I've suffered, no one understands me, pass me a Nembutal and fix me a drink, worn out Scarlett O'hara thing (thank you Ya-ya Sisterhood for that gem!) And what I now feel for my narcissist parents is nothing, really. I just don't care anymore. 

I don't hate them. I don't even resent them. I never have. Which actually might be a good thing for me to do for a little while. Not to blame like they do but to put blame where it belongs. On them and not on me. To be angry about all they put me through and how they ruined so many things for me. That would be a realistic part of the loss of relationship grief healing process. Part of the awareness that they were never parents to me, only perpetrators. Part of the letting go. 

But I just don't have that much fabulous in me. It requires more energy than I have. I'm exhausted and burned out. All I want now is out of their cult.  And them out of me. I want distance. I don't want to be their crutch, whipping girl, emotional support lap dog, sex therapist, loyal cult follower, worshipper, servant, possession anymore. The caretaker has left the building. And the grounds and the Branch Davidian complex. 

So how do I deal with them? I don't. I send short happy birthday, merry christmas texts and call it a day. I may send an occasional gift but usually not because anything I send triggers too many awful memories. Everything is weaponized and unfairly transactional and I always come out with the short of the stick, feeling and being made to feel like shit. End of. 

Healing CPTSD from dark tetrad narcissist parent abuse by listening to emotional flashbacks

Hello my friends. I've been listening to a lot of Youtube videos on narcissistic parent abuse in an effort to heal CPTSD from the four dark tetrad parents in my life. Even with all the experiences that I've shared I still struggle to accept that I was actually abused, neglected, abandoned periodically, endangered constantly, manipulated, scapegoated, triangulated, enmeshed, invalidated, bullied and gaslit about it all. That is the sick nature of gaslighting by narcissistic parents. They make it all seem normal. Even though there's no way on earth, in heaven or hell I'd treat my child this way. Somehow I've internalized deep into my core the idea that this was all okay for me. 

So naturally, I struggle also, to accept that my parents were dark tetrads (narcissistic, arrogant, entitled, Machiavellian, sadistic, psychopathic). If their abuse of me was normal then they're just normal parents, right? That's what their voices in my head say. But my emotional flashbacks tell another story. And what triggers those is also my pathway to healing. 

Listening to a series by Danish Bashir on weird things narcissists do, I was not only triggered but also shocked by how he nailed my parents' behavior. All kinds of memories that had been squished into cupboards came rushing back. With every act he listed I instantly recalled them doing these things. I didn't have to struggle to make the shoe fit. It was like he was using them as examples, the behavior was so spot on. I found myself oh, yup, forgot about that. Oh and that one too. Bam, bam, bam. 

It sad how many shitty memories a child can compress over 60 years of life. It becomes sedimentary rock in her brain. But hearing it named, was like a geologist had tapped into that solid mass. Like that old log you roll over and all the exposed creepy crawlies scuttle out. It takes your breath away to see how disgusting and how many there are. You feel the gut punches, again, one after another. You recall the many times they pulled the rug out or hung you on the fry wire. 

The intensity hijacks your system. You are assaulted with the horror. And you know with cold certainty, that these are not the only times it happened. You've only just scratched the surface. You feel short of breath, dizzy, nauseous, suicidal. During one, I was overwhelmed with despair and felt the demons impelling me to drive over a cliff. The suddenness was like a jolt of electricity. Thank God I had my baby in the car or, who knows, I may have done. 

And that is what emotional flashbacks felt like to me. I use the past tense because, hearing their horrible behavior enumerated clearly, I realized it didn't have the same sting. I felt a calm, dispassionate, quiet resignation to the fact that these people who called themselves parents were perpetrators. Self-serving, remorseless, psychotic, sociopathic, cruel agent provocateurs who considered themselves God. While proclaiming to serve God. Does it really get any more demonic than that? 

It really makes no difference to me whether they would be clinically diagnosed dark tetrad narcissists or not. Though I'm 99% sure they would be. I know how awful they were to live with. Or at least I do now. Because I'm paying attention to triggering things and emotional flashbacks. This is treacherous territory. The damage to the child mind is so great that you risk further harm just accessing those memories. This is why the mind seals over them. If the child were to actually know how much danger she was in, it could irrevocably destroy her. 

Even reliving them decades later is terrifying. But I believe in a higher power who lets me remember them when I am ready. Not to do me more harm but to being to heal the complex childhood post-traumatic stress disorder. To bring some soothing balm to the fevered, perseverative trauma responses that I autoloop in. Soon, I'll share some emotional flashback triggers and trauma responses that look really odd but make sense when you understand the origins. 

How narcissistic dark tetrad parent "discipline" is abusive rape of a child's mind

 Hello my friends. I've been thinking lately about the hidden physical abuse kids suffer from narcissistic dark tetrad parents. I listened to a Youtube video by Danish Bashir (he's amazing, you should listen and subscribe) in which he explored different kinds of physical abuse narcissist dark tetrad parents subject  their kids to. I was glad to hear him address the issue that those of us in special education have wrestled with for decades, that abuse isn't just physical. It's mental, emotional, spiritual, medical, financial and more. So today, I'm starting to look at the many ways dark tetrad parents abused us kids. 

I'm beginning with the most obvious type which is physical abuse and the most apparent example is hitting. But if you've been on the receiving end of hitting, you'll agree that it's not always obvious to us as kids of dark tetrads. Their punishment isn't clean. It's muddied with blame, shame, finger-pointing and self-serving gaslighting and sadism. It isn't about chastisement for correction of behavior. It isn't about discipline. It's about sick, devious, controlling, power mad love of cruelty for cruelty's sake. And their way of punishment is nothing short of rape of a child's mind. 

