What CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse feels like

Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm going to share what cptsd feels like. 

CPTSD feels nervous and anxious. Relaxing was not something I was allowed to do as a kid. I had to be hypervigilant awaiting the next command. And the next chaotic stressful life change. And the next expectation and demand. I had to anticipate their every flip-flopping mood swing. I had to be prepared for double standards that doubled back on themselves. I had to know as a young child, without guidance or instruction, how to do things many adults don't know how to do. 

CPTSD feels ashamed, humiliated and belittled. Being frequently scolded and chastised with no reason given or if there was one it didn't make sense. And rarely if ever praised. 

CPTSD feels like fluid rigidity. My narcissist parents were very rigid and dogmatic in their beliefs what other people should do but also very loose with their own morals and behavior. But then they switched sides when it was convenient and didn't tell me. They just punished me for not reading minds and keeping up with their Tilt-a-Whirl of strange, self-serving doble standards. 

CPTSD feels like trying to dance on a razor's edge. I had to color to perfection, inside very tiny lines and stay small so is not to attract attention to myself thereby robbing the narcissists who demanded all the oxygen in the room. I had to keep a lot of balls in the air at once, while jumping on a lava floor. I kept myself tight with clench teeth which gave me a weird grimace that looked like I was angry when I was actually afraid. Mistakes cost me a lot. 

CPTSD feels like intense shame around benign things that are made to appear unspeakable wicked. I grew up thinking a lot of things were of the devil. Things that were just normal kids stuff like liking certain kinds of music. My parents did, thought felt and acted exactly as they pleased heedless of the devilishness of it all because the rules were for them to preach not to practice. Consequently, I believed rock music was evil. All of it. Then Pink Floyd help me turn a corner. When the Wall came out in high school I found I not only understood it but that it resonanted. I was able to pry my hands off my eyes and fingers out of my ears. The world did not explode in a ball of flames because I listened to a led Zeppelin song. Go figure. 

CPTSD feels like emotional leprosy. I was constantly getting burned and then punished for pulling my hands out of the fire. I have a lot of trauma scars and missing bits, physical and emotional. Here's a secret I hope you won't share with narcissists. If you scold me I will automatically roll over and take it all all the blame and shame. I will let you sucker punch me and thank you for the privilege. 

CPTSD feels like exhausted confusion. Constant gaslighting, lying, deception, twisting, revisionist history, spending the narrative. Just when I thought I was actually doing something right, wham, I was hit with the old you're too arrogant, you're showing off etc. They exaggerated everything to feel like treason if not done to military standards. But those standards weren't explained or taught. I just had to divine it. But I couldn't' clarify either. I was set up to fail because those constantly shifting expectations shifted without warning. If I asked if the dishes were done to their satisfaction, they would say I should just know without having to ask. Asking was fishing for compliments.

CPTSD feels like failure because success is impossible (but still expected). I was told that I was useless and lazy because I didn't get things perfect the first time. Things like mopping the baseboards on my hands and knees so not really mopping, scrubbing, to her rigid specifications. I don't know how she could know because she was so fat and lazy that she couldn't or wouldn't get down in her hands and knees to actually see. She just knew by osmosis somehow, that I'd flubbed it on purpose to piss her off. She was pissed off a lot. I used to think it was at me because I was always ALWAYS in her crosshairs. Now I see it was just narcissistic rage. And they called me the angry one. 

CPTSD feels like I'm stupid and nasty and gross. My mother's husband laid around all day while we did all the work and brought in the paychecks. He was a filthy pig who smelled and never washed. He'd throw used oil and old tires on the wood burning stove because he was too lazy to cut wood. Their  daughter got worms as a child. They left their son to play unattended and he got killed. I had to sleep on an unheated porch. I was sick a lot with headaches and heavy menstrual periods (that's common in girls who've lived in trauma). I had to hold a job to buy sanitary products because my mom wouldn't. She gave me old diapers. There was always a soak bucket of them. I would be doubled up with agony for hours on end and sometimes forget and leave a pad neatly rolled up on the tub edge. My mother would scold me because "Bill doesn't want to see that. He's mad at you." 

CPTSD feels baffled. My dad would play this weird game of Daddy Bright and Dark. He'd write me notes saying "we (as in me) sometimes don't feel appreciated but we should just know without anyone saying anything that we are. " And then proceed to enumerate all the ways my step "mummy" was angry with me. And how new tasks would be added to make up for how I'd let her down. Yeah. Tons of confusion. 

CPTSD feels like exhaustion. I know I just listed that one but it needs further unpacking. Exhausted trying to keep up with all of their demands and failing miserably. Very conflicting demands too. Mom wants this. Her husband wants that. Dad expects this. His wife expects that. Their kids expect expect. There are pictures of me as a child where I'm barely able to keep my eyes open I'm so tired. From having to sleep with their babies and get up at night with them. Plus having to keep up with all the housework and school work and school. Dark tetrads keep you exhausted so that you're too tired to see what they're doing to you. They flood you with demands and then fault you for not getting it right so that you will feel ashamed and keep working your ass off to please them 

CPTSD feels isolated, claustrophobic and also agoraphobic. They keep you enmeshed and chained to their little cult. They disallow you outside opportunities or promise then make them inaccessible. They move you to isolated places with no way out. You feel cut off and claustrophobic. They cripple your ability to interact with other people by zapping all your resources. So you are also agoraphobic and afraid to be with people. They destroy your ability to sleep with all the traumatic experiences you relive every night in nightmares. You can't even join a sleepover without scaring the shit out of everyone crying out at your trauma dreams. You can't have many friends because they won't let you and your home life is such a hell hole that you don't want anyone to see. You can't participate in after school activities because you have to be home doing chores chores chores. And child Care, child Care child Care. 

CPTSD makes me look and act like a freak in a circus side show. I don't know how normal people act because they didn't let me be normal. The one thing that saved me was that I'm a good actress. I watch people for cues and a good at mimicry. But normal does not come natural. And I feel like an imposter a lot of time because I kind of am. 

CPTSD feels disturbingly and inappropriately sexualized. I was a pretty moral kid if I'd been left on my own. But they ruined this by subjecting me to horrible sexual experiences, shaming me for them and nasty sex talk around me that gave me nightmares. I thought i was a dirty little slut for having them. I didn't learn till I was an adult that it wasn't my fault. But I've never stopped feeling that way. Another thing ruined. 

Weird things CPTSD from dark tetrad parent abuse makes me think, feel and do

 Hi friends. Working on healing CPTSD from narcissistic dark tetrad parent abuse here. Lately I've been having a lot of aha moments as I source weird things CPTSD makes me think, feel and do. I'm starting to notice red flags instead of just plowing heedlessly past them. I'm learning to read my triggers better. And I'm seeing connections between those and the abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, scapegoating, invalidation, manipulating and gaslighting I experience now and then, from four dark tetrad parents. I'm also seeing that the majority of all I think, say, feel and do is coping mechanism rather than chosen response. 

CPTSD makes me anxious all the time. Day and night. Constant stress and chaos from my narcissistic parents and their new spouses flooded me with cortisol and adrenaline at the wrong times. It left me wiped out and unable to function. It ruined my ability to rest or sleep without trauma nightmares. I have panic attacks in my sleep and wake up struggling to breathe.  Now the threat is gone but only because I cut contact. But the aftershocks remain. 

One of those is a strange, pervasive terror that little things will go wrong. Simple things like putting gas in the car or backing out of a parking space frighten me. I triple check everything. I'm so afraid I'll do something wrong and hurt someone. Every time something doesn't go wrong I feel as if I lucked out and it had nothing to do with me successfully doing something. 

I'm so nervous that I hold my breath, clench my teeth, gnaw on the side of my mouth, chew my lips raw. I make odd fearful grimaces and fawn smile a lot. I'm terrified of saying the wrong thing and upsetting someone. I over explain and apologize. I ask if I make sense. I say things I don't even mean just to reassure or placate. I laugh at dumb jokes because I'm expected to. 

I don't fully inhabit spaces. I don't put my feet firmly on the floor or sit fully on chairs. I don't dare lean on anything. I try to kind of hover above and stay as small and low as possible. I think this is because I have to be poised for action if someone demands something.  I have felt in the way like an obstacle or nuisance, a lot. Narcissistic parents told me I should be seen and not heard, as an adult. I've been told not to "interrupt" adult conversations when I joined in. Funny my grandparents never felt I was interrupting. They encouraged me to participate. But it was the narcissists' shaming that stuck in my head.

I still feel like an immature child a lot of the time. I don't stand up for myself very well. Sometimes I panic and react, saying things I don't mean. I'm lashing out at the voices in my  head. There are a lot more but I'm too exhausted to write more about them. We'll pick up this theme later. 

Love you all

Healing CPTSD by understanding that narcissists nark on themselves

 Hello my friends. Today on the journey to heal CPTSD from dark tetrad parent abuse, let's look at how narcissists nark on themselves when they criticize you. Especially narcissistic parents, who scapegoat their child for their wrong actions. They invent all kinds of head trippy nonsense called "word salad" to gaslight and befuddle her. They do not deal in truth or facts but in distortions, hypocritical double standards, manipulated reality and self-serving, others-harming deceit. So we need to clarify what they are actually saying and why, so that we can get to healthier places. I'm going to present these as dichotomies. 

1) Exaggerations and downplaying. They exaggerate and highlight other people's faults (or what they want people to believe are faults which are actually often appropriate behavior) while dismissing their own wrongs. This is particularly difficult for children who grow up thinking that everything they do is wrong while mommy and daddy are perfect, even when the parents' behavior is incredibly hurtful. My dad and I got my mom a necklace for her birthday. Instead of being grateful she snipped "well, where are the rest of my gifts?" I was crushed and cried. And she got mad at me. Another time she threw a pie in my face and got mad at me because no one laughed. And they out themselves as narcissists with this slippery game of verbal Chutes and Ladders. 

