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.
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