Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal CPTSD from sociopathic, dark tetrad narcissist parent abuse, I'll share weird ways narcissistic parents with their kids. These actions are not only inappropriate, as you will see, they are passive-aggressive, blame-shifting, isolating, grooming, enmeshing, soul-crushing and spirit-stealing. I experienced narcissistic abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, manipulation, triangulation, invalidation, exploitation, enmeshment and gaslighting about it all, from four "parents": two biological and their two partners, each of whom was a package of sociopathic, covert, overt, malignant and vulnerable narcissism.
The one thing they agreed on was that I was their scapegoat. the source of all their problems, and could be treated in the most contemptible ways imaginable. AND, as self-proclaimed Christians, all this was God's will for me. They gaslit me that whatever shit they did was approved by God. I realized as an adult that this was not because they followed Him but because they fancied that they WERE gods. And their combined cruelty left very broken children, teens and younger adults trapped in their victim's self.
1) Sociopathic narcissist parents parentify their children. Instead of the child using a parent's resources or trying their patience as kids are supposed to, the narcissist parents are the child's energy vampires. They feed off their children's bodies, minds and spirits. They try her patience before she's even old enough to know what that is. They drain her resources as their own. If the child has the misfortune to also be an empath, they play to her tender heart, making her pity and shield them with her own self. The child takes all the bad results of their misdeeds. I've always done what I call the 7 X's with them: excuse, exonerate, exempt, expunge, explain away their horrible actions and exclude them from consequences at my own expense.
2) Sociopathic narcissist parents spin wrongdoing as being framed. They cloak their genuine conscience pricking as self-pitying unmerited "guilt." Then they dump this on the child to make HER feel their own deserved guilt. My dad would moan and pout to me beginning at age 5, about how everyone was against him and how he felt so guilty. This would come out any time anyone questioned his outrageously neglectful behavior toward me. Or, I see now, if he was feeling wrong for his wrong behavior. Yet he never admitted to one single thing he actually did, nor did he ever confess. He just weaponized it to elicit sympathy from his daughter whom he knew was already over-sympathetic and forgiving of things she'd never gotten an apology for. But if I make any mistake, he rained down wrath like the very devil himself. My dad and mom would set me up to fall and then point shaming fingers, making sure to expose me to as much shame and ridicule as possible. They managed to make it look like they were so righteously angry. But I ask myself now, what kind of parent wants her child to fail? What kind lies about her child to humiliate her and make it look like she's failing and then laughs? What kind of parent wants people to see his child as a failure and shame her? A sociopathic narcissist parent who is using their child to cover their own failings, that's who.
3) Sociopathic narcissist parents exploit their child's vulnerability for self-serving ends or just for shits and giggles. My dad knew that I was empathetic and he took advantage of it. He knew I'd cry and beg to be told how I could help make him feel better. Funny thing was, though I threw my energy into fixing, he never got better, only more entitled. When he remarried (a very whiny, selfish lazy narcissist) he put me in her employ too. He wanted the perks of being married without the work. And he hated her the moment the novelty wore off and he saw she was always going to take and never give. And he had never given and wasn't about to now, so of course, that job would fall to me. My mother and her husband just exploited my vulnerability because it made them laugh to see me squirm and feel cool that they had so much power over me.
4) Sociopathic malignant narcissist parents mask their ragingly arrogant sense of superiority with feigned inferiority complex. My mother crafted her role as victim-martyr-princess to perfection. She would deepen her voice, sigh ostentatiously, with weary hand to forehead, over all the ways people have let her down. She manages to be aggrieved, put upon, sanctimonious and supercilious but still nobly magnanimous in forgiving our of weaknesses. But for all her "forgiveness" she makes sure to highlight the wrong to suck maximum shame from it. She makes a point of letting everyone know what failures people around her are. We are to know we are mere mortals in the presence of La Regina. I used to fall for it. Now I just feel like slow clapping when she gives one of her performances.