2) Stingy with praise, generous with criticism. Even when a narcissist does pay a compliment, it's back-handed and designed to shame rather than make the person feel good. In fact that's why they fake compliment, to make it look like they are kind and to also get digs in. Win win. But when they criticize (attack) it's big and loud. They make sure as many people as possible hear so as to maximize the humiliation. They do this to make themselves look better. But normal people don't see them as good people because they shame others. So they're constantly chasing their tails because they don't get the payoff of feeling good at other's expense. But they don't stop trying and just stupidly band their heads against the wall. They're telling on themselves that they are the ones who need to hear more critiques of their actions

3) Constructive criticism vs. insults. Dark tetrad parents will hound a kid to despair with nit-picking and call it constructive. But when anyone questions them no matter how benignly, why then it's all out warfare. My dad would insult, mock, attack, humiliate, rage at me publicly and then say I couldn't take criticism. Even though I said nothing in rebuttal. If I cried I was too sensitive. I stopped crying. But then he would dump on me about how gram and grampa were "too critical" of him. (actually they weren't critical enough). Oh, and he'd say I was too critical of him too. I don't remember doing anything but being supportive. 

4) Frenemy, guidance counselor, sex therapist, prop and whipping girl, never child,  It was very crazy-making when my would attack me then expect me to feel sorry for him. My mother did the same thing. She'd slap my face or wash my mouth with soap for things she said I said but I don't remember saying. She says she quit hitting me because I hit her back when I raised my arm to defend myself.  Then she would dump all her woes on me saying we were more like sisters than mother and daughter. Then she'd tell me her sex stories and then get mad when I didn't want to hear them. subject me to her and her boyfriends' make out sessions.  

These flip-flopping roles didn't frustrate me as much as they should have. I just let them play parent or child when they wanted to. Being very empathetic, I felt honored that they chose me to confide in. Which is what they expected.  What narcissists are outing is their two-faced, all about me nature. They are the main character in their little cult drama and you must give them what they want and what they want flip flops all over the place. And you're supposed to read minds and just know and careen down their choppy, twisty river with them. 

CPTSD trauma responses from narcissistic parent abuse DO NOT work in normal life

 Hi friends. My husband and I were talking on a recent  overnighter we took for our anniversary (38 years and counting, yay!). We realized that throughout our lives  we ended up in very disturbing and difficult situations because we were taught no survival or self-care skills. We had no role models for healthy family life. We had to make it up as we went along. Coupled with severe CPTSD and untreated health problems, we were too exhausted to make healthier choices. We were also both taught to cater to dark tetrad  narcissists rather than be our own persons. 

We were groomed in trauma responses by selfish, arrogant, remorseless, exploitative often malignant people. His were abuse survivors themselves. Mine were just some kind of extra deluxe with nuts and whipped cream abusive and neglectful. Mine weaponized everything: religion, money, family, God to their own ends. And I learned trauma responses, especially fawning, fixing and people pleasing like my ABCs. 

But trauma responses do not work well in normal life, with normal people. Outside the narcissistic cult of toxic parents, they look pretty weird. We live in an endless fog of FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) these dark tetrads created. We're nervous, unsure and confused. There's a lot of normal stuff we should know but don't know because they made damn sure we didn't. It was  in their best interests to keep up groveling, subservient and stupid. 

They withheld normal stuff every other kid we knew had. We had to beg and sit pretty for love and care like little dogs. And the treat was always snatched back as we reached to take it. We didn't know kids should expect a bed, dinner, adult supervision and safety. We didn't know kids weren't responsible for adult behavior, that we had to do all the work were punished for asking for or even just wanting normal stuff every kid we knew had. Everything was a battle and so we quit wanting or needing. 

We were told it was our job to fix everything other people broke. So now I go around with maid's apron on, broom and dustpan ready. I'm prepared for trouble and hypervigilant with worry. Not for myself. Never for me. Always for someone else, lest they need or want anything. It goes beyond people pleasing with me. Mine were never pleased. I just hoped for less angry. And I didn't do it to protect myself from their anger. 

I did it because I felt sorry and sad FOR mommy and daddy that so many people seemed to have let them down, or so they told me. As I recall, they were on the receiving end of a lot of good things and giving end of a lot of crap from people. But then they just seemed so pathetic. They weaponized and exploited my concern to the hilt. They would dump any and all their "suffering" on me spinning that it was always someone else being mean to them and never acknowledging that they brought most all of it on themselves. My dad and stepmom were always "depressed" but never doing anything about it. That was my job. I was the source of their problems and expected to find a way to fix them. My mom was always the long-suffering martyr to someone else's failings. Usually mine. 

But no matter what I did or how good I did it there was "always room for improvement." If I asked whether I did it right, I was told I was fishing for compliments or showing off. That I shouldn't work for praise and I should know when I did wrong. But also, a lot wasn't done to their exacting standards. I wasn't told what exactly was wrong, just not good enough. And I'd better except this with due humility or I was told I "couldn't take constructive criticism" and was "too sensitive." But even then, however I took it was wrong. If I cried because I felt bad for letting them down, I was having a pity party. And the criticism wasn't constructive or kindly meant. It was rude, vicious, snarky attacks against my character. 

So I couldn't win for losing. I had to figure out how to please unpleasable people who gave no guidance on how to do it only attacks when I'd failed to read their minds. And I wasn't told when I did a good job because that might "give me a big head." God forbid I feel good about anything because that was arrogance. Which I see now is ludicrous double dealing. I can't be wrong all the time and also never told when I did well. If I wanted or needed something, I was demanding and selfish.

If I didn't do 95 percent of their work I was lazy. In all the care I had to provide for their golden kids, I couldn't correct them. I had to let them get away with murder and clean up after them. If I didn't like something they did, even if I didn't voice it which I usually didn't, I was being "judgmental, too harsh, too critical" of them and then would ensue the horror stories of their victimhood. I see now it wasn't about me learning any skills, just going around baffled and afraid. 

Everything I did was so damn dire and urgent with them. You'd have thought mopping the floor was tantamount to drafting a NATO treaty. Good things were twisted to be wrong, mistakes were spun as willful disobedience and actual disobedience, I shudder to think what consequences there would be. I don't know because I never disobeyed. And then, if  I should actually feel good about something, they found a way to sabotage it. They would sucker punch me, letting me think they were satisfied and then rounding on me with a vengeance. They would lie and make up shit I did wrong, just so I'd remain desperate to please. 

One time when I  made dinner and everyone loved it. All my dad's wife could think of to say was "you served it late." Which is hysterical because we didn't  have dinner unless my dad or I made it and certainly didn't have a dinner time. Even my blindly selfish dad heard what was wrong with that and said "you never will say a nice thing to her, will you?" No she won't. And neither do you, Jack. I actually felt really bad getting dinner on "late." I feel bad a lot for doing good things. 

My abusive mother who lost her foster care license due to child abuse, accused me, at 11 of being a bad caregiver (irony intentional) when she left me to care for four kids aged 6mo to 4 years for a week, day and night. With her violently, sexually abusive live-in boyfriend sleeping on the couch. I felt so ashamed that I wasn't up to a task that legally even an adult couldn't do alone. She accused me of abuse to my children, when I checked myself into a psych facility with suicidal depression. The abuse was the same face slapping that she'd done to me repeatedly only it was "discipline" when she did it, not abuse. And then she lied and said she never hit me when my kids (bless them) reminded her. I only slapped them because she said I should. I knew better but I didn't dare trust my own judgement. 

I still don't. I am on tip toes constantly, holding my breath whenever I do anything, expecting it to go wrong. Even things that don't amount to anything. Things that aren't even a matter of ethics or morals. Like delivering a loaf of bread that expires in a week and then finding a fresher one. Or parking a little crooked. I'm serious. 

It's like I'm afraid I'm just suddenly going to purposely screw up. Like I can't trust myself to do anything right. I'm constantly anxiously worried I've offended someone by innocent remarks. Cuz, oh God, the many ways they took offense over nothing was astronomical. Yet all four of my narcissistic parents are rude, sarcastic and offensive AF. They are legendarily so. But I never saw it. It took my husband pointing it out. 

In fact, he had to point out to me that all the stuff they accused me of being was actually true of them. Arrogant, check. Too sensitive, check. Pity parties, 10x check. Hyper critical, yep. Selfish, mmhmm. Demanding, and how. Lazy, you know it. Abusive, sure. Neglectful, absolutely. Manipulative, all the time. Tomorrow's post is going to be on  how dark tetrad parents tell on themselves by the things they accuse you of. 

And the sad thing is that all these trauma responses that we learned so well, don't have any place in real life. They just make you look foolish and pathetic. But how to stop doing them, not sure. I guess that's why I just keep writing out my pain. Thanks for reading. 

Shocking ways I expect punishment and am surprised by kindness

Hi friends. Today in healing CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm looking at some of the shocking ways I expect punishment and am surprised by kindness. And how this has made me unable to manage in healthy ways with anything, especially harm. This is down to my four dark tetrad parents brainwashing me to be the scapegoat, the fall guy, the whipping girl, for everyone's bad choices. Yes four--my bio parents who were narcissistic enough, got sick of each other's BS, divorced and married more arrogant, selfish people. That's how it usually works. 

I got bounced around between them, never having a home, just being the maid and nanny in their homes. My husband has said that I was Cinderella (only not with the long blonde hair or mice friends). Thank God I did get my handsome prince in him, at some point. But pain and suffering was my normal growing up. I was conditioned that when they said jump, I said "how high?" And then getting scolded when I did it. I was conditioned not to expect enough of anything I needed. 

