Hey friends. Today in the quest to heal CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm looking at more bizarre things dark tetrad parents do to damage their kids. Just so you know, I've only just remembered and realized some this stuff at 60 years old. And I was helped in this by a Youtube search on how toxic parents are sexually off with their kids. So there's not a lot out there. And I wasn't surprised because some of this is so sick that 1) you can't make it up and 2) it may not even be allowed on Youtube. We poor kids are so damaged by these twisted deviants that we can't even talk about it.
Some have approached the subject of dark tetrads but not in the depth I needed. And not as a child of such people. Most have little experience and will just say that dark tetrads are so disturbing that you should run not walk as far away from them as you can. Welcome to my world. And easier said than done for a kid. Then there's a lot of talk about positivity and rising above, yada yada. Sounds great unless you were groomed from infancy to be their property. If they enmeshed in you like parasites and punished you for being a person of your own.
What that tells me is that dark tetrad parent abuse is so outrageously perverted that even psychologists have no frame of reference for it. But thankfully, I found one psychologist talking about it. It takes only one. And it was as if she had lived my life with me. Come to find out (and this is incredibly helpful to know) that even in their degradation, they share pattern behaviors. And one of which is around concepts of attractions, looks and sexuality.
Both my parents, and then their new partners, were off sexually. It was so prevalent that I got used to it. But I never liked it or got used to it. I hated anything to do with "it." See, I can't even find a word to describe the ick. "inappropriate and adult" hardly cuts it. Gross, nauseating, revolting, depraved might be better. It was as if they went out of their way to ruin normal healthy things for me. Oh wait...
That's exactly what they did. The way the therapist explains it (and I so appreciated her using her own examples. It can't have been easy.) narcissistic and dark tetrad parents believe they own their children. I knew that already but it never occurred to me till she pointed it out that this includes our sexuality. In their demented heads, our bodies, development, experiences are theirs to do with as they wish.
If they want to make them uncomfortable, they broadcast intimate details about the child. I literally reeled when the doctor shared the example of a mother sharing that her daughter had pubic hair at a family gathering. I had forgotten all about my mother doing that at a picnic. She loudly told my grandmother (who was very modest and would NOT have wanted that talked about in public). So bonus points for my mom: she got to make us both feel weird. And as I shared recently, my mother brags about how she likes to "shock people." Tell us you're not a dark tetrad without telling us.
If they want to make someone feel inferior and themselves feel superior (and they always do), they body shame them. And the child with her prepubescent body is the perfect victim. My mother told people we were more like sisters than mother and daughter. Note she wasn't saying friends. We were competitors in a race which she had a 22-year lead. She would compare our bodies and loved to boast her breast size. She smiled approvingly when her boyfriend would call me "Blisters" and mock my as yet undeveloped breasts. He did that all my life and I let him because mommy taught me being their laughingstock was what God wanted me to be.
She would dress inappropriately sexualized and immature. She wore mini skirts, go-go boots and very revealing clothing in a time when no one else's mother was. Then she trash talked another woman who dressed this way, calling her a tramp. She'd run around in a bikini when most moms wore Bermuda shorts. Then she began running around naked and was "accidentally" seen by one of her boyfriend's friends. She'd tell people, including my husband and sons, how she slept naked.
She was very seductive around men, especially older men and boys. She had a series of affairs with married men. She would sit on her boyfriends' laps and make out with them in front of me. She'd talk in this affected baby voice. She'd giggle with them in whispers about me. Once before I went to school, she was with a guy and his wife came over, belted my mom across the face and knocked her down the stairs. I was told to go to school and forget it. Nothing was ever said to me or by me about it again.
She dressed as a hooker to a church Halloween party and had 8 year old me help her with her costume. I was probably the only 8 year old who now, thanks to mom, knew that word. She went to see A Clockwork Orange but left early because it was "dirty." Then told 9 year old me all the gory details. It was too dirty for her but not for me, evidently. Another thing I was probably the only kid my school to know about. At 8, she decided I needed to know the facts of life which she spared no detail. She said she was trying to protect me but she never once came to my aid in any problem of that nature. In fact, she took other people's part and blamed me. Also, the fact that she use personal anecdotal experiences to illustrate makes me now see as an adult that this was more about her perversion than my education. Plus the fact that I held my hands over my ears and begged her to stop.