They go so far as to distort the child's memory into believing they weren't abusing because they weren't hitting when actually, they were. They just had a lot of cutesy bullshit euphemisms, quack-psych machinated reasons and fake religious self-justifications for it. They made you believe it was your fault. You caused it. You made them hit you. They did it because they care. They were so proficient at gaslighting that I thought it was normal punishment, not vicious bullying and narcissistic rage. 

But they don't do it in ways that other people who love child will see. When my grandparents witnessed my dad at a Christmas party rip me a new one for trying on the sweater they gave me, they checked. I wonder what they would have done if they'd seen the times he beat me. To the child they act all proud, haughty and self-righteous about it. They'll brag to fellow child beaters whom they know will approve  and/or they'll twist it to be "Godly" discipline so it seems to comply with the Bible. But the dark tetrad is very careful to craft a version that is sounds very different form the vicious abuse it is. 

For example, my mother started slapping me across the face,  hard and frequently beginning when I was around 7. It hurt a lot, not only my skin but my jaw and neck in which I developed early onset arthritis from. This one's really tricky because I also slapped my daughter's face and will never stop regretting it. But the reasons were completely different. My  mother was spitefully angry and I was sad, remorseful and shame-ridden and trauma responding. She was self-righteously on her high horse whereas I felt like shit.

She'd spin this yarn about how it hurt her more than me. Bullshit to that. I happened to look up once (I didn't make eye contact much and kept a low profile) Her eyes gleamed with malicious gloating. She had that sick smirk narcissists can't quite hide. She wasn't hurt she was loving it. She would verbally abuse me, calling me names, insulting and mocking, while hitting me.  I have been a terrible mother at times but I NEVER got anything but self-disgust out of spanking my kids. 

AND my mother did it to punish me for her mother supposedly slapping her while I did it BECAUSE my mother told me to. Oh how she weaponized her mother's "abuse." She'd tell me that she was the perfect mom and what she did to me was nothing compared to what she suffered. Interestingly, her mother didn't abandon, endanger, leave her with strange men, make her care for four foster care kids for a week, move her out of her room to sleep with the babies, play church lady while shacking up with her boyfriends, sleep around, kick her out of the house, allow her to be sexually abused and then publicly shame her. To name a few. 

Mother was just always right. No matter how self-aggrandizing, deceitful, hypocritical and ungodly she was. She had indoctrinated me not to listen to my good judgement which was screaming not to spank my children.  And I had a lot of fundamentalist Christian parenting BS floating in my head. I thought I'd fail my kids and God, because all my parents told me so, if I didn't hit them. We'll just let that marinate. 

I've always repeatedly apologized and reassured the kids that it was me and not them. I was the problem. Whereas I was the problem with mom, too. My mother continues to blame me for her having to hit me. I was supposedly "mouthy" and "sassy." I have no idea to this day what I actually said to set her off. I was so biddable and empathic. I also can't recall what my daughter said to make me slap her so I think it was a case of gaslighting by proxy. My mom's voice was in my head haranguing me with the "spare the rod" crap. While both my daughter and I were just being normal kids. 

Which is interesting too. On some level she knew she was wrong. But dark tetrads will  never admit that. So someone else must take the blame so she can feel justified. Because down the road, she stabbed me in the back with it. When I checked myself into a mental hospital after losing twp stillborn daughters (which she was overjoyed to drive me to), she accused me behind my back to my children, of hitting my them. Which she'd basically said I'd go to hell if  I didn't. She told the kids that she and her abusive-to-me-with-her-approval husband might have to take over custody of them. (yeah, fuck that noise. I was pretty far gone but not that far gone. I lay under a train before I'd let them screw up another generation of kids). But that's how entitled and arrogant these dark tetrads are. They want to not just screw you up but everyone you love, too. 

My kids reminded her that she'd hit me and she back peddled, lied, said she never did. But she also forgets who she told which lie to. She proudly tells my husband how she smacked me around. But how she had to stop when I "hit her back." I felt so guilty over that and he has had to remind me repeatedly that if I did, I was defending myself from her attacks. I grew up thinking I was a terrible kid because my mom "had" to hit me. None of my friends experienced this. They were all disobedient and mouthy from time to time. 

My dad got furious once and out of the blue, beat me too. He was sick of his wife whining about having to get up at night with the baby so he moved me out of my room and into the baby's room to shut  her up. I was 14. He would send me to bed with the baby after I'd already done all the cooking and cleaning. I hadn't even had time to do my homework and I couldn't because there was no room and I couldn't wake the baby. I used to sneak and do my homework under the covers in our closet of a room. I don't know why he beat me. My fawn mask was pretty secure. I think now he was mad at her for being so bitchy and selfish and was too wimpy to deal with it so he took it out on the whipping girl. That happened a lot with the four of them. 

So why do these dark tetrads hit their kids? You might say, well, you hit your kids, Mar. Wasn't it the same for them? Are they just following Bible guidelines? No it was not. If you've ever been hit by a dark tetrad you know the difference. They enjoy it. They are getting charged up whereas someone like me got depleted and exhausted. Their eyes get this disturbing gleam and you can till they're quietly getting high on hitting you. Or, like my dad, they just get more enraged. He was literally drooling and almost frothing at the mouth. Every narcissistic injury he'd ever felt was distilled into his arm and he couldn't hit hard enough. And when they were done, neither was sorry. They just told me to quit crying and go wash my face. They never apologized or even admit. Kind of  like rape.

Dark tetrad parents don't hurt their children because they were hurt and don't know any better. They're not confused and shell shocked by a lifetime of gassing and gaslighting. That was me. I thought they were right to hurt me because they said I deserved it. I never felt my kids deserved it but I did think my parents were always right. So I should do likewise. I wish I'd cut my hand off before raising it to them. I wish even more that I'd cut my sick abusive parents out decades ago. Dark tetrads don't hurt because they're out of  control. They are very much large and in charge. They know exactly what they are doing. 