So these things called kindness, love, support, encouragement, receiving good not just giving it, are unfamiliar. What is familiar is punishment. So now, as a broken adult, I am prepared for pain and punishment no matter what I do. I'm prepared to be let down, to kicked to the curb, to have plans not work out because someone lied and set me up. Or actually that's wrong. I'm never prepared for it. It sucker punches me every time. Because I've always done what the Bible says and kept on believing in and trusting others. I kept forgiving. 

I never developed what my grama said I should, a cynical, wait and see, attitude. I throw myself whole-heartedly into serving others without thought of reward. My dad said I should never do anything because I expected a reward. What he failed to mention was that I should expect punishment, no matter what because he and his wife and their kids would always expect and never be satisfied. It would have been good to know that. 

What my mom failed to explain was that we would always play by her crazy unfair double standards of morality and Christianity. She would always do as she pleased while preaching to others and no one would question her. I would be required to take the blame and punishment for her crimes. I would be the one hurt by them and then if I ever did confront it, be gaslit that it didn't happen. 

And this has played out with them all my life. At almost 61, that's a damn long time. So now, I never expect to feel good about something good I do. I expect fallout. When things work out, I don't even see it because I'm blinded to success. I'm always holding my breath and surprised when good things happen. I expect drama or trauma, I expect the bottom to drop out because it always did. 

Which would be bad enough except that I'm not ready for it. I take the blow full on, like a belly flop. I get the wind knocked out of me on a regular basis. Unnecessarily, I might add. 99 times out of 100, it's avoidable. It's just that I live with a lot of weaponized incompetence, cruelty and exploitation. I live with manufactured scenes and chaos.   But I've just got a big goofy smile on my face all the time and so I don't see it coming. But I should. But I don't want to. 

Is it better to be always vigilant against problems when you live in turbulence or is it  better to face life with a positive, hopeful attitude? Eh, I think the latter. At least then, if you are prepared, they can't sucker punch you. The dark tetrads don't get the hit from shocking you. You see them lowering their heads, side step their assault and they run their own foolish heads into the wall. They get the punishment for their own nastiness not you. 

Should you confront you narcissist parents on their abusive ways? Short answer, long explanation

Hello my friends. So if you've been following my blog, you know that I'm working to heal a lifetime of narcissistic abuse by four dark tetrad parents. And you might be wondering why I just write about it. Why not confront them? Wouldn't that be the fair thing? After all, I'm trash talking them. Shouldn't she get a chance to defend herself? Okay, first, if me telling what happened is trash talking what they did must be pretty bad. And second, if you think abusive, cruel, manipulative, neglectful parents who consistently abandoned, endangered and exploited their child deserve their say, then please move on. This is not the place for you. They've always had the first and last word and that's why I'm so messed up. 

Still with me? I know you are. I know that flying monkeys rarely read things like this. And narcs certainly don't. It's just people who are looking for solace themselves. But I had to nip any gaslighting and trauma shaming in the bud. We've all had too much of that. But still, you may be genuinely wondering if confronting a narcissist with all he's done would help. And for that I have an answer, categorically, emphatically NO! NEIN! NYET! If you're going to confront a seasoned, accomplished dark tetrad narcissist with her own behavior, you'd be better off pulling the pin on a hand grenade and not letting go. 

Don't get me wrong. Narcissists do deserve to be gobsmacked with their own evil deeds. No mercy, sweep the leg. It's actually the only thing that might shake them is if everyone quits playing their game and slaps them down. And you do deserve affirmation, apologies, restitution, closure and healing. But you aren't going to achieve any of these objectives with a showdown. All you'll get for your pains is more pain. 

Because if you ever bring up anything they have done, no matter how benignly,  they go  immediately into DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender). It's an autonomic response with them. It's like they were just waiting for you to say something. Because they were. They set traps and bait them with false promises of love and care. Finally, you hope, she's going to back down on her nastiness and be the mom you always wanted. Because they weaponize your need for love. You'd be better off trusting a piranha. 

This is also their guilty conscience pinging. But a narcissist will cut her own tongue out before admitting culpability. Now there are those who will tell you that dark tetrads can't help it. They lack empathy and don't have a developed conscience like normal people. The narcissist would love you to believe that because she thinks it will give her a free pass, another way she's special and not held to the same things us mere plebs are. Please don't believe that. Her conscience may have gotten rusty from lack of use. Her empathy may have gotten smothered. But they are there.

She just doesn't want to acknowledge them because where's the fun in that?  She's the perpetual teen, exempt from consequences, and free to be as unnerving as she likes. Cleaning up her messes is what she has staff (you) for. Plus she'd have no excuse to lean on. So she has to make it your fault with her DARVO tactics. And these people are good! They've had all their lives to craft a story that is pock-marked with lies, evasions and tortuous twists and turns. If you cast your mind back you'll see they always put you in the hot seat, made it about them as victims and you as big meany. And they always will. 

Some narcissists will immediately launch battleships before you've even gotten to the dock. The covert malignant narcissist, however, plays a sneakier long game. With an arsenal of gaslighting FOG tricks (fear, obligation and guilt) she will make it your fault she treated you that way, AND scold you for lying and blackballing her AND also shame on you for daring to question mother. But here what's going on there. She's playing a double hand trifecta-exonerating her behavior plus making you think you caused it PLUS you're lying that it happened and disrespecting her by saying what she did (let's just pause to ask how you could both be at fault and lying. The two are mutually exclusive). 

If you confront, plan on 1) shocked Pikachu face 2) exaggerated denials and 3) dishonestly honest bafflement. She'll claim to have no idea what you're talking about, even though you can quote chapter and verse, date and time on horrific things she did. Things like approving her husband kicking you out on the street at 16 for coming in 15 minutes late. Like running off and leaving you with strangers in a strange place 3K miles from home. Like sending you out to play alone in the park three blocks away at 5. Or making you sleep with four special needs kids under four while she and her boyfriend played house in the basement. Or stealing your car or backstabbing you when you checked yourself into a mental hospital, saying you were unfit and threatening to take your kids or slapping you in the head and then denying to your kids that she did. Like making you witness her getting belted and knocked down the stairs by wife of a guy she was cheating with. Yeah, big things. Yeah, she's lied and denied every one. 

She'll hold her hands out in mystified consternation. She'll open her eyes wide and adopt a weird, stagey hushed tone as she  pretends to try and recall what you could possibly be referring to. She'll call you "honey" like she did when you were little to get you off guard.   Then she'll shake her head slowly and say she's sorry she can't remember. Like it was some wee little thing and not cataclysmic agony for you. And then she'll feign concern for you (she's trying to make you feel crazy). She'll fake a sorrowful attitude and say magnanimously that though she has no memory of  it, if (IF) she did anything, she's sorry. Which by not recalling, she shows she didn't care two hoots and isn't the least bit sorry. But now, boom, she's kicked the ball back in your court. You have to forgive because she said the word sorry. And you end up by apologizing to her, though wtf for I've no idea. 

Do you see what she's done there? She's completely disavowed any responsibility for her behavior, thereby gaslighting you and making you feel crazy, and like a bad daughter for voicing concerns about mommy and retaining her moral high ground by being so generous and humoring pathetic liar you.  But do not turn your back on this person. Don't think you've won or even just been heard. She'll act all holy, high and mighty and fake caring but she will shoot you in the back as you walk away.  Been there and have the back injuries to prove it. 

Sometimes you'll catch her in a bald-faced lie. She'll forget who she lied what to and actually inadvertently admit that what you are saying is true. My mother said she'd never have left me alone for a week at 11 with her four preschool and baby age foster kids and her creepy ass boyfriend because "she'd have lost her foster care license." So she did know full well what she was doing and did it anyway. She didn't even catch how she'd been tripped by her lies because she's told so many she believes them. She re-gaslights on top of old historical gaslighting. And what a fun Molotov cocktail to the brain that is. 

You must know that you will never win with these people because they play for keeps. They shoot real bullets not blanks. My mother's husband effed around and found out how she is. She pulled the same "I'm so sorry you're liar" game on him like she does to me, when he confronted her on lies she told him. She ran crying to me (me!) that he was saying mean things. Like you expect me to intervene with this bat guano crazy lunatic? Like I'd want to after all they both put me through? Where were they when each other was attacking me? Where was my mother? But I did feel sorry for her. I'm a sucker for punishment. Well, he got so enraged that she had the audacity to double deal him that he divorced her. He hates her but they still live together. 

NGL, I'd have paid money if I'd still been on speaking terms, to see him gaping like a fish. Mr. Big who was always so proud of his intimidation and bullying, him who bragged about breaking an innocent person's face and threatening me likewise. Him who had cursed me as the dirtiest names you could think of. Who had scared me so badly that I have trauma nightmares. Who had mocked me, sexually harassed and tortured me. Who had threatened me with bodily harm when I was holding my baby. Him who I'd been nothing but  kind to. 

I'd love to see him choke on his own bile. Be the bigger person? Eff that. The only way to get to  healthier places is by raging out the pain they caused.  By saying what we never could. Not to them. Bad idea as you've seen. But by giving ourselves permission to get mad and stay mad as long as we need to. To cut contact and not explain why. To love ourselves as we weren't loved. That's all I have for them. You're welcome for doing what you never did. Good luck explaining your bs to God. 

Dark tetrad narcissists make sense once you accept one single fact

 Hello friends. I've read and written a lot on the confusing, gaslighting, deceitful behavior and words of narcissists and dark tetrads. But then I realized after living with four dark tetrad parents that they aren't confusing at all once you understand their language and behavior. They make perfect sense once you accept one single fact. But you have to crack their code and I'm here to do that today. 

The fact you must accept for it to make sense is that they are all about themselves. But not just in a self-absorbed way. It's not enough that dark tetrads get their way. It must happen at someone else's expense, preferably in ways that humiliate them publicly. And in ways that make the dark tetrad look like the victim and the actual victim look like the  perpetrator. Other people must see the victim being made a fool of by the dark tetrad but not see that the dark tetrad is pulling the strings. 

