Hello my friends. I just finished listening to a podcast by with Patrick Teahan and Dr. Ingrid Clayton on childhood trauma specifically from what Dr. Clayton calls "Untouchable Mothers" and I've been nodding my head so much I've got a neckache. Hearing their descriptions of abuse while sad to hear were so helpful in unpacking my own CPTSD. It made me realize what the single most painful (in an enormous heap of painful) hurt that dark tetrad parents inflict on their children. And also the shocking reason why they do it.
It's not being cold or distant, though that certainly hurts. It's not the neglect which is horrible to live with. It's not even them making it clear that they don't love you. That is sheer torment but still not the worst (so you know it must be pretty bad.) The absolute worst abuse imaginable is when they not only hurt you but invite other people into your life who also hurt you and then turn their backs on you when you need them. Either by disbelieving, gaslighting or even weaponizing it to further their own selfish ends. Or all three. Both my parents did this and let their second partners do it as well.
And it's not just one time they do it. They consistently kick you to the curb and hold the door for others to hurt you. And it sometimes take years or decades to realize it (59 years for me). Not because it was an isolated incident and you forgot. But precisely because they did it so routinely that it became your normal and you got used to it. They also so thoroughly gaslit you that you were making it up or showing off that you doubted yourself and buried it deep in your poor wounded little heart.
And I believe that the shocking, terrible reason they betray you and allow you to be hurt is the most disgusting of all. And the hardest for a child to cope with. Some us fail miserably. The reason is that they were always going to disbelieve and shame you and take the other person's part. Because they know full well what's going on. I don't believe for a moment that parents whose partners hurt their children are blind to it nor are they the innocent party here. And they prove it when they blame the child for reporting it. Some even blame the child when they catch them in flagrante.
But we don't understand this as children because we can't allow ourselves to. We rely on these people for our very lives. So how can we ever accept that they would betray us? Our minds can't handle that much pain. So we absorb it deep into ourselves, paste a smile on our scared, scarred faces and carry on, shipshape and Bristol fashion. Which suits our persecutors perfectly. It gives them even more fuel to continue abusing, endangering and exploiting because we've essentially taken all the blame on ourselves.
Having said all that, I do think on some level we knew that mommy or daddy was never going to help us. That they were always going to hurt us. And I think we also know that mommy and daddy know and approve. That they have actually orchestrated it from the beginning. That's why we don't say anything. Because we're afraid that our fears will be confirmed. We let them gaslight us into disbelieving ourselves and taking shame and blame on ourselves. (which is contradictory of course. If it didn't happen there's no need to blame. And their blame-shifting proves that it did happen and that our parents are blame. That it is in fact, their fault we are in this mess. Because, and let me be very clear about this
THEY INVITED THE PERPETRATOR IN KNOWING FULL WELL WHAT HE OR SHE WOULD DO TO US. THEY GET SOMETHING OUT OF IT, QUID PRO QUO. They have pimped out their child either actually or metaphorically. They are participating in the abuse even if they just turn a blind eye. And yes I feel as nauseated saying this as you do reading it.
At the mildest level, they use their child as a shield against their partner's wrath. They scapegoat the child and pit their partner against the child to save themselves. They chain her to these demanding, selfish people because they are too weak, lazy or selfish to do it themselves. That was my dad. When he realized what a handful his new wife was going to be, he fed me to her and their kids, to placate their voracious greed, dusted his hands and went on his way doing his own thing, problem solved.
That's the less bad but still awful to live with version. At the blacker end, where extra 90% cacao dark tetrads live, the parent purposefully brings dangerous people in specifically because they are dangerous. Because the dark tetrad is also dangerous, entitled, impulsive, thrill-seeking, twisty, manipulative and sadistic and feels sexy about all that.
She plays the Love's Baby Soft ingenue, all the while stabbing her daughter in the back and pretending not to notice she's holding the knife. She triangulates the child into the vertex so now both can fire on the kid. She lies to and machinates against both the child and her halfwit boyfriend. She eggs the creep on to do creepy things, sits back and cackles at how clever she is, getting them both to dance to her tune.
Then SHE cries victim. For all she cheered on her daughter getting hurt, she's quick to attack when she gets hurt. Which is usually invented. No one dares hurt the dominatrix. But still all hands are wringing for her, because we care a lot more about adults hurting adults than them hurting children. She knows this and does she exploit it. She plays people off each other like cards. Each has his role in her shitshow. She paints her child, parents, siblings, boyfriend, everyone else the villain, herself the wounded heroine. Daughter believes her because she loves mommy. She keeps her hurt backstage because it's all about mother. She's the star. And no one stops to notice that mother is also directing the show.
Why does mother do all this? God only knows. Probably because dark tetrads love power and goodies and attention and they love it best when they make someone else suffer to get them. It's the ultimate BDSM orgasm. At least I presume. I don't know for sure. They are so effing disturbing that I hate even thinking about their motives.
But I think the lady doth protest too much. And I also think people are starting to catch on that she's not quite the genuine article. That she's played us all for suckers. Fat lot of good that does little Marilisa now, however.
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