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.
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