Dark tetrads hurt because they're dark tetrads--malicious, malignant, Machiavellian and manipulative.  Hurting is their modus operandi. Blame and Shame are the names of their game. They never tell you why they're hitting you exactly. I've never known what I did. So learning anything but trauma responding was a bust. They don't say what you did because you did nothing. And they can't admit they're frigging demented sadistic control freaks who get off on hurting people. That it's their heroin fix.

But they are also good at DARVO--deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. Once they've gotten the payoff, they turn on their victim (again like rape). They blame them for making them do it. Or they lie and say they never hit you, like Mommy dearest did to  me. Which of course is completely contradictory. You can't not have done it but also have a good reason for doing. See, they manufacture mutually exclusive paradoxes like trees grow leaves. But their victim is so shell shocked that she can't defend herself or even think straight. They make it too dangerous, if she even had the energy to. 

Dark tetrads also hit because they hate their children and we hate ourselves too. They resent and are jealous of our light, our sweetness, our charisma, our Zen. They hate how other people are attracted to us. They think they are the only ones entitled to attention. They hate how we make folks smile with our genuine authenticity. While just drain everyone. They keep grabbing all the good things and sucking up all the oxygen, trying to smother our fire. But they can't  because they are dead and cold. They kill everything they touch. 

And they hate that. So all they can do is douse, quench, put out. They isolate us and cut off our resources. They try to kill us. Sometimes they succeed. When I confided how miserable I was to my dad, he told me I should commit suicide. Thank God for my beautiful husband and kids cuz I almost took him at his word. But even that isn't enough for them. They're the malignant enemy prowling the earth seeking the ruination of souls. They are Wendigo, getting hungrier the more they kill and eat. They are restless spirits ever roaming. Because they are human, not Gods as they believe themselves. 

Because the core of the problem is that they go contrary to all that is logical, loving, kind and proper. They go against the natural order of things. But instead of fighting this deadly impulse, they indulge it. They're keep trying to force a square peg into a round hole. And they just damage the peg and the hole. And the older they get, the more they do it, the more entrenched they become, the more convinced they become of their own godhood. But also the farther they get from light and love, the darker and colder they get. 

And we who are their children thought that what they gave us was love because parents by nature, love their kids. So we gave them our good love, in exchange for their counterfeit self-serving harm. We threw good money after bad. The older we are when we realize it, the harder it is for us to change too. We have days, weeks, months, years, decades of conditioning to be their possessions, not children. We're practiced at giving ourselves to them, body, mind, heart and soul. We literally know no other way. 

I'm going to be 61 soon and it has taken me that long to start processing that what I experienced was not normal and healthy but abuse of  many kinds. I'm grateful to  my husband for helping me put that in perspective too, to quit shielding, defending and excusing and to begin admitting that what happened was very wrong. And I sound really confident now because I'm faking it till I make it. But I'm going to wrestle with their gaslighting for the rest of my life

 

Healing CPTSD from narcissistic abuse means rethinking some Christian teaching

 Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm seeing how I need to rethink some Christian teaching. And I'm recalling a time, years ago when I was in a Christian homeschooling group Bible study and the scripture about being a servant came up. How we need to give till it hurts and be a servant to all. You know the whole "JOY means Jesus first, then others and you last" meme. Well, I was in a really raw, emotionally tapped out place. If you're read other posts you know how I have spent my life being an overachieving empath who gives away everything, lets others walk all over her and thanks them. And this just hit a nerve and I said that sometimes you can give too much and it's not healthy. 

Oh my goodness, you'd have thought I'd said to torch a church full of kittens. Eyes flew open, hands wrung and I was immediately chastised and told "you must NEVER say that! We must always serve like Jesus and we could never give enough!!" And other gaslighty stuff. I was running on the fumes of fumes. Just giving to that group had cost me more than I had to give, in money, time, energy and emotional pain. As usual, I'd let myself be guilted into signing up to do far more than I could. And this was the match to the Molotov shame cocktail. 

Bear in mind these women didn't know me from Adam and cared even less. They didn't ask what I meant just judged that I was being heretical. As if I'd have dared in that self-righteous bunch. Nobody noticed that as they drove up in their enormous new 15 passenger vans, I was trying to keep up in a beater that broke down more than it ran. My husband was working all the hours God so we didn't go bankrupt. We were both working round the clock to fix up a derelict house as they complained about their palatial estates. They were having babies right and left while I was losing mine. I was drowning in post partum misery and trauma nightmaring all night long and getting no help only hinderance from family. This wasn't me resenting what they had, just admitting that I couldn't keep up. I thought it would be safe to share but boy was I wrong. It was just a stick to beat me with. 

One  woman did say that she knew what I meant. But it was too little too late. Marilisa was the problem child, again. A real voice of evil. Funny they were always more than willing to dump their kids on me. They actually exploited the fact that I was a certified teacher, telling me God expected me to "use my gifts to serve."  Which translated to the person barely able to afford groceries teaching all the little rich kids pro bono. Funny how generous some people are with other people's resources. This has been a common theme in my life. 

It called to mind all the times narcissists including my parents, had weaponized this kind of scripture against me. How they rubbed my nose in all God was supposedly expecting of me. How they tied burdens on me they didn't help carry. How they were never servants to anyone, least of all me, just expected and demanded my service. How God was calling me to raise them and their kids, clean their homes, support their asses. There has been a shame chorus playing on autoloop in my head all my life. 