Which is where the confusion and gaslighting come in. The dark tetrad is secretly manufacturing and orchestrating problems with the innocent victim in the crosshairs. But it's so clandestine that no one sees her as the puppet master. The just see her victim hanging out to dry and flopping around on the invisible strings the puppet master is pulling.

Once you understand that the dark tetrad is the agent provocateur, all she says and does suddenly makes sense. Because she doesn't just lie, she is lies. Her entire persona is deception. She operates on double standards, mimicry, hypocrisy and trickery. There's nothing genuine about her except her genuinely psychotic and sociopathic behavior. She plays a long game and so the fraud is complete and complex. She's been crafting it for so long that she now believes her own lies 

She has forgotten more wrong things she's done than most people remember doing right. She's convinced herself of her own superiority, self-righteous moral authority and above-it-all-ness. She's ruthlessly pursued her own agenda and directed her own one-woman play so long that it's all she knows. She's been exploiting, conniving, manipulating, taking advantage of others for long it's first nature. She not only won't but can't accept that she's not in control of herself, let alone anyone else. She has been living the hypocrisy and blaming others for her wicked behavior, preaching without practicing, so long it's normal for her. She has been playing by two sets of self-serving rules so long that she now believes she's not only entitled to but that God actually approves this. 

Once you get that it's all smoke and mirrors, that she's a self-deluded fraud and that she perpetuates her fraudulent schemes to shield the con, the pieces fall into place. And this is why she is so baffling to us. We are authentic selves. She's artificial. We speak from sincerity. She speaks with a forked tongue. We humble ourselves and admit wrong. She arrogantly keeps elevating herself higher and claiming complete exoneration and diplomatic immunity.   We work for peace while she creates conflict. 

She has been lying so long that not only does she believe, she has to tell more lies to sustain the false image. She has to keep gaslighting to preserve her concocted story of her own holiness. She does not want to act with righteousness and purity. She wants to do whatever the hell she pleases and everyone is  just supposed to approve as she shits on them. But as she ages, the cracks show. She's dug herself so deep that there's no way out. And yet, because she's convinced herself, conned herself, she is now blind and deaf to reality. So everything she does, says and is, must be aimed at protecting and promoting this scam. She is so fake that she crinkles like Styrofoam when she walks. And doesn't see how fake she is.

Even when she appears genuine, you have to know it's an act. Even when she does happen to say or do something for the good of others, know that it will come back to bite you. It has to. Or that she has ulterior motives. She only gives to get and only as little as possible. She leverages everything. Her addiction to self will not allow her to let up, not even for a moment. Everything must revolve back to her as the center of the universe. She must be obeyed and served and you must be hurt to achieve it. She is god and a very ungodly one. Her world is built on untruth. 

Once you accept that she's ALL lies, your truth emerges. 

 

 

Healing CPTSD from narcissistic parents by translating their gaslighting word salad correctly

Hello friends. Today I'm going to discuss how healing CPTSD from dark tetrad parents is about learning to translate their gaslighting word salad correctly. If you're not familiar with the term word salad, it means nonsensical gibberish of brain injured patients. But narcissists use it too, only not because they can't think clearly. They purposely speak in disingenuous and confusing ways. They say crazy stuff to bewilder and gaslight the listener with evasions, blame-shifting, switching topics randomly, interruptions, contradictions, dismissing, undermining, denying, lying and rewriting self-serving narratives. They may feign dementia to gain sympathy and avoid responsibility but they know exactly what they are doing. 

It's so awkward and childish that it's embarrassing to listen to them. They posture and pontificate about things they know nothing about. They make grand gestures, waving their arms and pounding their fists. They make outlandish statements, sweeping generalizations and exaggerated exhortations. Their lurid facial expressions are straight out of Marx Brothers with sneers, fake asides and googoo eyes. Except what they're saying isn't funny. It's alarming. If you've seen a televangelist or hellfire and brimstone preacher in action, you'll know what I mean. They are caricatures not people. You can tell they really fancy themselves the voice of truth. But there's nothing reasonable or intelligent about it. They're just whipped up into an imagined power trip frenzy. They literally look like asylum lunatics because they kind of are. 

They will drum up artificial slippery slopes, dramatically point accusing fingers and cry victim when no one did or said anything to them. They talk behind their hands in stage whispers. They point and mock. They accuse people of looking down on them as they are acting ridiculously. They take stands when there's no question of an issue. They make shit up and rage at nothing. They will insult, heckle and pick fights and then play the innocent if someone responds. My mother once threw a pie in my face out of the blue and then got mad at me because no one else laughed. 

It's so uncomfortable. My mother (who has abandoned me more often than not and never took care of me) once yelled loudly into a public bathroom "IS THERE ANYONE IN THERE?? MY KID IS COMING IN AND I CAN'T BE TOO CAREFUL!" to the shock of people who were exiting. The kid was my golden child 40-y/o sister. Yet when I was five she sent me to play in a park alone three blocks away where locals were warned not to let their children go, because known pedophile to hung out there. 

Dark tetrads are so exaggeratedly polarizing and binary in their thinking. They use such ignorant, immature phraseology. Good/bad, right/wrong. Christian, unchristian. What do those words even mean? I don't know and I doubt they do either. They just have very odd, uninformed, goofy ideas. Because they are that dangerous combo of ignorant and arrogant. They are too proud to actually admit they don't know things so they just make up nonsense as they go along. They generalize. They purposely misunderstand. They proclaim to be clairvoyant and say they can "read" people. And their minds and motives. When they don't even know a thing about the person. Because they are always looking to one up and take down someone else. 

My mother says she loves to shock people. Which she imagines is one of her God-given tasks. She claims that proud people (and everyone is proud but her, supposedly) need her shock and shake them out of their sins. But nothing could be less true. What she really is, is an arrogant exhibitionist who adores making a spectacle of herself. She's not trying help others, she just wants to "out" wrongs she has decided (or invented) that other people have done, to throw suspicion away from genuine by any standards wrongs she has done And the shock is just her sadistic love of humiliating or people. 

She has had multiple affairs at least once with an also married man. She lived with a man openly in our home. She took a girl in her care to have an abortion. She abandoned me several times and was a very neglectful, abusive mom. She forced me to hear her sex stories. She let her boyfriend sexually harass me. She put me out on the street when I was 16. She did them blatantly and was self-righteous about it , has never admitted how wrong they were and now lies and says she never did. AND feels arrogantly entitled to preach against all these things she did herself. And has the audacity to call my husband sinful for reading a book called "The Joy of Homebrewing." Or having a few beers 

Because this narcissistic nonsense is so much worse when they have decided they are Christian. There's no dark tetrad like a religious one. They weaponize everything to suit their devious motives, especially God. They are hypocritically self-righteous without being the least bit righteous. They assume the worst in other  people. He accuses them of things he is actually doing himself and excusing. She makes up a lot of foolish tales, all bad, about other people. My mom and her husband have lied, cheated, scammed and sinned their way through life. Yet they proudly "call out" other people on bad behavior which they have invented. They act like they are some kind goon squad for God. That He has issued them a license to ferret out sinners while completely exonerating them of all wrong-doing which they will never admit to. I can't tell you how many times I've caught them in lies and gaslighting. But I've rarely confronted them because they are violent and vicious when crossed.  

Even as I write this, it sounds ridiculous. Because it is. It's painful to watch and humiliating to be around. It's embarrassing to admit. And I never did. I just somehow found a way to go along with it. I said nothing and endured the weird looks. Because they made life hellish enough without having to deal with the rages if I confronted them. And because the very ridiculousness of their behavior kept me silent. How can you explain to normal people your parents' VERY abnormal, dangerously psychotic behavior without looking like a psycho myself? And they knew that and used it against me. My parents were accomplished liars and gaslighters. They knew their behavior would earn censure if it was known. They have had trouble with the law on several issues. If the extent was known, they would be imprisoned and they know it. They also knew it was too incredibly awful to be believed. So they bullied me into silence with that knowledge. 

And it's even worse for us their kids, because we sometimes end up acting like them because we grew up with their antics as our norm. We often pick up these frustrating habits like a cold. And we look and sound like idiots around normal people. It's even more embarrassing because it feels so juvenile to talk like this. I'm a "bad girl" or a "sinner"  if I do thus and such and I'm 60 damn years old. So childish. I don't even really think this way, it's just their yammering in my head. 

We are not ignorant. But we got so used to hearing them babble on in their native gibberish that we sometimes talk and think that way too, even if we are mature and educated. We have to fight against falling into their bizarre way of thinking. What I have to do is remind myself how irrelevant and baseless are the ridiculous things they say. That they spew as gospel truth what are just ill-formed, self-serving opinions.

Operative word: self-serving. They put about lies and deceptions as truth. And silly statements as essential knowledge. What I must remember is that their nonsense has no bearing on me. It only did as a kid because I had the misfortune to be born to these devious people. I got used to hearing nonsense like a first language spoken in my home.  Which is so much more bewildering and exhausting when you compare it to the rest of  the world. All around me I heard sane people speak in rational ways, yet my norm was irrational and insane. 

So how do I navigate all this bullshit? By learning to translate their nonsense correctly.  By understanding that it is just that, nonsense. It makes no sense because it isn't meant to. It's meant to baffle and befuddle, stress and worry us which is how gaslighting operates on the brain. It confuses right with wrong. It lies. It thwarts healthy relationships and turns them into master and slave. Boss and minion. It twists logical, forward moving into irrational backward regression. It makes sane insane and healthy dangerous. It manufacturers self-serving double standards. 

