Hi friends. Today in my quest to heal CPTSD from dark tetrad parent abuse, I'm going to share some helps that will seem to fly in the face of Christian principles. I believe that some Bible commands don't apply to those of us with CPTSD, or actually anyone under certain circumstances. And if you want to shout "heresy" and run screaming, feel free. I'm not seeking permission or validation anymore. I want to help those of us who have survived parental abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, scapegoating, enmeshment, triangulation, shaming, invalidation, gaslighting and all the other crap these dark parents wreak on us.
I know, from having lived with four Christian dark tetrads who weaponized scripture, there's no one more abusive than a religious narcissist parents. They sabotaged everything for us, including our relationship with God, to further their own ends. They made themselves gods and not like the God. They are punitive, spiteful, malicious, malignant and wicked. They proclaim to serve God but embrace evil, then blame others for their bad behavior. Everything is upside down, inside out and messed up for children of dark tetrads. Rules of loving parents didn't apply to us. We lived with hypocritical double standards. They placed burdens and expectations on us they didn't live by. Everything we learned was bass ackwards. We learned to serve them, not God. Consequently, it we can't be held to common Biblical principles. Let alone should be. Here are some of my new rules for us kids of dark tetrads.
You can serve too much. We're told to give ourselves wholeheartedly to serve and we did and do. But it's to no avail with dark tetrads who are black holes and never satisfied. We were groomed and prostituted out to hurtful people. We were also told by them that letting people walk on us and abuse us was God's will. It's not. It's THEIR will cloaked as God's. And God says to have no other gods before Him. We have to learn to serve God's way which isn't hurtful but helpful.
Scripture is written to you not to others to tell you. You'll hear a lot from self-righteous, arrogant people about what the Bible says you're supposed to do. As if you can't read for yourself. And they are often doing the things they preach against and not doing what they say God says to do. Because they get order of operations wrong. Scripture wasn't written for them to preach to others. It is written to each of us to obey as God calls him or her. They are not required as intermediaries and only get in the way and mess it up when they insert themselves. They're approval isn't required. That's God's job. Which again, they usurp for themselves. We are called to live for God not to dictate how others should.
You can tell God when you've had too much. My dark tetrad parents told me it was wicked to tell God "I can't." He would decide when enough was enough. Translation: WE will decide how much is too much and there's never enough you can do or we can put on you. Serving us is serving God. Nope. Again they're playing God.
Disobeying immoral rules is okay. In fact, you should. They will blame and shame you for "disobedience" to them as if it was disobedience to God. But when you refuse to honor them as God you're obeying Him. You're also actually helping them to hopefully stop their pridefully playing God and humble themselves.
You do not have to honor dishonorable parents. They're always on about honoring them (as parents) but they don't live it. They don't honor their own parents. They just demand. They also don't respect their children. They use and exploit them. Dark tetrads also forget the part about not angering your children nor being a millstone around her neck. They also define "respect" and "honor" unBiblically. They twist honor, respect and obey into bow and scrape, be subservient, worship, allow me to hurt you, turn a blind eye to my sinful ways. I'm going to start a new post on this because it's crucial.
You don't have to honor their new spouses as parents. That's one of the biggest scams in history. They will spin it like these are your new parents and they get to boss you around too. But they aren't and can't. And the Bible backs me up on this. Just because they drag some new person into your life does NOT make them your parent. You have two only. You don't OWE your parents anything and certainly not their new spouses, especially if they are arrogant, hateful, vicious and nasty like mine were. It is good to be kinds because it's good for you. Being a doormat is good for no one.
You don't have to bear one another's burdens because they say to. This Bible injunction is greatly exploited by dark tetrads who use it against already too empathic people. especially their kids. You are not their sex therapist, counselor, lawyer, whipping girl or toxic waste dump. They are required to help you bear your burdens, especially those they put on you but they don't. They give you a list of tasks they don't help with. They don't ask for help, they demand it but don't give it in return, even to vulnerable children who can't survive without their help. My new rule says you can choose who, when and how to help other people but on your own terms and how it feels right to you. Trust yourself. You're wise enough to do this. You don't owe them help just because they demand it. And if they are expecting, guilting and demanding it, they don't need it, they just feel entitled to it. Which completely voids the command.
You can and should count the cost of your giving. When Jesus was speaking about this, it was to selfish, narcissistic, arrogant dark tetrads (Pharisees) who hoarded their ill-gotten wealth and didn't freely give. However, commands like this are used by these very people against their victims to force them into perpetual servitude and then are never satisfied and always complaining and criticizing. If the victim objects she's accused of not giving freely, by people who never give to her without strings attached.
You can decide who, what, when, where and how to obey, help or be generous to. It is not someone else's place to dictate to you what you must give to them. Anyone that does this is proving that he or she is manipulative, exploitative and greedy. God doesn't tell them to tell you what to do. God speaks to each person individually not through a translator who twists the gospel to her purpose. Again, trust that God is leading you.
You should expect in return. Selfish dark tetrads will gaslight you with this all the time with their constant gimmes and takees. They never give without expectation and not even then much. So you keep on paying out like a broken slot machine. And they gleefully grab up all you pay out and stand their with their hands open for more. If you stop paying out or suggest they might actually pay, they accuse you of being selfish. But reciprocity is the basis of healthy relationships. One person doing all the manual labor, giving, helping, supporting while the other just takes goes against God and common sense.
