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.
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