And it is totally dark tetrad: arrogant, entitled, malicious, malignant, Machiavellian, remorseless and cruel. The only way to have conversations with them is not to have them. You will speak clearly and authentically from a place of collaboration while they will speak from dishonesty, coercion, distortion and manipulation. 

Healing CPTSD by doing uncomfortable things that should be comfortable

Hi friends. I'm writing a lot today, on a day when I'm normally working. And that feels weird because work is familiar and not working is uncomfortable. All the shame monkeys are screaming at me to get up off my dead butt and get busy. Which might be a warning that this is exactly what I should not be doing. I think that healing CPTSD might be about doing uncomfortable things and seeing what's wrong with that. I mean seeing what is broken in me that makes me feel uncomfortable doing things that should be comfortable. 

I told my husband that I decided not to work and he asked how that felt. And I said terrible! I had to keep talking myself into laying around. He laughed saying that most people had to talk themselves into working! Ah such is the nature of childhood trauma. We go around in a fog of FOG (fear, obligation and guilt). We strive endlessly to please demanding and unpleasable people so the idea of  not striving is scary and dangerous. 

I am so used to getting my sense of worth from accomplishment. Or rather, let me rephrase. Not sense of worth. I have little to none of that. Just a little less self-hatred. I have this constant sinking feeling that I'm letting people down. Failing. Dropping the ball. No matter what I do. Which of course is a contradiction. You can't be damned if you do an don't. But we who lived in childhood trauma could. Our dark tetrad parents made sure we knew we were failures. 

But that illogical logic is the failure. What they selfishly thought is that if we were kept short of praise and long on fear, obligation and guilt, we'd keep trying. And we did until we didn't. Sooner or later, we gave up. Oh don't get me wrong, we didn't give up obeying them but we gave up on ourselves. We committed the mortal sin of despair because we were pushed to it. It's the ultimate and ongoing existential crisis

But I guess even that is a win for dark tetrads. They get to work you to death and then punish and shame you for quietly dying inside. They gaslight you that, "see, you are the problem. We're not expecting too much of you. You're just oversensitive, lazy, selfish and disobedient. Look you're even sinning against God by giving in to the devil." Which just goes to show how really nasty they are. Anyone who would exult in the misery they caused someone, who would put a millstone around their necks and push them in the deep end, is not a safe person to be around. 

But you can't tell them that. You just have to show them by cutting contact. You have to prevent them putting more fear, obligation and guilt on you. However, that doesn't do anything to get all their old fog messages out of you. Ergo the struggle to just take one darn day off without feeling ashamed and useless. 

How anger heals narcissistic abuse but not the way you think

 Hi friends. This is yet another controversial and triggering post about healing from narcissistic abuse. I'm going to give tips that will seem to contradict religious, moral and psychological teachings. But hold on because what I'm suggesting is actually crucial for treating the pain you're in. And that is by getting angry and staying angry, but not in the ways you may think. I'm also going to be completely honest about how I feel about the way my narcissistic dark tetrad parents treated me. Another trigger warning. 

There's a lot of teaching against anger and some of it is actually helpful. But most if not all of it is aimed at the wrong people. Abusive, exploitative, arrogant, ruthless people (narcissistic dark tetrads) are the ones who need to hear this. They are so viciously, maliciously rage filled it spews out of their pores. They are the ones getting anger wrong because they are self-righteous, hypocritically and spitefully angry at  innocent victims. If they're parents, those would be their children. 

On the other hand, the children of narcissistic dark tetrads do NOT and should NOT be warned against anger. They are already too biddable, too controllable, too bullied and shamed by these perpetrator parents. Children of narcissists were never allowed to show any emotion other than dogged loyalty (which isn't an emotion). They were humiliated, punished, dismissed, ignored, invalidated, manipulated and gaslit for any feeling, need or want. 

God forbid we even thought to show anger. I got beaten just for not smiling wide enough. I was indoctrinated in their cult that I should roll over and let anyone do whatever they wanted to me. I learned fast that I was the problem and just being made others miserable.  I was a human doing more than human being. My job was to serve and like it. So I managed, I don't know how and unsuccessfully, it would prove, to quash anything that angered them. 

And so much angered them, I don't  know where to begin. I never really understood what exactly I'd done or hadn't done, I just knew I must have. Gaslighting is fucking insidious. But I couldn't always contain my big  painful emotions so I took them out on myself. I bit and hit myself and still will if the hakken-kraks howl too loudly. (Please God, deafen me to them) 

Because you can no more heal a blister by suppressing it than you can intense emotion. Just try not to cry when you feel yourself start. It's impossible. But yet we kids of dark tetrads somehow managed to keep a lid on it, mostly. It did seep out sometimes and we'd be punished for it. But for the most part we masked it well, too damn well. And it seared our insides carbolic. 

So WE the burned, need desperately not only to feel but to express our emotions, those now and those back then. Ever time I'd melt down when my reactor failed to cool, a lot came out besides the current pain.  There are a ton of back payments for those of us who lived under a dark tetrad's reign of terror. Whenever I've seen someone melt, my inner child feels for hers. I recognize the symptoms.

So how does anger help? Righteous anger is awareness and realization of all that was done to us and all the old festering wounds it's caused. And that heals by lancing psychological pus that is stored in those wounds. Pus that built up from decades of their abuse. Saying the words of frustration and bitterness, calling out the wrong by name, raging out our shame disinfects our wounds. Our post-explosive tears with safe people in safe situations, cauterizes the dead tissue And the hugs of loving people puts salve on the burn scars. It doesn't happen all at once. Often it needs to be re-opened and irrigated again. 

So what I'm not talking about in anger is lashing out at the perpetrators. I'm saying not to exact vengeance. Not because they don't deserve it. Oh do they deserve it. Not because we have to be some superior being that rises above and is the "bigger person." That's all just quack psycho-religious nonsense spoken by nitwits who were nowhere to be found when we were being hurt. They either didn't know or pretended not to and so are just speaking from their anuses. I'm saying not to for very pragmatic reasons. It hurts us. 

But us counter-attacking dark tetrads is good for them. It's the only thing they understand. Giving, not as good as but better is the only way to bring them down from their elephantine arrogance. The only thing a bully respects is a bigger bully. Kicking their asses out of your life and back into their own is the only solution. All the gentle requests, longsuffering, good examples and fond hopes that they will back down on their own recognizance is a waste of time. Firestarters only stop when they get bored or burned. 

Prayer helps but only those willing to help themselves. God cannot soften hard hearts that buck his efforts. And these are the hardest of the hard-hearted. Better to pray for yourself that you can get and stay our of their paths, heal and be a saner person. Better to pray for their other victims. You can ask God to reach them and hope he does, but I wouldn't focus too much on that. And NEVER make excuses for them. You don't have to set up consequences. They have caused so much damage that you can sit back and wait. Just quit shielding them from the consequences. Which brings me back to vengeful anger. 

Exacting retribution on a dark tetrad is a bad idea but not for the reasons you think. God doesn't mind if you feel vengeful about acts done to you. Initially at least, you should. You'd be kind of weird if you didn't. There's no high moral code you're breaking wanting to see them taken down a peg or 12. That was just part of them crap they fed you "you have to be the bigger person and forgive." Why? You're not sorry. 

The reason for not taking revenge is that there's nothing you could do to them to make up for all the hurt they did to you. It would feel futile. They stole your personhood, identity, childhood, joy, peace and sanity. They poisoned everything. Nothing you can do can level that score. Do I want to level it? Damn right I do. I want what was mine, back. I want to have been loved. But I'll never get it. So forward is the only way through. 

But not without my anger. It's my armor. If I forget what they did, if I let up, it will be far too easy to go back to status quo with them. It would be too easier to let the voices keep me in shame. I have to keep my edge to keep my nerve and my resolve. I can't go back again. If I let go my anger, I will. I owe it to all the little Marilisas in me to move us to a safer place of peace.  

So maybe it's not anger as much as confidence that I'm doing something good for us. Maybe ending the abuse and treating my wounds and not allowing any more, is not the selfish, self-centered behavior I was told it was. Maybe that is what this self-care and protection of which they speak is all about. 

Healing CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse begins by accepting ain't gonna be no reconciliation

 Hello my friends. I'm supposed to be working at my day job but instead I'm doing something different and taking a mental health break. I'm hot, tired and sick of shopping groceries for people. And a big part of that is not from the work itself. It's from the exhausting amount of energy it takes to work on my CPTSD recovery from narcissistic parent abuse. It makes me sleep poorly and trauma dream. Trying to juggle family, a job, relationships, a home plus recovery work is a Herculean task. And I can't do them all at once. So, just for now, I'm opting to work on recovery by sharing how healing CPTSD from narcissistic dark tetrad parent abuse begins by accepting one thing. Or should I say by accepting collection of interrelated concepts about dark tetrads in general and narcissistic dark tetrad parents in particular. 

And that one thing is fairly simple in nature but oh so complicated to consider. What we who were raised by narcissists must accept is that we will 

NEVER win with them

ALWAYS lose in interactions with them

NEVER be loved by them

ALWAYS be enmeshed by them and expected to be for them what they refuse themselves

NEVER be the child like we should be 

ALWAYS be expected to parent them, perfectly. 

NEVER be cared for by them but 

ALWAYS expected to care for them 

NEVER treated with respect or devotion

ALWAYS punished for anything but automaton-like respect and unswerving devotion

NEVER be right, correct or good enough to please them

ALWAYS expected to accept whatever crazy, immoral, unethical, dangerous, selfish, exploitative thing they do

NEVER praised, treasured, cherished, celebrated

ALWAYS kicked to the curb, betrayed, exploited, manipulated and gaslit

NEVER laughed with 

ALWAYS laughed at, scoffed at, scolded 

NEVER right

ALWAYS wrong

NEVER affirmed or supported

ALWAYS blamed and pinned with other people's shame like a paper donkey at a birthday party. 