You don't have to forgive endlessly. Dark tetrads will gaslight you with this one too. Yet they are the most unforgiving, grudge-holding, resentful people on the planet. And they aren't sorry for what they do. They excuse, defend and blame-shift onto you, all manner of wrong. They will use up their 490 chances and keep demanding more. Actually all your forgiveness (as in turning a blind eye and saying it's okay) is just further license for them to keep hurting. So you forgiving is a stumbling block to them humbling themselves and repenting. Learn the true definition of forgiveness which is accept that it happened and be done.
You don't have to be all things to all people all the time. Oh the many levels of suffering dark tetrads heap on their victims with this one. My dad who was nothing to no one save himself would torture me with all the ways God expected me to do and be everything and how I was failing. I made myself sick trying please him. I still suffer from the actual injury it caused. But you can't no matter how hard you try. And you shouldn't because playing performing circus monkey isn't good for them or you. It just perpetuates entitlement and arrogance. You be you. And if that's not good enough, move on.
You don't have to rush to do good, especially when you don't know what good is or if it harms you. The Bible tells us to be quick about doing good and reaching out. And of course this is a a great practice. Except when it's not. And that is when you are being TOLD to do something good instead of shown. When only you have to do it. Or when this "good doing" doesn't feel good at all. When doing good for someone else is causing you terrible pain. Because...
You don't have to do the right thing because someone says it's right. Dark tetrads are very good at knowing what is the "right thing" for other people to do. And piss poor about doing it. For two reasons: they don't know themselves. They just make it up as they go. And they really don't want you or anyone to do good because then that will show up their evilness for what it is. You do good right that feels right, not what a narcissist with selfish aims tells you is right. Take it from a girl who got into seven levels of hell following the dictates of wrong people.
You don't have and should not give till it hurts. Scriptures like this so damned twisted by dark, evil people against vulnerable people, like children. When in fact the people Jesus said this to were the dark hypocritical, exploitative, deceitful "white washed sepulchers" themselves who selfishly hoarded and denied help to those really in need. In my case, those people where my parents and stepparents. They made me give and give and I did because I am a giving person. And all they did was take, destroy, find fault, demand more. And all I got was hurt and shoved in it. There was not even basic care in childhood let alone any kind of reciprocity. I was so hurt that I developed a sort of emotional leprosy or nerve damage in which I couldn't feel how much they were hurting me until it was too late.
No pain no gain. This unmitigated horseshit isn't even in the Bible but dark tetrads spout it like it's gospel. God gives us pain for a reason and it isn't for our gain. It's to protect us. And to warn us that something (or someone) is dangerous and hurting us! When we burn our finger on the stove, it hurts and we pull it away. Sadly children of dark tetrads have had their hands held in the fire so much that we are nothing but scar tissue. We were told it was selfish and disobedience to God to pull our hands away. And we've gained nothing except suffering while the dark tetrads got the treats retrieved by our poor little burned cat's paws.
You don't have to do for other people what they can do for themselves. It's funny how my dark tetrad parents are always pratting about having a personal relationship with God. And then they expect everyone else (mostly me) to carry the can for them. They blame-shift, feign helplessness and use people like tools and props. They are always on about what God expects others to do for them. Which is just gaslighting hogwash. Nowhere in the Bible or in common sense does it say we have to do for others what they can and should do for themselves. We aren't supposed to. That is enabling.
You should not do anything because someone says you should. Yes I know the scripture about walking two miles if someone tells you to walk one with them. But again, that is weaponized by dark tetrads against kids. They make the kid think God is telling her to do whatever others tell her. But He's not. God is telling THEM to care for their child, to model safe, healthy and kind behavior. They are expressly forbidden to tell without show. That is being the proverbial millstone. They don't teach by example. They don't even help the child do all they expect. The example they set is to exploit, backstab, neglect, abuse and destroy. Every single time I've heard someone quote that scripture at someone, it's to guilt them into doing something unsafe.
The thing these scriptures have in common is that they are more honoured in the breach than the observance. Or more accurately, they are preached AT people rather than demonstrated. They are misquoted to shame, coerce, confuse, gaslight or browbeat someone into doing something for them. Which is my biggest contention with preaching of scripture. And God's too. I think the preaching of scripture is often the way it is perverted and misused. It's words without deeds. St. Francis says to preach always and occasionally use words.
My would-be preacher mother once attended church with us (never again she was such a bombastic, irreverent showoff it was humiliating). The homily reflected confronting people in their sin. Mother was all about that and was waxing eloquent about how we should boldly tell people off. I said I didn't think that was the point. Either of the homily or the scripture it was based on. But that we are to live our lives in such a way that we show good. We are to get the board out of ours, and only then deal with someone else's splinter. And she said (this could have come directly from the narc handbook) But if I have to always be looking at what I'm doing first, when DO we get to tell people what to do?" And thereby showed her real agenda.
And it proves my point on which I'll go toe to toe with anyone. What God means by the things He says aren't always the way we want to interpret it, especially if we are purposely misleading others for arrogant, entitled, selfish, manipulative or cruel reasons. If beating people over the head with their sins, and failing to confess our own sin, is our aim, then we are not doing God's will. Even just beating them over the head is bad enough. He's clear about that.
Some final thoughts for "Christian" dark tetrads. And this is from Jesus. I'm just passing them along. You need to quit preaching and start living these commands. They are written to you. In fact, shut your mouth and open your ears and heart. Humble yourself. Preach to yourself. Remember, a tree is known by its fruit and if all you're growing is selfishness and harm, beware. If you're sowing seeds of anger, resentment, frustration, bitterness, know that you will reap what you sow.
No comments:
Post a Comment