But just tonight after listening to a podcast on dark empaths and narcissists, I realized something. I'm glad that homeschool group incident happened because it showed two things. 1) That these women and my parents and all the other selfish takers were speaking to themselves in my presence. They did need to serve more and demand less. But I didn't. I had and always have given much more than I could. I've always given from my lack instead of my largesse. I've paid far more than what is owed. And I've been paying on investments I never agreed to and which I've never gotten a return on. 

And the second thing I learned is that I needed to learn these things. I get to decide whether to give, what to give, when and to whom. I choose who I think deserves my help.  And if I have energy to or even want to. I don't have to. That instead of driving ahead in bad weather, I need to halt. I need heed warning signs of burnout instead of blowing through them. That I'm the best judge of what God is calling me to. That I can and should say when the playing field isn't level that I'm not playing. 

I was also gaslit to think that I should give just as much or more, regardless of what other people gave. That translated to lots of people sitting around watching me do their work. I was told I had to always be correct and perfect in all my actions no matter how confrontational and hurtful others treated me. But just what that perfect behavior was, was never explained or modeled.  Now I'm thinking that it's okay if I give what I determine I have to give. I think we can assume that when scripture tell us that to whom more is given more is expected, that less is expected of those with less. 

I'm learning that I don't have to play by rules some person made up for me that I didn't agree to or no one else is following. I can choose to disobey especially if the rules are set by hurtful people to hurt me. I'm working to understand that I didn't owe anyone anything. That I can and should do things by choice not fear and obligation. That I don't have to give where there is no reciprocity. I don't have to give period unless I want to. I get to decide upon my own moral code of ethics. This is not vindictive or vengeful. It's self-protection.  

This all has been especially problematic for me. I was gaslit and groomed to believe that I was too stupid to determine for myself. That I was too selfish and immoral to be trusted to read and interpret scripture for myself. That I was disobeying God if I didn't comply completely with all their very self-serving demands. That self-care was selfish. That I (and only I) should give till it hurt. That they were entitled to take all they wanted and leave me helpless. That others could bleed me dry and my job was to like it. 

The voice of FOG is loud. And old sins (of parents wrong teaching) cast long shadows. When the podcast said tonight, that a healthy dark empath gives of her bounty, not her resources, I immediately triggered into old trauma responses. Pandora's demons in my head screamed NOOO! That's sinful!! You have to hurt to give! You have to give up and away huge non-renewable chunks of yourself!! That's what God expects!!" 

I immediately ( because I was conditioned to) called to mind the parable of the widow's mite. How I'm supposed to give all I have and then some. But then a new voice called hope said, no. Jesus simply used her generosity to correct the pharisees' flawed math. That they gave what they didn't need while she gave all. He wasn't saying I had to drain a vein every time someone wanted blood. He was simply telling THOSE who were selfish to be more generous. 

And about the cloak parable. I've already given mine away plus all my other garments too. Maybe he isn't telling me, like my dad did, to give everything when no one else is giving anything. Maybe Jesus is  telling those who are weaponizing this scripture against people like me, to preach to themselves. Maybe he's not telling me to let demanding takers use and abuse me. He's telling them to quit and begin bloody giving. What a revolutionary thought. And it does feel a little bit heretical because my parents made themselves gods so theirs are the only voices I hear when I listen for God. 

But we're told he's patient and doesn't give up easily. So if I keep listening, hopefully I can start hearing his voice over the rabble. 

 

Horrific ways religious narcissist parents destroy God for their child

Hello my friends. I just listened to the last Youtube video by one of my favorite speakers on narcissism, Dr. Les Carter. He has been so instrumental to me in starting work to heal CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse. I appreciate his emphasis on Team Healthy. Thank you, Dr. Carter. This one's for you. And Gus <3  

Today I'm looking at horrific ways religious narcissist parents destroy God for their child. Sorry Dr. Carter, I know that doesn't seem like an honor to dedicate this to you. But it is. Because you helped me see how they ruined my understanding of God and why nothing about religion, the Bible or Christianity seems to fit for me. And that's important because I see now that I didn't break it. They broke it for me. AND you also showed some ways to find my way back home. 

My parents were selfish enough from the get-go. But then when I was 5, they moved to Alaska to be missionaries (no church affiliation or support), went way rogue leaving me with strangers or alone in all kinds of dangerous situations. My dad wandered off to the wilds of Alaska for months on end. He never worked and neither did she. We were homeless. Then he decided God was calling him to convert the Manson girls and he hitchhiked off with half their money ($10) to L.A.  

Then they decided, selfishly, to divorce. My mother was running around with an assortment of creepy men and my dad probably was cheating too. I know he took a lot of young teenage girls with him on his "missions." But never his little daughter, me. No one explained anything to me and I was scolded for being confused and thinking I would lose my grandparents too. I was left unsupervised so often that I thought it was normal. Then they hooked up with new people who were just as abusive. I say hooked up with because she was living with her boyfriend in our home. She had a lot of boyfriends. Interestingly the second husband just divorced her on claims of cheating. But I digress. 

But through it all, they remained convinced that they were actually preachers. They have always loudly preached the Good News as they called it. But looking back it didn't seem very good, at least for me. There was a lot of talk bad, wicked, sin, evil that people were supposedly doing and that they in their strangely unholy self-righteousness were somehow above? They literally did exactly what they were preaching against, blatantly. Thank you, Dr. Carter for helping me understand that they were not above these rules. They are narcissists. And very dark tetrad narcissists at that. 

So how did they break God for me? Narcissists don't serve God. They don't serve anyone. They think they ARE God and they gaslit me into thinking so too. They made me serve them like they were God. They equated my obedience to their demanding, irrational, arrogant, self-serving dictates, with obedience to God. And the Bible bore them out. Kids obey your parents. I always got that part loud and clear. What I missed was the part where they were supposed to care for me and humble themselves to God. Because it was never about God it was about them and they weaponized Him to their own ends. They always have. All four of them. 