And because of all that there ain't gonna be no reconciliation. No sir. Because it really is that extreme, Double standards, chaos, confusion, double dealing, gaslighting, deception, trickery, Machiavellian political intrigue, backstabbing, set-ups, ambushes, public character assassinations, humiliations, torture, triangulations, setting up camps, smear campaigns, all the norm for a child of dark tetrads. It was SO consistent in my life that THIS is why I never understood it till I had lived six decades. But wait, there's more. 

We were groomed from childhood to attend them, to pay into their morally bankrupt account from which we could never collect. We were battered, barmy and broken. I do not remember any truly happy times in childhood or at least any that didn't very quickly come back to bite me. AND SO now, I have to accept that 'twas ever thus and that 'twill always be thus. Forgiveness is just accepting that the past will never be any different than it was AND healing is accepting that it never will be any different. Even if there were some kind of realization on the part of the dark tetrads that they were wrong (and believe me there never will be), it won't matter. Too much water has gone under the bridge. Too many hurts. 

Now, having said that, it's important to pay attention to this next part. If you take your stand and die on this hill, if you refuse to allow any reconciliation, know that you WILL very likely be attacked, gaslit, scolded, bullied and browbeat for it, by them, friends, family, society, the church, even therapists. Gasp! They'll cry, wringing their hands. Cut ties? Go no contact? But they're family. (No they're not. They're power mad maniacs) We have this weird, delusional fetish about "forgiveness" and mending relationships, which in normal ones may be good. But with dark tetrads reconciliation isn't just impossible, it's deadly. 

And um, raising hand here, question? Where were you flying monkeys when all the shit the dark tetrads put me through was going on? Hmmm? Where was all your smarmy-ass self-righteous platitudes when I was going through hell alone? Playing alone downtown at the docks. Left with strangers. Crying my eyes out and no one knew or cared.  No one was there. No one. Not even God going by how it felt to me. So now you're going to tell me I have to, what, make peace with them? Why would I do that? For my own peace of mind? Friend, if you think my peace of mind relies on them, you crazy. Peace means getting them out!! 

And about this sparkly reconciliation of which you speak, consider this. If they've been exploiting all my life, why would they not exploit a reconciliation? I don't like this phrase but I'm going to use it. Been there, done, was burned by and have the scars to prove it. I have allowed the four people who called themselves my parents and their children to guilt me repeatedly for taking care of myself. Not even standing up to them. Just not being taken in by them. Let's just let that stew a bit. HURT me for taking care of myself. Hell, they've punished me for taking care of them! Perfectly, obediently, humbly. You couldn't ask for a better slave than me. But all it got me was more abuse. 

So you call a truce or you let them call one. Which of course it isn't a ceasefire because it isn't a conflict. Aggressions are all one-sided. They just call it that because they like the sound of that better than the unprovoked attacks on you they really are. Because this means you are part of the problem, that it's a fair fight. And damned if I didn't fall for it. Looking back I did all the apologizing for shit I NEVER DID and they neither admitted to or apologized for anything. They just graciously allowed me back into their abusive clutches.  Because truth is, they were missing all the good they got non gratis from me. But they had to extract the maximum pain and humiliation from me for the privilege (arrogant, manipulative, sadistic psychopaths that they are). 

So what should you do? Get out and stay out. Ignore the harpies. Run don't walk as far as you can get. There is no damn winning for losing with these people. They do not reconcile. They don't collaborate or cooperate. They trespass. The more you back down the more they step on you. The more you try to make peace the more aggressive and entitled they become. The more of you that you concede the more encroaching they become. 

It's pathetic, sad and hurts like a bitch but a fact none the less. The best thing I ever did in this respect was to give up the idea that I had a family and accept that I was beaten senseless by cruel, evil, ruthless, remorseless, muthafukkas who thought as much of me as they did dogie doodoo on their shoes. That sounds harsh and I may amend it someday but right now it stands. Selah. 

Retaliation and paybacks are crucial in dealing with narcissistic dark tetrads

 Hi folks. Today I'm writing what might be my most controversial post on dealing with narcissistic dark tetrads. I'm suggesting that retaliation and paybacks might be necessary. Responding in kind is about your only choice. But again, it's not in the way that or for the reason you may think. 

We're always taught that retaliation is petty. That holding grudges is wrong and forgiveness is the be-all-end-all. That getting even is low. That relationships shouldn't be transactional or punitive. That paybacks or responding in kind are childishly vengeful. And that revenge belongs to God. Oh they're vengeful all right. And but they have to be when you are dealing with a selfish, Machiavellian, manipulative, exploitative, remorseless person. 

And revenge would be wrong if you were in a normal, healthy give-and-take relationship. But you're  not. Dark tetrad narcissists aren't normal or healthy. They are twisted, cunning, demanding and soul-stealing.  Those of us who were stuck with them by virtue of our birth have known only unfair, abnormal, unsafe, take-and-take, dangerous. We didn't get the luxury of normal rules just double standards. So we have to do things a little differently to heal. 

Let's start by eradicating one common misunderstanding. ALL relationships are transactional. Does that mean that everything has to be completely fair? Well, in a way, yes. There might be a little wiggle room but completely one-sided, unbalanced relationships are not safe. If you are friends with someone who expects you to remember their birthday with gifts yet forgets yours, carries on one-way me-me-me conversations, expects you to pick up the tab and never does herself, doesn't care about your interests and demands you be interested in his, why would you stay with these people? They aren't friends, they're users. 

At some point, if one person is only giving good, positive, caring love while the other person is dishing out a lot of vicious, nasty, hurtful behavior, the relationship will fail. Or worse, the victim will surrender voice, identity, needs, wants, sanity all to "keep peace" with a psychotic bully who's idea of peace is complete hostile takeover of his partner. So there must be reciprocity. 

So how does retaliation work in a healthy way? We have to give back what we receive. It's what the Golden Rule is all about. We don't just treat  others the way we wanted to be treated. We expect them to treat us well in return. It has to be two-way. If we get consistently let down, we stop showing up. If we get stolen from, we report it and get our stuff back. And we don't give anymore. If we are excluded we stop inviting them to participate. If we are expected to do all the heavy lifting, we stop doing it. 

What I'm not talking about with retaliation is lowering ourselves to their standards. Which probably sounds like it amounts to the same thing but it doesn't. I need to make behavior choices that are in keeping with my personal ethics. If someone calls me a name, publicly humiliates me (such as when my mother threw a pie in my face) or screams at me, I'm not going to call them one back or get in a screaming match with them. But I might refuse to take them home after promising a ride. I might tell them to leave my house and not come back. 

I might pay them back for not showing up or calling when I needed them, by not showing up or calling when they need me.  I might stop being so reliable to unreliable people. Is that petty? Meh, so? It's the only thing they will understand. If we keep enabling by being all they expect us to be while they aren't giving back, we have only ourselves to blame when they take advantage of this. Normal people wouldn't exploit this but these aren't normal people. 

I might also "retaliate" by turning a deaf ear to all mother's ailments as she has done to me all my life. I might leave them stranded occasionally to show them what it feels like. I can stop falling for their lame excuses about why they didn't show or call and quit pretending they're going to.  Is that petty? Well, yes, it does sound petty to me if I consider doing it myself. But that's because they conditioned me that "two wrongs don't make a right." Which translated says, "we can do whatever crappy thing we want to you but you'd better treat us with perfect kindness." 

If you were to tell me that your parents treated you the way mine treated me, I'd be cheering you on paying them back, petty or not. And it's not petty, not really. It's the only thing we can do to get sane.  What's petty is that they did it to us in the first place as kids and that we learned to let them take advantage of us. What's pathetic is that we even have to consider doing this to get ourselves to a healthy place where we don't get walked on. What's sad is that all our  conscientiousness and loving care got spit back in our faces to the point that we ACTUALLY EXPECT PUNISHMENT  for doing good. That we've come to expect ill treatment from them. 

And two wrongs DO make it righter for us. Because contrary to popular belief, being the bigger person with a narcissist just gets you walked on. It doesn't make them stop doing wrong. It convinces them of their invincibility. And they just get more and more entitled and cruel. In fact, the nicer you are to a dark tetrad the nastier they are to you. That's the Machiavellian for ya. No good deed goes unpunished. They see you as weak and continue to amp up the abuse. 

Now, when you institute these "retaliations" (aka stop putting up with their dreck) they going to give you hell. Dark tetrads will cry victim. They will holler that you are mean, vindictive, too sensitive, can't take a joke, disrespectful etc. But that's where we confuse the notion of retaliation. We let nasty, arrogant, control freaks define terms. What it really is, is consequences. For the first time in our lives, their choice to behave badly comes with a price THEY pay instead of us. They play stupid games, they get the stupid prize not us anymore. 

So what it amounts to is not so much responding in kind but allowing these logical consequences to occur and not shielding them anymore. It's removing the positive which the narcissist has gotten used to receiving from us. It's not giving him a taste of his own medicine but refusing to take his medicine for him. We didn't' ask for this. We would have preferred healthier relationships with loving parents. But we didn't get them.     

If this resonates, please feel free to drop me a comment! 

Healing CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse by doing what they hypocritically said was wrong

 Hi friends! So I just discovered a really helpful tip to heal CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse by doing what they hypocritically said was wrong. Let me start by saying that pretty much everything dark tetrad narcissists say is wrong for you to do, is actually right. And what they say is right for them to do to you, is usually wrong.  

So we start by flipping the script they twisted, right side up. Assume that if a selfish, self-serving, manipulative person tells you to do something, that they are not doing themselves, it will be unhealthy and unsafe for you  to do. Which is the crazy-making double standards of narcissist. But you can de-crazy it by just turning it around. If they say you shouldn't you probably should. It's that binary. 

