Hello my friends. I've been thinking lately about the hidden physical abuse kids suffer from narcissistic dark tetrad parents. I listened to a Youtube video by Danish Bashir (he's amazing, you should listen and subscribe) in which he explored different kinds of physical abuse narcissist dark tetrad parents subject their kids to. I was glad to hear him reiterate the point that those of us in special education have wrestled with, that abuse isn't just physical. It's mental, emotional, spiritual, medical, financial and more. So today, I'm starting with the first type of physical abuse and that is hitting. But it's not obvious to us as kids of dark tetrads. They punishment isn't clean. It's muddied with blame, shame, finger-pointing and self-serving gaslighting and sadism. It isn't about chastisement for correction of behavior. It isn't about discipline. It's about sick, devious, controlling, power mad love of cruelty for cruelty's sake.
They go so far as to distort the child's memory into believing they weren't abusing because they weren't hitting when actually, they were. They just had a lot of cutesy bullshit names and quasi-psych machinated reasons for it. They made you believe it was your fault. You caused it. You made them hit you. They did it because they cares. They were so proficient at gaslighting that I thought it was normal punishment, not vicious bullying and narcissistic rage.
I'm going to be 61 soon and it has taken me that long to start processing that what I experienced was not normal and healthy but abuse of many kinds. I'm grateful to my husband for helping me put that in perspective too, to quit shielding, defending and excusing and to begin admitting that what happened was very wrong.
Let's begin with the obvious ones: my mother slapping me across the face, hard and frequently beginning when I was around 7. It hurt a lot, not only my skin but my neck which I developed early onset arthritis from. This one's really tricky because I also slapped my daughter's face and will never stop regretting it. But the reasons were completely different. She was spitefully angry and I was sad and remorseful. She was self-righteously on her high horse whereas I felt like shit. Her eyes gleamed with venomous rage, and she would verbally abuse me, calling me names, insulting and mocking, while hitting me.
AND my mother did it to punish me for her mother slapping her while I did it BECAUSE my mother told me to. Mother was always right. She had indoctrinated me not to listen to my good judgement which was screaming not to. And I had a lot of fundamentalist Christian parenting BS floating in my head. I thought I'd fail my kids if I didn't hit them. We'll just let that marinate.
I've always repeatedly apologized and reassured the kids that it was me and not them. I was the problem. Whereas my mother continues to blame me for her having to hit me. I was supposedly "mouthy" and "sassy." I have no idea to this day what I actually said to set her off. I was pretty biddable. I also can't recall what my daughter said to make me slap her so I think it was a case of gaslighting by proxy. My mom's voice was in my head haranguing me with the "spare the rod" crap. While both my daughter and I were just being normal kids.
Which is interesting too. On some level she knew she was wrong. But dark tetrads will never admit that. So someone else must take the blame so she can feel justified. But then, she stabbed me in the back with it. When I checked myself into a mental hospital after losing a stillborn daughters (which she was overjoyed to drive me to), she accused me behind my back of hitting my children. She said she and her abusive-to-me-with-her-approval husband might have to take over custody of them. (yeah, fuck that noise. I was pretty far gone but not that far gone). But that's how entitled and arrogant these dark tetrads are. They want to not just screw you up but everyone you love, too.
My kids reminded her that she'd hit me and she back peddled, lied, said she never did. But she also forgets who she told which lie to. She proudly tells my husband how she smacked me around. But how she had to stop when I "hit her back." I felt so guilty over that and he has had to remind me repeatedly that I was defending myself from her attacks. I grew up thinking I was a terrible kid because my mom "had" to hit me. None of my friends experienced this. They were all disobedient and mouthy from time to time.
My dad got furious once and out of the blue, beat me too. He was sick of his wife whining about having to get up at night with the baby so he moved me out of my room and into the baby's room to shut her up. I was 14. He would send me to bed with the baby after I'd already done all the cooking and cleaning. I hadn't even had time to do my homework and I couldn't because there was no room and I couldn't wake the baby. I used to sneak and to my homework under the covers in our closet of a room. I don't know why he beat me. My fawn mask was pretty secure. I think now he was mad at her for being so selfish and was too scared to show it so he took it out on the whipping girl.
So why do these dark tetrads hit their kids? You might say, well, you hit your kids, Mar. Wasn't it the same for them? Are they just following Bible guidelines? No it was not. If you've ever been hit by a dark tetrad you know the difference. They enjoy it. They are getting charged up whereas someone like me got depleted and exhausted. Their eyes get this disturbing gleam of malice. Or, like my dad, they just get more enraged. He was drooling and frothing at the mouth. Every narcissistic injury he'd ever felt was distilled into it and he couldn't hit hard enough. And when they were done, neither was sorry. They just told me to quit crying and go wash my face. They never apologize or even admit. It's kind of like rape.
Dark tetrad parents don't hurt their children because they were hurt and don't know any better. That was me. I thought they were right to hurt me because they said I deserved it. I never felt my kids deserved it but I did think my parents were always right. So I should do likewise. I wish I'd cut my hand off before raising it to them. I wish even more that I'd cut my sick abusive parents out decades ago. Dark tetrads don't hurt because they're out of control. They are much large and in charge. They know exactly what they are doing.
Dark tetrads hurt because they're dark tetrads--malicious, malignant, Machiavellian and manipulative. Hurting is their modus operandi. Blame and Shame are the names of their game. They won't admit why but they are sadists who get off on hurting people. It's their heroin fix. But they are also good at DARVO--deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. Once they've gotten the payoff, they turn on their victim (again like rape). They blame them for making them do it. They also lie and say they didn't. Which of course is completely contradictory. They manufacture mutually exclusive paradoxes. But their victim is so shell shocked that she can't defend herself or even think straight. They make it too dangerous, if she even had the energy to.
Dark tetrads hate their children and we hate ourselves too. They resent and are jealous of our light, our sweetness, our charisma, our Zen. They hate how other people are attracted to us. They think they are the only ones entitled to attention. They hate how we make them smile with our genuine, authenticity. They keep grabbing all the good things and sucking up all the oxygen, trying to smother our fire. But they can't because they are dead and cold. They kill everything they touch.
And they hate that. So all they can do is douse, quench, put out. They isolate us and cut off our resources. They try to kill us. Sometimes they succeed. But even that isn't enough for them. They're the malignant enemy prowling the earth seeking the ruination of souls. They are Wendigo, getting hungrier the more they kill and eat. They are restless spirits ever roaming. Because they are human, not Gods as they believe themselves.
Because the core of the problem is that they go contrary to all that is logical, loving, kind and proper. They go against the natural order of things. But instead of fighting this deadly impulse, they indulge it. They're keep trying to force a square peg into a round hole. And they just damage the peg and the hole. And the older they get, the more they do it, the more entrenched they become, the more convinced they become of their own godhood. But also the farther they get from light and love, the darker and colder they get.
And we who are their children thought that what they gave us was love because parents by nature, love their kids. So we gave them our good love, in exchange for their counterfeit self-serving love. We threw good money after bad. The older we are when we realize it, the harder it is for us to change too. We have days, weeks, months, years, decades of conditioning to be their possessions, not children. We're practiced at giving ourselves to them, body, mind, heart and soul. We literally know no other way.
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