Hello my friends. I've been writing a lot about my life under the regimen of four dark tetrad narcissistic parents. Are you wondering if maybe someone you live with is a narcissist? Well, here's a list of things they do to help you determine if you are. I got the general list from a podcast by Dr. Les Carter and I've added my own indicators and personal experiences with them.
They question and make you question the "legitimacy of being you." Do you actually deserve to call yourself a person, an individual? They don't think you do and they make no bones about it. You exist for them. You are their shadow, their right hand man, a prop, part of their entourage.
They future fake, making all kinds of unspecified promises they never keep. Then if you inquire about a promise they made they will sneer their smug narcissistic smirk and ask what you're talking about. They declare they never said that. Then they get this pouty, wounded, huffy and haughty (yes they manage all that in one) expression and scold you for being so selfish ( to expect they'd actually keep their word).
They baffle you with gaslighting crap about how they couldn't possibly do what you're "demanding" and how awful you are to even think it. Don't you realize they are "prostrate with exhaustion" (from all the work they don't do and put on you). They are sick and in pain. (they're not. It's factitious and weaponized for pity and to get out of responsibility but you feel guilty nonetheless because you are a caring person. These aren't big things. And they are things that the narcissist promised to you. Stuff like doing the dishes, cooking supper or take you to the park. Stuff you do all the time for them, with no thanks or appreciation. But they make you feel that you just expected them to find a cure for cancer while holding the world in orbit.
They are constantly tardy or absent but have a good excuse. Or an excuse that, the first few times, sounded plausible but starts to ring hollow on the 33rd time. Stuff like "I'm sick." (pity, pity) They fail to bring things they promised to bring, lie and say they never promised and are offended that you as "family" would expect them to. They leave early just at cleanup time, taking plates of leftovers for their golden child who was too lazy to attend but still wants dinner.
They expect when they come over that you will throw the doors wide, roll out the red carpet and wait on them like palace flunkies. My mother has actually stood in the street yelling at the top of her lungs 'I'M HERE!! WHERE IS THE WELCOMING COMMITTEE?" (she wasn't joking. scared the shit out of my neighbor who thought she was a lunatic.) And THEN when you go to their house, LOL, they expect the same thing. My mother always gets a tummyache when it's time to do dishes at my house, after stuffing her face on enormous spread I made myself. She says things like "well, I'm the guest." Or "I'd offer to help but I know you wouldn't let me.( try me). And when I'm at her house, I clean her entire kitchen, mopping the floor, scrubbing down the stove (which is filthy), dusting and arranging cupboards. While she and her bunch sit and watch TV.
They snap up offers of free things and then bail when they get all they came for. I used to do Christmas cookie baking, providing all the ingredients at no small expense to myself, often when I couldn't afford it. She comes, sits around, bends my ear with all her woes, uses me as a sex therapist (yes, gross) and takes home boxes of goodies. One year, I thought I'd make it a party with a few friends. I invited her and she gladly accepted and invited golden child along. . Day of, only one friend shows up (the other called with regrets she had to work) Radio silence from mother till I call her and she irritably says she "doesn't feel well." I was left with cupboards full of baking supplies I never got around to using. I never invited her again.
They exclude you from things you would normally be included in, when they feel like it. AND let you know you weren't included. They make a point of bragging about it. So they don't just want you to know they did it, you need to know it was done without you. On purpose. So that you'll think not just they but other people were excluding you. The other people were probably lied to as well and told you didn't want to come. (triangulate) If you say you'd have liked to go, they smirk and lie and say they had no idea you'd have enjoyed it or that you'd want to be included.
One year, I had to take my mom to the doctor on her birthday. I had to take time off work which cost me dearly. She was asked what she was doing for her birthday and she said "my family (her husband and other daughter) is taking me out to dinner." Knowing full well I had no idea about this and certainly wasn't invited. Let alone inviting my husband or her grandchildren who live right near and who have paid for her meals and done her car work pro bono. She wanted me to know they were leaving us out. Then she told me we could take her out for her birthday and give her her presents later as she had to get ready. (She always sends me a Dollar tree piece of junk for my birthday while expecting big gifts for herself. Once for Christmas she gave me a rag of a shirt from Goodwill she hadn't even washed. And told me she'd like me to buy her lingerie and a new vacuum.)