And a biggee that I was taught was taught by my four (count them) dark tetrad parents was that if they were angry, spiteful, punitive, upset, hateful (and they always were) it was my fault. AND I damn well better take it personally if I knew what was good for me. AND there was the double bind expectation that I would react and they would punish me, no matter how I reacted, or if I just calmly responded which I did surprisingly well given the amount of attacks I got. 

You cannot win for losing with dark tetrads because of their constant hypocrisy. You have to take their petty, immature attacks on you personally but you have to do respond with perfectly adult composure. You have to be the bigger person, rise above and respond maturely. BUT then they will attack for "showing off" (showing up their wretched behavior) and being prideful. Because you didn't overreact as they always do and it shows how foolishly arrogant they are. They need to you be both right and wrong. Good and bad. Victim and perpetrator. At the same time. So that they can always have the upper hand while maintaining complete lack of  accountability. 

If you don't play along, it wrecks their carefully constructed house of cards. You get used to doing a shit ton of humoring, dancing to their tune, changing when they change the tune, playing the schlemiel, apologizing for things you didn't do, taking responsibility for them and letting them use you like a tool for whatever weird purpose they want at the moment. You get so used to adjusting yourself to suit their demands that you have no idea who you are. You become a personless chameleon. You lose yourself in this endless rigamarole they play. 

Have I lost you yet? Small wonder. I'm lost myself.  But getting back to doing things differently. What I found helps a lot is ignoring the tune they're playing and not dancing. When they say provocative, antagonistic, idiotic things, just don't respond at all. Don't justify, answer, explain or defend. Pretend you didn't hear it. Don't play their game. If they ask a stupid, shaming question you know is designed to humiliate you, don't answer. Just look at them and move on. Don't dignify it. And don't say why you're not answering. You don't owe anyone and answer to any question that feels awkward. Or actually any question. 

And you know what, sometimes, you do return evil for evil. You pay them back. Turn about is not only fair but necessary play. You retaliate and sometimes two wrongs make things better. I'll blog more on that later. 

Strange things dark tetrad parents stole from us and why we never processed it but need to

Hello my friends. I've been thinking a lot about what my dark tetrad parents stole from me. Would you believe I'm just now remembering at 60 years how much they took. And how I just accepted it without questioning to the point that I forgot all about it. I think that's the worst part of all. I just accepted it as normal for them to steal and that I deserved to be stolen from! And they didn't just take things like childhood innocence, sanity or peace of mind. I'm talking actual possessions that somehow just disappeared. Silly stuff like my cuddle toys, were there and then they weren't. 

In fact, there are pictures of me with toys that I don't remember ever seeing after the picture was taken. It's as if they were props in a portrait studio. Which maybe in a way they were. I think now that my parents may have taken pictures of me with the gifts I was given to prove I received them. And then just disposed of them. And I think the reason I never questioned why they disappeared is that I got used to this strange and disturbing form of gaslighting. 

I've said before I have no memory of beds, bedrooms, wallpaper, blanket patterns, decorations or toys, in a lot of places we lived. At ages when I should have. I don't remember kitchen tables, meals together or furniture. I remember my parents had a lot of things like a huge organ, a nice bedroom, sewing machine. They even bought themselves riding lessons and English saddles. While I was left to play with cardboard and the dog's ball. 

I also don't remember either of them working much. I don't know where or if my dad worked.  I know my mom didn't' work outside the home. And yet they were both always too busy to watch me. I remember being in lots of places alone and away from wherever we happened to live, beginning around age 4, with no parent around nor any idea of where they even were. This abandonment became my norm. I grew up having to navigate strange confusing and scary situations when I was far too young. 

As I look back, I was in a lot of dangerous situations. Walking down at the docks alone at 6. Playing by the side of the road at four and touching a dead rabbit because I didn't know better. Playing in a park at 5 where a known pedophile hung out. Walking to kindergarten alone to a school up a steep hill that was accessed by a six story rickety old set of steps. Being left at a camp at 6 and then left with strangers while both my parents went I don't know where. I know now that this constituted endangerment and abandonment. 

I was a latchkey kid at 7 or 8, before there was a word for it. I stayed home alone all summer long. People would "forget" to pick me up. I had no idea where my dad was for large periods of my life. I have been stranded many times as a child. No one in my school came home alone in an empty house. None of my agemates experienced any of this. One time, when I was 8, the police came because I found a bird in the house and went to the neighbor's to get help. I think my mom got called on the carpet because after that I went to a babysitter. But she was a nasty woman who talked about men's penises. That really creeped me out. But somehow I never got that my situation was completely different from other kids. 

And then, ironically, after a life of being left out and left alone, my parents remarried. And suddenly they very much wanted Marilisa around because now they had responsibilities to people that they didn't want to shoulder alone. Now they had all kinds of expectations for me. I cleaned their homes like a servant. Homes I could never call mine. And doing tasks that were made needlessly difficult by not being given proper tools. Like having to mop floors with a rag on my hands and knees. Or climb snowbanks to get frozen diapers off the line. Like scrubbing toilets and dirty diapers in the toilet.  Like ironing mountains of laundry because my dad's obese wife had a bad back. I had scoliosis, congenital hip dysplasia and spina bifida. But I still had to do all that heavy housework. 

Like waiting on my dad's wife hand and foot. Or vacuuming with an ancient heavy vacuum. Not because we couldn't afford better. There was plenty of money to indulge their hobbies. There was money for cigarettes, expensive diet food, rings, his collection of expensive nautical stuff, while I didn't get enough to eat. It was just good enough for who it was for. I literally raised their children. They both had foster care homes at various points that I worked in like an unpaid employee. I made supper, cleaned it up, make lunches, cleaned toilets. I co-slept with all their children, getting up at night with them like a parent. 

And was subjected to sick, unhealthy adult sexual things that have poisoned my mind and polluted my  dreams. I had to see and hear disgustingly immoral and deviant behavior, all while my parents proclaimed to be not just Christians but ministers of the word?! I was molested, sexually harassed, subjected to pedophilia, told dirty jokes, made the butt of dirty jokes, told all my mother's gross sexual experiences with her various boyfriends. Was her sex therapist and dumping ground, and whipping girl, literally. Witnessed her get beat up by the wife of a man with whom she was cheating. 

And if anyone says, well that's in the past, I'll say oh yeah? Then why did I just dream about it again last night? And the night before? And have done all my life? And yes, I've written about this before and probably strayed from the point. And probably will again, till I get it through my head how freakishly awful this all was. At the time, it  never occurred to me that it was so unsafe, again because I was so used to it. I never wondered why it was that I was cared for and never left alone untended at Grama and Grampa's house. No one ever asked me about any of it. So I kept it in my heart where it has turned inward on me. 

So why didn't I understand how wrong it was at the time? I was gaslit into thinking all the physical, emotional, medical, religious and financial abuse, all the neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, parentification, scapegoating, invalidation, shaming, mockery was what I deserved and God's plan for me. It was unsafe to even think questions let alone ask them. I was too sensitive, showing off, disobedient, disloyal, disrespectful, on and on. 

Even now, writing this, their voices in my head are telling my I'm exaggerating. It wasn't that bad. Those things that happened aren't bad, that everyone experiences them. When I know that they are and everyone else didn't.  Or they lie and say it never happened. She says she can't remember anything. She fakes dementia to get out of responsibility. I know it's delusional lies, now. But after six decades believing her, it's hard to overcome. Because gaslighting lies go beyond the head to the heart, to the core, to the being. The best I can do now is to try to fumigate my mind house without blowing it up. 

  

What hypocritical dark tetrad parents destroy for their children with their double standards

 Hello my friends. I've attempted in previous articles, to show what dark tetrad (narcissistic,  entitled, remorseless, exploitative, cruel) parents destroy for their children. But I don't think I've fully addressed the spectrum, the entirety of the problem. So, the title of this post:  What hypocritical dark tetrad parents destroy for their children with their double standards. It would be easier to answer what they don't destroy, because that is one simple word:  nothing. 

There is no thing that they do not ruin for us, positive or negative. And you might say, if they spoil bad things isn't that the same as doing a good thing? No. Because with their duplicitousness, they destroy our understanding bad things by making them appear good and they do bad (evil, hurtful, unhealthy, unsafe, manipulative) things and presenting them to us as good (healthy, safe, appropriate) things. They pervert and tangle up everything up to divert all to their own lustful ends. Everything in the child's life and very self is pressed into the dark tetrad's service. 

And you might wonder at my use of the word lustful. I use it intentionally. Their desires go beyond normal selfishness which we all to some extent have to follow. We all have to be somewhat self-centered to get our own needs met. Common sense says we have to focus on ourselves. It is self-destructive to focus entirely on meeting other people's needs to the exclusion of ourselves. And yet that is exactly what the dark tetrad parents expect of their children. Especially the scapegoat. 

And that is exactly where the dark tetrad parts company from normal self-care. And it is what differentiates normal needs and wants from lusts. The dark tetrad doesn't just want her needs and wants met. She wants them met at someone's else's expense. Someone has to hurt before she is happy. That's the sadistic nature of the dark tetrads. And she doesn't just want, she craves. And what she wants is wrong too: she wants God-like power over other people, demonic control of them. 

She uses cult leader mind control (brainwashing) and gaslighting (denying of any other reality than her carefully crafted mirage). She lies, deceives, scams, cheats, distorts and endlessly rewrites narratives. So adults may be able to see her for what she is, although having said that you'd be surprised at how many people the dark tetrad is able to con. But his child has no defense. She is just absorbed and enmeshed into the colossal ego ocean that is the dark tetrad's greed-lust. 

So for the child, right is wrong for her and wrong is right for the dark tetrad. Good is bad for the child and bad is good for the dark tetrad parents. Unsafe is safe, unhealthy is healthy, righteousness is wicked, self-care is selfish. Dangerous people are presented to the child as caregivers who don't take care but expect care (service, etc.) The  child is expected to parent the child and anyone else they shove at her.  Expressing normal feelings is being too sensitive and is punishable by Draconian law. 