So when they abandoned me (while still expecting and getting love, service devotion, care, parenting--yes parenting, obedience from me) it was as if God had abandoned me. Because he kind of did, if they were God. They were the only Gods I knew. I see now they wanted me to believe that God abandoned me. Leaving me alone, uncared for or supervised, they were showing me, "see this is how little God thinks of you." All that you read about in the Bible, it's not for you. You're the exception, the one God doesn't love. 

I didn't know then that it was them that didn't love me. And so now, it's hard to wrap my head around it still. See, people will assure you that "God was really there with you all those times you were alone and scared." And it probably was true. But a child doesn't get that. All my little kid mind knew as afraid and alone. Children are very concrete. They only know what they can see and feel and touch. They don't get that there is an invisible presence that loves and cares for them when the grownups who are supposed to don't. I'm not sure adults get that either. I certainly didn't and don't. 

The best I can do is kind of click my heels and repeat to myself, he loves me. Lather, rinse, repeat. And maybe if I do that enough, I'll start to feel it. You hear from a lot Christians about faith over fear and belief in things you can't see. I've been gaslit and shamed all my life over this. That I was somehow failing God for not believing He was there. But belief and faith were never the problem. I had those in abundance. 

What I didn't have was the luxury, and I use that word intentionally, of allowing myself to trust that God really did love me. My parents would not allow that. THEY were the only God as far as I was concerned.  And they were judgmental, hypocritical and hateful as, well, hell. And then I would feel sinful because I was told I was, for not taking God at his word. I would confuse the hell out of myself trying to juxtapose the complete lack of care from parents, and the utter expectation that I would serve them, with a God who loved me. 

How do you frame God's love when the people who make themselves God not only don't love you but withhold God's love from you? What do you do when you have been groomed to believe that you are the exception? How do you form a relationship with a God who you have been told to trust and then punished for trusting? How do you both love and serve Him and them? 

So none of scripture fits for me. But that didn't stop me following God's laws to the best of my ability. You make damn sure to tow the line as a child of dark tetrads. But it all felt like shit and shoved in it when I could claim none of the good from God. I was told to do all the work with none of the perks. That was not for me. That was for them to exploit and steal from me. 

Yes, I see now that they broke God for me. It wasn't my fault. But I didn't see it then. Children ONLY know what they are taught by the adults in their lives. Even if it's wrong as hell. Maybe especially if it's wrong. The devil one devious SOB.  The poison goes right to the roots and grows up with the child. The longer they drip poison in your ear, the deeper the poison goes. By the time you  realize that you are fighting the devil himself, you are so soaked in their poison that you're drowning in it. 

And it's worse because there are very few if any people you can talk to about it. They just layer on more shame repeating their one-size-fits-no one rules which make you even more suicidal. They don't listen. They just keep pratting the same shit that got you in this mess to begin with. And, small segue here, do they think they're being helpful? I've been hearing those rules and commandments since before I could speak. I get it. I could recite them when I was four. With all due respect, just shut up if you have nothing more than that for me. 

I'll be honest here. I don't know the way out for sure. I think it's going to take a lot of brain delousing. And reindoctrination if that's a thing which spell-check doesn't think it is. I'm going to have to keep repeating to myself some new ideas. But I also have to say, and no one wants to hear this. Or maybe they do because it affirms their struggle, too. The poison that was planted in my brain will always remain to some extent. Sad but true. 

You can regret, apologize, make amends for till you're blue in the face but  you cannot fix what you broke. You can only mend and make do. The shattered cup will never pour properly again. And dark tetrads will never regret let alone apologize or try to fix. Also sad but true. Can I find a superglue to fix it? Maybe? I hope so. I do know that the love (nurture, support, affirmation) of loving people is the best binding agent I've found. 

 

What CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse feels like

Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm going to share what cptsd feels like. 

CPTSD feels nervous and anxious. Relaxing was not something I was allowed to do as a kid. I had to be hypervigilant awaiting the next command. And the next chaotic stressful life change. And the next expectation and demand. I had to anticipate their every flip-flopping mood swing. I had to be prepared for double standards that doubled back on themselves. I had to know as a young child, without guidance or instruction, how to do things many adults don't know how to do. 

CPTSD feels ashamed, humiliated and belittled. Being frequently scolded and chastised with no reason given or if there was one it didn't make sense. And rarely if ever praised. 

CPTSD feels like fluid rigidity. My narcissist parents were very rigid and dogmatic in their beliefs what other people should do but also very loose with their own morals and behavior. But then they switched sides when it was convenient and didn't tell me. They just punished me for not reading minds and keeping up with their Tilt-a-Whirl of strange, self-serving doble standards. 

CPTSD feels like trying to dance on a razor's edge. I had to color to perfection, inside very tiny lines and stay small so is not to attract attention to myself thereby robbing the narcissists who demanded all the oxygen in the room. I had to keep a lot of balls in the air at once, while jumping on a lava floor. I kept myself tight with clench teeth which gave me a weird grimace that looked like I was angry when I was actually afraid. Mistakes cost me a lot. 

CPTSD feels like intense shame around benign things that are made to appear unspeakable wicked. I grew up thinking a lot of things were of the devil. Things that were just normal kids stuff like liking certain kinds of music. My parents did, thought felt and acted exactly as they pleased heedless of the devilishness of it all because the rules were for them to preach not to practice. Consequently, I believed rock music was evil. All of it. Then Pink Floyd help me turn a corner. When the Wall came out in high school I found I not only understood it but that it resonanted. I was able to pry my hands off my eyes and fingers out of my ears. The world did not explode in a ball of flames because I listened to a led Zeppelin song. Go figure. 