5) Sociopathic narcissist parents think they're pulling a fast one but are patently obvious in their sham. You just have to watch for the mask slipping because it always does. If you ignore the theatrics and watch their faces, you'll see that infamous narcissistic smirk. And the RBF behind the sneer-smile. You'll hear how they permit themselves just a teensy bit irritation, well who wouldn't be, with all they have to endure. But and this is important, it is a smug, self-satisfied mock irritation geared to extract pity while never actually saying how the other person let them down. That's another way you know she's a fraud. She hints at supposed sins of others. She dramatizes and uses vague, imprecise language to give the impression than expression of what they did. And she seizes on obvious things, such as a person's lack of education or her daughter's puberty baby fat and twists them into shaming offenses which she then openly mocks. She got such a kick out of it when her husband would call me "blisters" in reference to my breast size at 11.
6) Sociopathic narcissists know their audience but sometimes forget to costume correctly. This one gives me great glee to watch, when my mother forgets which scene she's playing and dons the wrong mask. She has many roles all of them archetypal: the ingenue, buffoon, pretty baby, vamp, church lady, evangelist, victim-martyr, doting mother, mean girl, estranged parent, good-time girl, whew, it's exhausting. And they are all faker than $3 bills. I don't honestly know the real Nancy and I don't think anyone does including Nancy. I didn't see it then, but now, I think it's funny when she goofs up. Like when she misread the crowd at her work picnic and threw a pie in my face and no one laughed except her whack job husband. Everyone just looked disdainfully at her. She forgot that she had styled herself the good Christian at work. Oopsie.
7) Sociopathic narcissist parents give loaded back-handed compliments. So first thing to know is that narcissists never give genuine compliments. There is always a price tag or an expectation attached. They only give to receive narcissistic supply. Either by complimenting you so you'll compliment them. That's the least insidious. They also backhandedly dress insults as compliments. "Nice dress but it would look better on (golden child) sister." Or complaint compliments: "Must be nice to be able to afford a new car." (when they cheated you out of your college fund to buy themselves new cars and left you to buy a junker and are only just being able to afford a new one at 55.) They also compliment to get you to give them things. "Nice house you got. When can we move in?"
8) Sociopathic narcissist parents twist everything. Right is wrong for you. Wrong is right for them to do to you. They disguise their wants as needs. And they are one big greedy vacuum of want. And your needs (like a home, food or a bed) they gaslight, are just selfish whims. It's just "helping out of family" when you cater to and do for them what they should be doing themselves. But you're insanely selfish if you need help from them. In fact, "family" is manipulated too. They are your family with all the rights, expectations, privileges, and special exceptions they demand but you aren't their family when it comes to your most basic needs. This may sound exaggerated but in fact, it's downplayed. It's really a lot worse than I've described.
9) Sociopathic narcissist parents marry equally if not worse sociopathic narcissists and harness the child to them. I've written previously that I have constant pervasive nightmares (symptomatic of CPTSD) in which I'm caring for dozens of children in chaotic, dangerous places and expected to cook, clean, do laundry for everyone. These aren't just dreams, they're memories. In one of last night's dreams, my stepmother's child began crying as she was busy planning her birthday party. She just looked irritably at me and on kneejerk, I began tending to her child. I took the child off to our shared room where I slept with all the babies and kids. She didn't even have to say anything. I was on it with all the guilt and shame I always felt for not anticipating quicker. The parentification in my life was horrendous and a big reason why I don't sleep well now. Constant, shifting demands and expectations placed on me.
(side note) I know I'm starting to heal because in last night's dream, I "woke up" as it were and realized that I am 61 years old with adult children and grandkids of my own. And I'm still dreaming I'm my parents' live in servant-nanny. I told her I was calling my husband for a ride and leaving and if she wanted something done she could get up off her fat ass and do it herself. Then I told my dad just how he'd failed me, marrying this leach and leaving me to do all their work. The funny part is that in the dream she had hired the Mouseketeers to perform for her birthday and she and my dad expected me to pay them. She was mad that I wouldn't. I began to feel chronic guilt and then started laughing. I said to the band "you can play if you want but they won't be paying you." The sadly funny part was the troop of mouse-costumed players dejected trooping out, wah-wah-wah. Tell me this isn't CPTSD. You cannot make this up.