The dark tetrad is cruel and insensitive yet very oversensitive. She is a fuming angry yet punishes the child for being righteously angry over injustice. The dark tetrad hits the child and then lies and says the child hit her. She betrays child and still expect dogged loyalty. The dark tetrad abandons the child and then forces her into enslavement when it suits.  You get the idea. Everything is upended and flipped on its ass to accommodate the narcissist's arrogance. 

Setting boundaries with dark tetrad parents (or anyone) is not what most people think it is

 Hi friends. Today I'm exploring a critical step in healing CPTSD from dark tetrad (narcissist, exploitative, psychopathic and cruel) parents. And that is setting boundaries with them. But boundary setting is not what a lot of people think it is. It's actually not setting boundaries with other people at all. It's putting in place protective boundaries around ourselves that we maintain. It's also instituting consequences (or just allowing logical ones to occur when the narcissists (or anyone) crosses them. 

What most people think of when they think about boundaries is that they are restrictions you put on other people that they have to respect and abide by. Which is kind of narcissistic and control freaky in itself. We cannot police others' behavior or expect them to police themselves around us. Operative word being EXPECT. For one thing, it's useless. You can expect in one hand and pick berries with the other and guess which will fill up first. It's also a hypocritical power play, you know like that person who exercises no self-control while being overly controlling of others. 

Because power and control are what it's about. Owning your own power and controlling yourself. Setting boundaries means identifying what you will tolerate and allow to be done to you and what you won't. And what you will do when intolerable things occur. It's making choices for yourself that are best for you. It's about you doing you, not letting other people rule you or your behavior. It's about policing yourself. 

Does that sound a little like victim shaming? Am I saying, like my dark tetrad dad used to say to me, that it doesn't matter what anyone else does, you just have to do the right thing. No way. Because context matters with our actions. Provocation matters. If someone is hitting you and raise your hand to protect yourself (like what happened to me with my narcissistic mother) that's a whole other scenario than you just lashing out for shits and giggles the way my mom spun the story. But I am saying that you have to do YOU no matter what anyone else is doing and you  have to protect yourself. 

And that's why boundaries, especially with narcissists are so important. Those of us who have been victims of dark tetrad parents do not know where they end and we begin. We have no lines of demarcation between them and us. Nor do the narcissists. They see no end to themselves and no beginning of other people. It's ALL about them. They invade borders, enmesh with and take over everything. They firmly believe their rights don't end where ours begin. It's all theirs. 

And we have to comply as kids to stay relatively safe. Not safe, actually, just to survive. We had to let them take whatever they wanted and they wanted a lot. We had to let them hurt us. We had to smile through our pain. And then be told we were showing off for our troubles. We had no tools, options, support or way out. But that was when we were kids. Now as adults, we have options. We have a voice even though it may be rusty from lack of use. 

They will not acknowledge that however. They will continue to absorb, expect, take and boundary crash. So we have to delineate for them where they end and we begin. How far we will allow them into our territory. What we will put up with and what we won't. But again, we can't control them. And they certainly aren't going to give up any of this delusional control they feel they are owed. They aren't going to back off on the demands. So we have to take control of ourselves from them and give it back to whom it belongs to. Us. 

We do that by removing ourselves from situations in which they are hurting us. We do that by reporting their actionable behavior. By filing restraining orders, suing them or calling in the police if we have to. We do that by ceasing to kowtow to their demands. By disobeying their unethical, immoral rules. By refusing to accept unacceptable treatment of us. And we do that not so much by punishing but by negative reinforcement (removing positive reinforcement) and withholding privileges such as contact with us, they previously enjoyed from us. We build walls to keep invaders out. We cut off the funding. We stop giving till it hurts. Maybe stop giving altogether. We stop rolling over to be kicked. We have to walk away and walk out. We have to stand up for ourselves because we've been falling for everything they dished out for too long. 

They will say that this is punishment. They will cry victim. They'll say that we are the aggressors, we're being vindictive, spiteful, hateful, yada yada. But don't let them dictate terms. They're great at flipping the script back and forth to suit their narcissistic fantasy. And don't be gaslit. We aren't hurting them we're just not allowing them to hurt us. We're just getting our own selves, identity and space back. We're meeting our own needs, setting our own goals being guided by our own preferences for a change. We're making healthier safer choices. They're just pissed that they aren't getting their way. And if our choices make them feel bad, well, maybe they need to look at why they need us to be unhealthy and unsafe to feel good. Maybe they've gotten too accustomed to getting their own selfish way at our expense. Maybe they need to get their own boundaries straight and learn that they end. But they never will do that so we have to show them where we begin. 

Healing CPTSD by sorting out what we owe and who we owe it to (and what and who we don't)

Hi friends. Yesterday I wrote about healing CPTSD by debunking lies our narcissistic parents told us about what we owed them. I said that basically we owed no one anything that we hadn't voluntarily and contractually agreed to. And I realized that I missed a big piece of the puzzle. So today I'm exploring what we do owe and who we owe it to vs what and who we don't. 

Traumatized children are taught by narcissistic parents that we owe anyone and everyone anything and everything they demand of us. That we came into this world with a huge debt hung rough our necks that we will never pay off no matter how much we put into. AND hypocritically (because everything selfish parents say is hypocritical) they owe us nothing. We have to earn everything. It's all conditional on our being perfect. Which we aren't and so we never meet the conditions and go without necessities. 

So that's a lot of generalizations: everything, nothing, never, always. And my use of them is intentional. Because dark tetrad (arrogant, selfish, psychopathic, manipulative, cruel) parents deal only in generalizations. They allow no margin for error in other people. It's all and nothing: they expect all from others and give nothing themselves. They tolerate no gray area in their kids while their lives are 5,555 shades of muddy, dirty, messed up gray. They excuse nothing in their kids and everything in themselves. 

And when I say they demand everything of us kids, I mean everything. Dogged loyalty, unwavering respect, endless service, allegiance, devotion, adoration, worship, obedience, enslavement, perfection and all kinds of other unattainable bullshit. AND conversely they give none of those. It's a one-sided transaction, which is no transaction at all. Because we're receiving  nothing good in return. The thanks we get for working our asses off to meet their demands are more demands. 

We will never be able to please dark tetrads because they won't allow it. Seriously. Because they speak with forked tongues: they demand the moon but don't want us to actually get it for them because then they'd have no excuse to keep demanding. They would be satisfied. If we actually reached the bar they set for us, what would they  have to browbeat us with? So they keep moving the target  higher. Sometimes they just toss the damn thing out, set new tasks and don't tell us. This way they keep us in that blind fog of FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) hopping through hoops that are constantly shifting. 

The operative word being OBLIGATION. And oh do they weaponize it. They bullshit us into believing that we are obliged to them because we had the misfortune to be born to them. They use an arsenal of carefully crafted lies, distortions, deceptions, blame shifting and manipulations plus those constantly moving hoops to exhaust, confuse and wear us down so that we don't have the energy to think clearly let alone resist. Because they've taught us that resistance to them is sinful and wicked. They groom us to believe that self-care is SELFISH. And that care of them is our sole job. They put us into a tiny cages, on display for all to laugh at from which there is no escape nor corner to hide in. 

They steal our identity, our self, our being and feed it into the juggernaut of their own greed. They strip us bare. They pressgang us into their little cultish army whose entire work is to ever expand their control. And boom, we are well and truly fubared. We are nothing, just little empty spirits, used up and worn out. BUT still expected to serve. Oh, the endless expectations and obligations...

And the church, psychology, society, most of the rest of the world participates in gaslighting us. They remind us that it's our duty to serve, obey, be loyal to, our parents. They take our parents' part. They make excuses for our parents' evil behavior. They shame us on the rare occasions we might actually speak up. They cherry pick  Bible verses, taken completely out of context, to perpetuate the fear-obligation-guilt cycle.  They, who don't live in a dark tetrad's regime, who don't understand how abused we are, place their normal expectations on our abnormal. And we are well and try destroyed. 

So why the long explanation? I'm trying to answer pre-emptively, your question "why do you feel such fear, obligation and guilt? Why don't you just step out of the corner?" And let me just say, that if you are asking that, thank you. You get what's wrong with it. What you don't get is that we could no more stop these feelings than we could our own heartbeat. They were implanted in us and are as much a part of us as our DNA. The fear, obligation and guilt are circular and there is no way out. 

The best thing we can do is fake it and hope to some day sort of make it. AND (we're actually now getting to the point of this article, yay!) as soon as we recognize this, we can begin to sort out who and what we owe and who we don't. We can start to reteach ourselves correctly. That we do not now and never did owe them anything. That we could choose to be obedient to reasonable rules, loving to people who loved us and respectful to people who were first respectful of us. But we are under no obligation to do so. AND the love, respect, care and obedience, begins with them, not us. They, as our parents did owe us love, care, support, nurturing. The only thing we had to do to earn it was to be born to them. 

Now, what we do owe is all this to ourselves. And to all our younger selves too. We owe ourselves respect, love, care, nurturing, support, affirmation, validation, encouragement, loyalty, allegiance, and all the good stuff we never got nor learned. We need to serve ourselves first. So, you might be wondering, doesn't all this self-focus make you a bit of narcissist yourself? No because narcissists don't just serve themselves, they expect everyone else to serve them to the exclusion and deprivation of themselves. They demand what they want at others' expense. Someone has to suffer to meet their unquenchable thirst for control. They don't do for themselves they force others to. They don't meet their own needs. That's what they have kids for. 

So the next step is to take away their power. And we do that by setting boundaries around ourselves that when crossed have negative consequences to the narcissists. And that's material for the next post.