CPTSD feels like emotional leprosy. I was constantly getting burned and then punished for pulling my hands out of the fire. I have a lot of trauma scars and missing bits, physical and emotional. Here's a secret I hope you won't share with narcissists. If you scold me I will automatically roll over and take it all all the blame and shame. I will let you sucker punch me and thank you for the privilege. 

CPTSD feels like exhausted confusion. Constant gaslighting, lying, deception, twisting, revisionist history, spending the narrative. Just when I thought I was actually doing something right, wham, I was hit with the old you're too arrogant, you're showing off etc. They exaggerated everything to feel like treason if not done to military standards. But those standards weren't explained or taught. I just had to divine it. But I couldn't' clarify either. I was set up to fail because those constantly shifting expectations shifted without warning. If I asked if the dishes were done to their satisfaction, they would say I should just know without having to ask. Asking was fishing for compliments.

CPTSD feels like failure because success is impossible (but still expected). I was told that I was useless and lazy because I didn't get things perfect the first time. Things like mopping the baseboards on my hands and knees so not really mopping, scrubbing, to her rigid specifications. I don't know how she could know because she was so fat and lazy that she couldn't or wouldn't get down in her hands and knees to actually see. She just knew by osmosis somehow, that I'd flubbed it on purpose to piss her off. She was pissed off a lot. I used to think it was at me because I was always ALWAYS in her crosshairs. Now I see it was just narcissistic rage. And they called me the angry one. 

CPTSD feels like I'm stupid and nasty and gross. My mother's husband laid around all day while we did all the work and brought in the paychecks. He was a filthy pig who smelled and never washed. He'd throw used oil and old tires on the wood burning stove because he was too lazy to cut wood. Their  daughter got worms as a child. They left their son to play unattended and he got killed. I had to sleep on an unheated porch. I was sick a lot with headaches and heavy menstrual periods (that's common in girls who've lived in trauma). I had to hold a job to buy sanitary products because my mom wouldn't. She gave me old diapers. There was always a soak bucket of them. I would be doubled up with agony for hours on end and sometimes forget and leave a pad neatly rolled up on the tub edge. My mother would scold me because "Bill doesn't want to see that. He's mad at you." 

CPTSD feels baffled. My dad would play this weird game of Daddy Bright and Dark. He'd write me notes saying "we (as in me) sometimes don't feel appreciated but we should just know without anyone saying anything that we are. " And then proceed to enumerate all the ways my step "mummy" was angry with me. And how new tasks would be added to make up for how I'd let her down. Yeah. Tons of confusion. 

CPTSD feels like exhaustion. I know I just listed that one but it needs further unpacking. Exhausted trying to keep up with all of their demands and failing miserably. Very conflicting demands too. Mom wants this. Her husband wants that. Dad expects this. His wife expects that. Their kids expect expect. There are pictures of me as a child where I'm barely able to keep my eyes open I'm so tired. From having to sleep with their babies and get up at night with them. Plus having to keep up with all the housework and school work and school. Dark tetrads keep you exhausted so that you're too tired to see what they're doing to you. They flood you with demands and then fault you for not getting it right so that you will feel ashamed and keep working your ass off to please them 

CPTSD feels isolated, claustrophobic and also agoraphobic. They keep you enmeshed and chained to their little cult. They disallow you outside opportunities or promise then make them inaccessible. They move you to isolated places with no way out. You feel cut off and claustrophobic. They cripple your ability to interact with other people by zapping all your resources. So you are also agoraphobic and afraid to be with people. They destroy your ability to sleep with all the traumatic experiences you relive every night in nightmares. You can't even join a sleepover without scaring the shit out of everyone crying out at your trauma dreams. You can't have many friends because they won't let you and your home life is such a hell hole that you don't want anyone to see. You can't participate in after school activities because you have to be home doing chores chores chores. And child Care, child Care child Care. 

CPTSD makes me look and act like a freak in a circus side show. I don't know how normal people act because they didn't let me be normal. The one thing that saved me was that I'm a good actress. I watch people for cues and a good at mimicry. But normal does not come natural. And I feel like an imposter a lot of time because I kind of am. 

CPTSD feels disturbingly and inappropriately sexualized. I was a pretty moral kid if I'd been left on my own. But they ruined this by subjecting me to horrible sexual experiences, shaming me for them and nasty sex talk around me that gave me nightmares. I thought i was a dirty little slut for having them. I didn't learn till I was an adult that it wasn't my fault. But I've never stopped feeling that way. Another thing ruined. 

Weird things CPTSD from dark tetrad parent abuse makes me think, feel and do

 Hi friends. Working on healing CPTSD from narcissistic dark tetrad parent abuse here. Lately I've been having a lot of aha moments as I source weird things CPTSD makes me think, feel and do. I'm starting to notice red flags instead of just plowing heedlessly past them. I'm learning to read my triggers better. And I'm seeing connections between those and the abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, scapegoating, invalidation, manipulating and gaslighting I experience now and then, from four dark tetrad parents. I'm also seeing that the majority of all I think, say, feel and do is coping mechanism rather than chosen response. 

CPTSD makes me anxious all the time. Day and night. Constant stress and chaos from my narcissistic parents and their new spouses flooded me with cortisol and adrenaline at the wrong times. It left me wiped out and unable to function. It ruined my ability to rest or sleep without trauma nightmares. I have panic attacks in my sleep and wake up struggling to breathe.  Now the threat is gone but only because I cut contact. But the aftershocks remain. 