So anyway, when she told me I could take her out, I called her bluff and said "oh are you inviting me to your party? She stuttered (it was hilarious) and said "oh, um, uh yes." So I dolled up, brought her a nice present, went out to eat with them. When the check came, she looked pointedly at me to pay but her husband refused saying it was his treat and I was a guest. She got pissed. She always expects I will because I'm generous. She's not happy unless it comes out of our pocket. I'm the peon who has to pay for the privilege of being in HRH's presence. She'll even invite other people and expect me to pay. Everyone was miserable and I knew it wasn't because of me. It was because she was mad that I came and they were embarrassed and sick of her. It was pathetic. I smiled and charmed my way through the meal and cried myself all the way home. But I'd be damned if I let them know. The next year, I sent a happy birthday text and that was it.
Everything they say about you is designed to make you feel uncomfortable. They make passive-aggressive, back-handed "compliments" designed to humiliate rather than make you feel good. Innocent but private details such as when you first begin to show pubic hair as a child are broadcasted at family gatherings. They announce your details about your body which you are embarrassed about. "Are you putting on weight again?"
They insult you to your face in front of people. They make rude, personal body-shaming comments and then say you shouldn't take things so personally (?!). My mother said loudly (nothing from her is quiet or discreet) "What in the world did you do to your hair?" (in this snotty sarcastic voice). When her daughter called her out she sneered and smirked (yes, both) , knowing she'd got her dig in. If I were to call her out, she would get huffy angry and say "it was just a joke, my you're thin-skinned." This from the non-existent skinned woman who has never gotten over a single thing anyone has ever done to her. If I had asked her "why are you wearing that nightgown in public?" (yes she does that) I would have gotten a self-righteous chiding for embarrassing her.
If you bring up something they did or said that was cruel and made you miserable (and boy is there a lot of that) that other people were there to witness, they respond with annoyed, perplexed and haughty denial. It's perfectly fine for them to do them to do the cruel, nasty thing and collect the narcissistic supply payout (it's disgusting the things that feed their supply). But you can't remind them that they did it because then you are holding a grudge. Which is ridiculous contradiction. Which is it: it didn't happen or it did and shame on you for remembering? And they never said they were sorry, so holding a grudge, as in not forgetting, is your only choice. Either that or sweep it under the rug. I've done that so much that I can't walk for all the crap under the rug.
They ask loaded questions that undermine you. They aren't asking to get answers but to set you up. Then they do this "AHA! gotcha thing" which is supposed to make you think they caught you in some lie. They didn't catch you in anything. It's just gaslighting. But because they've changed the story and rewritten history so much, you're baffled. And too much chaotic confusions damages your brain so you can't think let alone remember clearly. Also, most of the shit they do is so painful that your brain tries to ameliorate it as best as possible. So you go into smooth over mode. And they know it. They know they've effed up your brain. And they set about spinning yarns to reinvent what really happened. They play their DARVO games, painting you as the bad guy and themselves the victim. My parents, all four, have twisted stories and said that I did things they actually did. You just sort of believe them because your mind is too befuddled to think clearly.
They do this by getting their skewed version in first before you have a chance to tell your side. And as you didn't know you'd be required to explain something, because it was completely innocent, you don't have one ready. But the narcissist has hers all cooked up and plated. She was laying for you and tells a tall tale painting you as the villain and herself, Sweet Polly Purebread. And as we know, defending your side, no matter how messed up theirs is, is much harder because theirs was the first story people heard.
And we tend to believe the first version and distrust the second as the fake. So no matter what you say in your defense, theirs is the one that sticks. That's how rumor works which is what a lot of their stories are: rumor mongering and smear campaigns. No matter how ridiculous it is, folks somehow accept it and the victim of the smear campaign plays hell trying to reverse it. A lot of innocent people have been punished for crimes they didn't commit because someone pointed the finger of blame at them. Narcissists know this and use it.
