Hello my friends. Today I want to debunk some hurtful myths about adult children of narcissists or dark tetrads, who go low to no contact with their parents. Please be advised that this like so many of my posts on CPTSD from childhood trauma will be raw and triggering to some. All my life, I've lived with abuse (physical, sexual, emotional medical, religious and financial), neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, parentification, marginalization, exclusion from family, scapegoating, invalidation, endless shaming, bullying and gaslighting by four narcissistic and dark tetrad parents. I've only just recently become aware of how bad it really was. Two of them have passed and I've since decided to greatly limit contact with the other two, my mom and her husband. It's one of the most challenging things I've ever done.
And these false statements and myths about estranged parents and children don't help. They are shaming gaslighting and anyone who would say them is cruel and hurtful. Especially people who have no idea of what happened and are just looking to pontificate. Or worse yet, those who do and are covering for or enabling the dark tetrad parents. They clearly don't have our best interests at heart. I don't get what their angle is but they have one, make no mistake. So let me just set the record straight on these wrong-headed ideas.
1) We didn't go no contact with our parents, they left us For years they've distanced themselves unless they wanted something. They were both overly demanding and under caring of me. I always say my parents didn't divorce each other as much as they divorced me. When they got married again, it was to equally selfish, bullying people whom they allowed to do as they wished with me. And then completely cut me out of their families as a member, I was just unpaid staff.
2) We don't go no contact, we just accept they have excluded us and we let them. We quit holding the door open when they slam it in our faces. We quit bending over backwards to be kicked. We quit deluding ourselves and accept the fact that they have never loved us. They just used us.
3) We don't end the relationship because there never was one. There was only a business transaction which we never agreed to and which no matter how much we kept our end, they let theirs down. I've been paying into a bank account for 60 years that I've never been able to withdraw from.
4) Despite all this, we don't do it lightly. Or easily Or quickly. It takes us years or decades to finally get the message. It hurts us like hell, even though they have never seemed to care.
5) We don't do it for retribution, vengeance, punishment or even notice. This isn't some grand gesture. Just our pitiful little white flag of surrender to the inevitable.
6) We didn't go no contact to hurt them, but to save ourselves. They are not the victims. They are perpetrators and always have been We're the battered, barmy and broken ones. Which is why, obviously, we've had to get ourselves out of their path.
7) We don't owe anyone any justification, reasons, defense or explanation on why we are cutting contact. They will demand these, but bother trying to tell the very people who created the problems in the first place? They know what they did and they did them on purpose. They just want to hurt us more making us detail what they did, so they can sit in judgement, tearing apart our statement, denying, lying and blame-shifting.
8) We're not looking for closure. We've been burned enough times and have the scars to prove it, to know that that will never happen. They will never humble themselves, admit what happened or their fault, let alone apologize/
9) We're not looking for restitution or even apology. Because dark tetrad admitting anything? oh hell no. They might say the words of apology but it's insincere, said in this oh-so-holier than thou, aggrieved, self-righteous way that lets you know how very magnanimous they are for just granting you an audience.
10) We should not "just try to work it out." That's all we've ever done at our own expense. We've forgiven too much and none of which they were sorry for, made excuses for them and endlessly patching things up. It will never work out because dark tetrads don't work for harmony. They demand control and have this delusional idea that they are some kind of moral authority, far above any censure. All we'll get in the process is shaming, blame-shifting, gaslighting and accusations of lying, showing off, attention-seeking. Been there, and am still trying to recovering from that.
11) They should not be allowed "their side of the story" That's all we've ever heard is their side. And their side is lies, deceit, manipulative story-changing, victim-pleading, blaming, distancing from accountability. We were never heard, seen, acknowledged, vindicated, or even helped which is why the only alternative we had was to to go no contact. We were always only going to get their knife in our back.
12) We should not let bygones be bygones (whatever the hell that stupid cliche means). The past trauma is not in the past though we wish it were. It lives, endlessly in our heads and hearts because it was planted there by dark tetrads who knew exactly what they were doing.
13) We have no choice. Given all this that I have said, it's clear that the options were never ours. They held all the cards. And if cornered, they just flip-flop, lie and lie again. My mother opens her eyes wide, plays the ingenue and spins a yarn a mile long about everything she's ever done. And then goes right back to doing it, self-satisfied that she still retains the upper hand.
14) Not only did we never have, we never will have a safe, healthy relationship with dark tetrad parents. That way only leads to pain. The one and only time I confronted anything to my mother, all I got was the sucker punch confirmation of all this. It's not possible because they only love themselves and hurt you. Anything but no contact is deadly.
15) We didn't ask for any of this. We just got landed in it. We didn't cause it and we can't control or fix it. And we don't have to. The best we can do is let go and let God.
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