She later opened a foster care home and had four young special needs kids under 5 plus various teens and me. And then she hooked up with a nasty, vulgar, lazy, unemployed, abusive guy, whom she moved in, made an apartment for him in the basement and then quit her job. I did most of the childcare and all the night care. She once left me with all these kids and her layabout live-in for a week. I couldn't calm the six-month old baby who was brain damaged, blind and deaf from abuse (and whom we never should have had in our care. He was far too ill for her to take care of let alone me.) Her boyfriend woke us screaming and cursing me. He told my mom I'd shaken the baby. He would continue screaming at me and blaming me all my life. I will never recover fully from the trauma of that experience.
And then, into this mix, she brought in a 15 year old with a known history of molesting girls. He came to visit over a weekend and she said she was going to reform him by leading him to Jesus. What that ended up being was me having to include him in everything and him acting about as you'd expect. We went to the beach and while she lay tanning in her bikini, he went around pulling girls bathing suits down, trying to drown them and/or make out with them. It was so bad that the other moms told my mom to get him away from their kids. She got mad and took us home.
Then made me take him to the neighbor's pool where he proceeded to do the same thing. The neighbor kicked him out but still mom turned a deaf ear. I retreated to my room where he barged in and molested me. Meanwhile she was in the basement with her live-in. I ran the risk of telling her and was met with stony pursed-lipped, disapproval. I begged her to say nothing to anyone because I was so embarrassed. She agreed and promptly went and told her boyfriend (who was routinely cruel and abusive to me) who told the kid to leave. She didn't want him to leave. Then she told everyone what happened and bragged up boyfriend for how brave he was. AT THE DAMN DINNER TABLE.
Not too long after this, her foster care license was revoked and they were found guilty of child abuse. She lied and said it didn't happen or if it did it was boyfriends' fault. even though I watched him whip children with sticks and her laugh. No one ever said anything about me sleeping alone two floors up from them with four young children. Or my uncle and his girlfriend living in what was my room. Or her allowing me to be sexually abused and doing nothing. Or about her leaving me alone with the kids. Or approving her boyfriend harassing me. I don't know if that came up but she wouldn't have told me if it had. I was just whisked off to live with my dad and his new wife.
I've tried for years to tell myself that she was just upset for me. It took me 49 years to realize that no, she was pissed at me for pulling one of the cards from her little fantasy house. It's important to note that she was loudly and proudly a Christian. She went to church every week, beat her Bible and would preach the "good news." She would make a show of being very holy. And was quick to finger point at anyone who was doing wrong. And then tell me that all this immoral behavior was actually her doing God's will. She was witnessing to men by sleeping with them. She was leading people to Jesus by letting them abuse her daughter. She was serving God by acting like a prostitute. She was being a good Christian by fubaring her daughter's ability to care for herself. She was honoring the Bible by brain damaging her daughter so badly that she is now crippled with it.
And you may think that she didn't know what she was doing. Although honestly I don't think very many people reading my story would believe that. And even she would say she knows what she's doing if it's in her agenda to make you believe that. It all depends on who she is at the moment. She is very sure of herself when she's pointing out other people's faults. But if she's in the wrong, oh yes, she'll paint herself as the innocent victim. She flip flops to feeble and helpless when that suits. If she is caught in a lie, she will evade, lie, back-peddle and even feign dementia. I didn't see all this because I wanted to believe her because I'm her daughter and I love her. What I didn't know but now do is that she's not my mom in any caring way, only in exploitative ways. Which is no mom at all. And she does not love me with anything like was real love is. She uses me.
I know it sounds so ludicrous that I wouldn't have seen what was wrong with it but I didn't. I thought because she said so it must be so. Yes I can read the Bible and hear Christian teaching and know it's wrong for me to do these things. But a dark tetrad parent is very convincing.
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