Narcissists are masters at role reversal, bait and switch and jumping sides. My mother plays the victim, martyr and savior to shield the fact that she is always the perpetrator. It's the smoking gun principle. She'll fire the shot, exit stage left for a quick costume change, leaving someone else to pick up the smoking gun. Then she'll enter stage right aghast with righteous indignation and start accusing the poor dupe holding the pistol. Even if you've seen her pull the trigger, she'll have you convinced she's the innocent. If anyone accuses her, hey presto, another lightning quick change and she's the aggrieved martyr and you're the big mean bully.
She has triangulated people right and left. She's pitted people against each other. She's sicced her rabid dog of husband on me so many times. She has made up garbage about me and egged him on to attack me. He would scream violent abuse at me, threats and spittle flying. Because all through the years, I was the schlemiel to her schlimazel. And he was her patsy and thug. He would cackle uproariously every time they set me up to play the fool. And then rage when she yanked his chain. And she could just sit by demurely and say "I have to obey him. He's muh husband." Obey wah-hah-hah now is the time we throw our heads back and laugh. She was always the one pulling our strings. Well, as they say, why have a dog and bark yourself?
Until one day, I guess the oaf finally got it that the dominatrix was in charge and he was just her minion. He didn't like that. And, further more, he realized that if she was backstabbing and manipulating and setting up other people, oh wait was she doing it to him too? Duh. Suddenly it wasn't so funny anymore. I would have paid money to see the look on his mug when he finally confronted her and realized that he'd been had. All those years of dogged service and she was mocking him too.
She told me he flew into a rage and started accusing her. And she pulled out all her gaslighting tricks, lying, evasions, denying, reinventing. She told me how she just kept telling him calmly "I just don't remember. (lie) I don't know what you're talking about (lie) I would never have done that (gaslighting) I can just see her, eyes wide open, sotto voce, slowly, patiently, patronizing, denying every single thing he said. She even said, rubbing salt in the wounds, "I'll apologize if you want but I don't know what for. Oooh how that must have stung. And him frothing at the mouth because he, her loyal henchman, she'd played him too.
I'm not his biggest paparazzi but I know one thing for sure. Every single thing he accused of doing, she did. She called me to "verify" some of the milder ones. The ones she had misrepresented to me, and so thought I would back her up on. The bigger ones of which I'm sure infidelity, theft, child abuse, entanglements with the law, figure larger I'd never be told about. See when you lie a lot, you have to keep track of who you told what lie to. Otherwise, your house of cards fall down. As my husband put it so well: she wasn't verifying the accuracy she was checking to see who remembered what to know what lies to tell whom.
So she asked me about a few things, which in the grand scheme of what they did, were little, but true nevertheless. Some I'd forgotten until I heard them again. She purposely went out to a bar, dancing and drinking while pregnant with their son. She thought it would be "funny." (actually she's a highly impulsive raging attention seeking, sociopathic exhibitionist with zero empathy. She did it because she knew some guys find pregnant women hot and she wanted a piece of that. Sick but as I recall, true.)
She claims no recollection. Well of course she would. It doesn't quite fit the good church lady image she's plays. Even I'd forgotten till a family member they asked confirmed it. The little boy, my brother, died at 5 through their negligence. So I'm sure it's awkward to recall. She said "I'd never have done that to little BJ." Correction. You didn't want people to know you'd done that to little BJ. And if she'd known how it would end, maybe she might not have. But it didn't stop her at the time. She got what she wanted. Even a fetus takes a back seat when the narcissist decides to howl. It's really quite heartbreaking to recall. I'm glad he never knew.
So she got called on a few small things but she still keeps the upper hand. Because how can you argue with someone who doesn't remember? Even her "admissions" aren't genuine because she doesn't recall it. I almost feel a little sorry for her sadder-wiser-Tigger ex-husband. Guess he knows now what it felt like to be her cat's paw all these years. And the frustration of being gaslit. Well, he was never any match for her anyway. None of us can hold a candle to her level of gaming. Gaslighting is her métier. Humiliating others is her stock and trade. She was born for this, baby. But I still would have loved to watch the shitshow play out. Petty? Oh hell yes! I'm not nearly a big enough person not to take satisfaction from that.
So this ends part one. There's more so stay tuned.
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