One of those is a strange, pervasive terror that little things will go wrong. Simple things like putting gas in the car or backing out of a parking space frighten me. I triple check everything. I'm so afraid I'll do something wrong and hurt someone. Every time something doesn't go wrong I feel as if I lucked out and it had nothing to do with me successfully doing something. 

I'm so nervous that I hold my breath, clench my teeth, gnaw on the side of my mouth, chew my lips raw. I make odd fearful grimaces and fawn smile a lot. I'm terrified of saying the wrong thing and upsetting someone. I over explain and apologize. I ask if I make sense. I say things I don't even mean just to reassure or placate. I laugh at dumb jokes because I'm expected to. 

I don't fully inhabit spaces. I don't put my feet firmly on the floor or sit fully on chairs. I don't dare lean on anything. I try to kind of hover above and stay as small and low as possible. I think this is because I have to be poised for action if someone demands something.  I have felt in the way like an obstacle or nuisance, a lot. Narcissistic parents told me I should be seen and not heard, as an adult. I've been told not to "interrupt" adult conversations when I joined in. Funny my grandparents never felt I was interrupting. They encouraged me to participate. But it was the narcissists' shaming that stuck in my head.

I still feel like an immature child a lot of the time. I don't stand up for myself very well. Sometimes I panic and react, saying things I don't mean. I'm lashing out at the voices in my  head. There are a lot more but I'm too exhausted to write more about them. We'll pick up this theme later. 

Love you all

Healing CPTSD by understanding that narcissists nark on themselves

 Hello my friends. Today on the journey to heal CPTSD from dark tetrad parent abuse, let's look at how narcissists nark on themselves when they criticize you. Especially narcissistic parents, who scapegoat their child for their wrong actions. They invent all kinds of head trippy nonsense called "word salad" to gaslight and befuddle her. They do not deal in truth or facts but in distortions, hypocritical double standards, manipulated reality and self-serving, others-harming deceit. So we need to clarify what they are actually saying and why, so that we can get to healthier places. I'm going to present these as dichotomies. 

1) Exaggerations and downplaying. They exaggerate and highlight other people's faults (or what they want people to believe are faults which are actually often appropriate behavior) while dismissing their own wrongs. This is particularly difficult for children who grow up thinking that everything they do is wrong while mommy and daddy are perfect, even when the parents' behavior is incredibly hurtful. My dad and I got my mom a necklace for her birthday. Instead of being grateful she snipped "well, where are the rest of my gifts?" I was crushed and cried. And she got mad at me. Another time she threw a pie in my face and got mad at me because no one laughed. And they out themselves as narcissists with this slippery game of verbal Chutes and Ladders. 

2) Stingy with praise, generous with criticism. Even when a narcissist does pay a compliment, it's back-handed and designed to shame rather than make the person feel good. In fact that's why they fake compliment, to make it look like they are kind and to also get digs in. Win win. But when they criticize (attack) it's big and loud. They make sure as many people as possible hear so as to maximize the humiliation. They do this to make themselves look better. But normal people don't see them as good people because they shame others. So they're constantly chasing their tails because they don't get the payoff of feeling good at other's expense. But they don't stop trying and just stupidly band their heads against the wall. They're telling on themselves that they are the ones who need to hear more critiques of their actions

3) Constructive criticism vs. insults. Dark tetrad parents will hound a kid to despair with nit-picking and call it constructive. But when anyone questions them no matter how benignly, why then it's all out warfare. My dad would insult, mock, attack, humiliate, rage at me publicly and then say I couldn't take criticism. Even though I said nothing in rebuttal. If I cried I was too sensitive. I stopped crying. But then he would dump on me about how gram and grampa were "too critical" of him. (actually they weren't critical enough). Oh, and he'd say I was too critical of him too. I don't remember doing anything but being supportive. 

4) Frenemy, guidance counselor, sex therapist, prop and whipping girl, never child,  It was very crazy-making when my would attack me then expect me to feel sorry for him. My mother did the same thing. She'd slap my face or wash my mouth with soap for things she said I said but I don't remember saying. She says she quit hitting me because I hit her back when I raised my arm to defend myself.  Then she would dump all her woes on me saying we were more like sisters than mother and daughter. Then she'd tell me her sex stories and then get mad when I didn't want to hear them. subject me to her and her boyfriends' make out sessions.  

These flip-flopping roles didn't frustrate me as much as they should have. I just let them play parent or child when they wanted to. Being very empathetic, I felt honored that they chose me to confide in. Which is what they expected.  What narcissists are outing is their two-faced, all about me nature. They are the main character in their little cult drama and you must give them what they want and what they want flip flops all over the place. And you're supposed to read minds and just know and careen down their choppy, twisty river with them. 

CPTSD trauma responses from narcissistic parent abuse DO NOT work in normal life

 Hi friends. My husband and I were talking on a recent  overnighter we took for our anniversary (38 years and counting, yay!). We realized that throughout our lives  we ended up in very disturbing and difficult situations because we were taught no survival or self-care skills. We had no role models for healthy family life. We had to make it up as we went along. Coupled with severe CPTSD and untreated health problems, we were too exhausted to make healthier choices. We were also both taught to cater to dark tetrad  narcissists rather than be our own persons. 

We were groomed in trauma responses by selfish, arrogant, remorseless, exploitative often malignant people. His were abuse survivors themselves. Mine were just some kind of extra deluxe with nuts and whipped cream abusive and neglectful. Mine weaponized everything: religion, money, family, God to their own ends. And I learned trauma responses, especially fawning, fixing and people pleasing like my ABCs. 

But trauma responses do not work well in normal life, with normal people. Outside the narcissistic cult of toxic parents, they look pretty weird. We live in an endless fog of FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) these dark tetrads created. We're nervous, unsure and confused. There's a lot of normal stuff we should know but don't know because they made damn sure we didn't. It was  in their best interests to keep up groveling, subservient and stupid. 

