Hello my friends. If you've suffered with CPTSD (complex or childhood post-traumatic stress disorder), you will want to read this post. I'm going to list some of the sucker punches my dark tetrad parents pulled on me as their scapegoat child. And I'm going to describe some of the damage that causes. You need to know that most of what I write is in "real time" awareness. As soon as I realize it, I share it.
Dark tetrad parents lie to and about their kids. Not nice lies. They don't bend the truth to spare a child. They gaslight, invent, twist and deceive with the express purpose of confusing, upsetting, making her vulnerable and catching her off guard. They say she did bad things she didn't. They frame her.
Dark tetrads chameleon depending on who's watching. She'll play the loving mother if grama and grampa are around. Then she flip flops to her usual neglectful self as soon as they leave. Or he'll make up a story painting himself as victim and the child as bad guy to elicit sympathy. She only brags up the child to show off her supposed role in the success. This messes with the child' mind and makes her feel weirdly responsible for things she didn't do or accountable to mother.
Dark tetrads hit below the belt. They kick us when we're down and push us down when they need to feel superior. They humiliate us in front of others. They use us to get the shock value they so crave. They shock us by dropping huge bombs like "getting a divorce, thx-k-bye" and leaving us to fend. They throw pies in our face, laugh like idiots and get mad and punish us when no one else finds it funny.
Dark tetrad parents weaponize a child's trust. They blab confidences she shared. They mock her about insecurities like trauma sleep-walking (which they caused). She tells at the dinner table how her daughter was molested by a guy in their foster care home and then brags up her boyfriend for how "well he handled it." This makes us feel helpless, hopeless and alone. And if I'm honest, suicidal.
Dark tetrad parents backstab. They fake agreement to con the child into letting down her guard. All the while cherishing resentments, exaggerating and inventing injuries and letting all this fester into towering narcissistic rage. But which they don't dare show lest other people will see behind the mask. So all their venom comes out in the sabre in the back.
Dark tetrads use people. They drip poison into people's ears. They invent hostilities. They tell network lies, telling each person in the circle something nasty about someone else, round and round. They form posses. They machinate, manipulate, exploit and triangulate, pit people against each other and play them off one another like snooker cues. A child being too young and innocent, gets stuck in their sticky webs of intrigue.
Dark tetrad parents gang up and ambush. Once they've completed their mission to divide and conquer, they go in for the kill. But being cowards they zero in on the weakest, smallest most vulnerable member--the child. And they do it guerilla style, completely pulling the rug out and upending the child. They cut contact with anyone who might protect her. Or they lie and say that person also has it in for her. The level of damage this does the poor kid is unspeakable.
Dark tetrad parents use grossly inappropriate and Draconian punishment. You know how normal kids make normal kid mistakes and stupid choices? None of that is allowed the child of dark tetrad parents. The slightest hint of any wrongdoing is blown out of proportion. And the child is subjected to a firestorm of very illogical, unnatural and unsafe consequences. It comes out of nowhere. Ergo, the only thing she learns is to be afraid. Very afraid.
Dark tetrad parents hang and bury their child. They crucify her with false accusations, blame dumping and shame shifting. They bury her under mountains of chaos and trauma. They suffocate her with lies. They cripple her with neglect and abuse. They treat her like a mushroom feeding her shit and keeping her in the dark.
Dark tetrad parents never admit to, feel remorse or apologize for anything. After sating their rage on the child, and have her crying, cowering, wetting her pants in fear, they say, very calmly "we won't speak of this again." As if they are doing her a favor. What they really mean is "you won't say anything to anyone about what we just did here." And she doesn't', for the rest of her life. Or until such time as the gas clears and she realizes what happened.
I know I said I'd share what this does to us. But I'm still excavating all that. One thing I know is that it made me blind, barmy and baffled. I don't even know what I don't know. And what I do know, I've been conditioned not to believe. It. Is. Exhausting.
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