10) Sociopathic narcissist parents weaponize everything against their scapegoat child to make her dance attendance on them. Both my mom's husband and my dad's wife were terrifying to live with. They were even worse to sleep around. She in a bitchy, passive-aggressive way and him in full-on raging werewolf attack mode. And both were worst in the morning. They both stayed up watching TV and disturbing my rest. My dad only saw it when he was home and it disturbed him. He gave no effs about how hard it was for me, ESPECIALLY as I was always made to sleep on a youth bed in the corner of the baby's room to care for them at night while she had a suite of a room with waterbed. Anyhoo. If I accidentally woke them like when I was trying to calm their crying child, oh was there hell to pay. Stepdaddy dearest has screamed violent threats at me and attacked me.
Stepmom Ginny was sullen and haughty. She made sure everyone knew she needed her "space" in the morning. Because she stayed up too damn late. And she had the choicest room far from her children. If anyone should have been cranky in the AM it would be me. I was literally locked in with him. But no one even asked how the baby or I slept. And I recall the sick stomach from walking on eggshells around her majesty's waspish rage. I had to fawn in this sickening way, silently bringing her coffee and tippy-toeing out of the room so as not to upset her. Fuck that. I should turned "Black Dog" on blast and put Ex-Lax in her coffee. What pisses me off most was the way my dad shackled me in her service and called it "helping mummy." Jerry Wise calls this "tethering" of a child and that is spot on how it felt. Like I had a shock ankle bracelet that went off every time she wanted her slave-scapegoat.
11) Sociopathic narcissist parents refuse you simple things and then pirate your entire self. You are nothing without them, they gaslight you. And the bizarre part is that this is true, but not the way they mean it. As children, we obviously rely on our parents. We need them for survival. But our sociopathic narcissist parents have no intention of loving or caring for us. They manipulate and exploit that need to leave us vulnerable and helpless. And then they give it an extra twist to make us think that what we need is their approval, their permission to be. And to earn that we are obligated to endless amounts of back-breaking, soul-destroying service. But the truth is, and this is important to note if you are still in your narcissistic parents home: they will never give you their love, care, approval or permission to be. You will hop through their every hoop and they will move the hoops. The only way out is to stop hopping. But that can be really dangerous and I understand why you would continue. Because...
12) Normal parents protect their children. Sociopathic narcissist parents terrorize theirs. THEY are the monster under the bed, the nightmare in the closet. They hold them hostage for ransoms no one can pay. They terrify children with their unspeakable betrayal, abandonment, cruelty and endangerment. And then gaslight her that she's "too sensitive" "showing off" or exaggerating. They crucify their children to expiate their own horrible sins and then they keep on sinning, gleefully, as if it never happened.
13) Sociopathic narcissist parents engage in egregiously immoral behavior while proclaiming themselves on the moral high ground. There really is no low that is too low for them to stoop. While finger-pointing and accusing people of the very things they are blatantly doing. When they are younger they may fool some gullible people with their double standard but as they age it becomes more apparent. Or so I believe. I was younger too and I fell for my parents' shite because they were all I knew of parents. And they weaponized this.
14) Normal parents support and foster a child. Sociopathic narcissist parents betray a child at every step. They exploit her trust in them. They take advantage of her natural naivete. They pervert her innocence by planting nasty, ugly images and ideas in her head and baffling the hell out of her. They shit on and ruin everything good in the child's life.
15) Sociopathic narcissist parents are weirdly too pure to be believed and also outlandishly risqué. My mother is seductive especially with younger men and boys who she vamps, playing their hormones for narcissistic supply. And with older men, she plays the baby doll, looking for a sugar daddy. But she's also the prim and proper church lady. Dana Carvey could have patterned this SNL caricature on my mom. She feigns innocent ignorance when asking the doctor for sex advice. At 79 years old. Why, you're asking, am I in with her at the doctor for sex advice. Because she sprung it on me and then shamed irritably for "not wanting to hear this." Which I have been hearing all my life but no, I didn't want to. But I was afraid I'd look uncaring if I left the room. That's how they sucker you in with manufactured creepy, repulsive fake obligation and guilt. I could go on for weeks about all her gross sexual hypocrisy. But none of us has the stomach for it.