They withheld normal stuff every other kid we knew had. We had to beg and sit pretty for love and care like little dogs. And the treat was always snatched back as we reached to take it. We didn't know kids should expect a bed, dinner, adult supervision and safety. We didn't know kids weren't responsible for adult behavior, that we had to do all the work were punished for asking for or even just wanting normal stuff every kid we knew had. Everything was a battle and so we quit wanting or needing. 

We were told it was our job to fix everything other people broke. So now I go around with maid's apron on, broom and dustpan ready. I'm prepared for trouble and hypervigilant with worry. Not for myself. Never for me. Always for someone else, lest they need or want anything. It goes beyond people pleasing with me. Mine were never pleased. I just hoped for less angry. And I didn't do it to protect myself from their anger. 

I did it because I felt sorry and sad FOR mommy and daddy that so many people seemed to have let them down, or so they told me. As I recall, they were on the receiving end of a lot of good things and giving end of a lot of crap from people. But then they just seemed so pathetic. They weaponized and exploited my concern to the hilt. They would dump any and all their "suffering" on me spinning that it was always someone else being mean to them and never acknowledging that they brought most all of it on themselves. My dad and stepmom were always "depressed" but never doing anything about it. That was my job. I was the source of their problems and expected to find a way to fix them. My mom was always the long-suffering martyr to someone else's failings. Usually mine. 

But no matter what I did or how good I did it there was "always room for improvement." If I asked whether I did it right, I was told I was fishing for compliments or showing off. That I shouldn't work for praise and I should know when I did wrong. But also, a lot wasn't done to their exacting standards. I wasn't told what exactly was wrong, just not good enough. And I'd better except this with due humility or I was told I "couldn't take constructive criticism" and was "too sensitive." But even then, however I took it was wrong. If I cried because I felt bad for letting them down, I was having a pity party. And the criticism wasn't constructive or kindly meant. It was rude, vicious, snarky attacks against my character. 

So I couldn't win for losing. I had to figure out how to please unpleasable people who gave no guidance on how to do it only attacks when I'd failed to read their minds. And I wasn't told when I did a good job because that might "give me a big head." God forbid I feel good about anything because that was arrogance. Which I see now is ludicrous double dealing. I can't be wrong all the time and also never told when I did well. If I wanted or needed something, I was demanding and selfish.

If I didn't do 95 percent of their work I was lazy. In all the care I had to provide for their golden kids, I couldn't correct them. I had to let them get away with murder and clean up after them. If I didn't like something they did, even if I didn't voice it which I usually didn't, I was being "judgmental, too harsh, too critical" of them and then would ensue the horror stories of their victimhood. I see now it wasn't about me learning any skills, just going around baffled and afraid. 

Everything I did was so damn dire and urgent with them. You'd have thought mopping the floor was tantamount to drafting a NATO treaty. Good things were twisted to be wrong, mistakes were spun as willful disobedience and actual disobedience, I shudder to think what consequences there would be. I don't know because I never disobeyed. And then, if  I should actually feel good about something, they found a way to sabotage it. They would sucker punch me, letting me think they were satisfied and then rounding on me with a vengeance. They would lie and make up shit I did wrong, just so I'd remain desperate to please. 

One time when I  made dinner and everyone loved it. All my dad's wife could think of to say was "you served it late." Which is hysterical because we didn't  have dinner unless my dad or I made it and certainly didn't have a dinner time. Even my blindly selfish dad heard what was wrong with that and said "you never will say a nice thing to her, will you?" No she won't. And neither do you, Jack. I actually felt really bad getting dinner on "late." I feel bad a lot for doing good things. 

My abusive mother who lost her foster care license due to child abuse, accused me, at 11 of being a bad caregiver (irony intentional) when she left me to care for four kids aged 6mo to 4 years for a week, day and night. With her violently, sexually abusive live-in boyfriend sleeping on the couch. I felt so ashamed that I wasn't up to a task that legally even an adult couldn't do alone. She accused me of abuse to my children, when I checked myself into a psych facility with suicidal depression. The abuse was the same face slapping that she'd done to me repeatedly only it was "discipline" when she did it, not abuse. And then she lied and said she never hit me when my kids (bless them) reminded her. I only slapped them because she said I should. I knew better but I didn't dare trust my own judgement. 

I still don't. I am on tip toes constantly, holding my breath whenever I do anything, expecting it to go wrong. Even things that don't amount to anything. Things that aren't even a matter of ethics or morals. Like delivering a loaf of bread that expires in a week and then finding a fresher one. Or parking a little crooked. I'm serious. 

It's like I'm afraid I'm just suddenly going to purposely screw up. Like I can't trust myself to do anything right. I'm constantly anxiously worried I've offended someone by innocent remarks. Cuz, oh God, the many ways they took offense over nothing was astronomical. Yet all four of my narcissistic parents are rude, sarcastic and offensive AF. They are legendarily so. But I never saw it. It took my husband pointing it out. 

In fact, he had to point out to me that all the stuff they accused me of being was actually true of them. Arrogant, check. Too sensitive, check. Pity parties, 10x check. Hyper critical, yep. Selfish, mmhmm. Demanding, and how. Lazy, you know it. Abusive, sure. Neglectful, absolutely. Manipulative, all the time. Tomorrow's post is going to be on  how dark tetrad parents tell on themselves by the things they accuse you of. 

And the sad thing is that all these trauma responses that we learned so well, don't have any place in real life. They just make you look foolish and pathetic. But how to stop doing them, not sure. I guess that's why I just keep writing out my pain. Thanks for reading.