16) Sociopathic narcissist parents flip roles to leverage as much discomfort in their kids as possible. They blame others for their own risky foolish choices. My mother is the shallow thrill seeker, giggling maniacally and rushing my kids out to go sledding when everyone is saying hold up and wait. She's plays the cool grama who does fun stuff when fuddy duddy parents won't. (Mind, she has never sledded once before or after that). Then she gets them all hurt because she doesn't use common sense. Then she's the frail and needy victim and I overlook the kids to help in her manufactured crisis. And then I'm at fault for "letting her" take the kids sledding. I wish I'd seen that sooner and I'm sorry that I didn't tend to my kids and let her make it all about her. Then she feigns helplessness and must be helped to walk by three people at her brother's funeral while at the service she was shouting and carrying on laughing and then rushes up the buffet afterward, miraculously cured. It's exhausting I can't keep up.
17) Sociopathic narcissist parents lie like their native tongue but are quick to ferret out "lying" in others. They call out people they want to target as liars. They make a too big deal of usually innocent things, pointing fingers and ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh-ing like chimps to call attention to it. They smirk and sneer gleefully that they "caught" someone in an untruth. Truth is, they set them up and twisted what the person said into something it wasn't. And narcissists HATE truth tellers, people who don't fall for their nonsense and see them for what they are. Oh will they launch smear campaigns then. My mother loves to find fault but don't you dare speak truth about her. They will use every tactic to undermine them so that you as their child, don't see how accurate the truth teller is.
18) Sociopathic narcissists are always pratting about maturity but are the most immature people you could meet. My mother loves to call out immaturity, or what she deems immaturity in others. She really fancies this as her God-given task, to expose sinners. Ironic as she's has lived a more sinful life that anyone she's called out. I know. I was there. She'll lie about it now but be sure that it happened.
19) Sociopathic narcissists are oddly disdainful but also angered by others' disdain. It took me a long time (six decades) and a truth teller husband pointing out just how disdainful, haughty, scornful, self-righteous and holier than thou she is. I'm not sure how I missed it but I do know that gaslighting of children is powerful. I remember her sneering at people, never showing compassion. Always looking for an angle to profit on their misfortune. And then she would sneer at so and so who "thinks she's above everyone." It was like a playground bully except that she is an adult and no kid I've ever known, and I've known thousands, as a child myself and a teacher, acts that bad. I never understood what she was getting at. The people she targeted where usually just normal people bumping along as best they could.
20) Sociopathic narcissist parents triangulate and pit people against each other for fun. Like gladiators. My mother made all kinds of accusations against both sets of grandparents. Nasty icky shit. She did this to show me that they I couldn't trust them either. She tried to cut me off from all support and make me feel vulnerable and dependent on her. She said my paternal grandfather hit on her. She so incensed her boyfriend that he attacked my grandparents at their own home. My grandma would have called the police but my granddad said not to. I could cane her boyfriend for that alone.
21) Sociopathic narcissist parents are both unappreciative and overly demanding. They don't ask for things. They create facades of FOG, fear and obligation and guilt. They set up fake narratives in which the child supposedly owes them so much. But they give the child nothing of what they actually owe her. The child pours herself into caring for them but it's never good enough. They give the child cruel stupid joke gifts and brag how they got the golden child a computer. And expect lavish presents in return. They then exchange the gifts and tell you that they were broken or insufficient. Or they get you nothing, and yet tell you not to come empty-handed to their golden kids' birthdays or Christmas. And they make it clear if your gift wasn't expensive enough. My dad humiliated me at his son's birthday because I, a college student, brought a homemade gift. He actually scolded me. And then didn't even wish me happy birthday.
22) Sociopathic narcissist parents play one endless game of bait and switch and switch again. They move targets to confuse a child. They say things and the lie and say they never did. They do hurtful things and gaslight the child that it was a good thing. They twist words and use them against the child. They baffle, frustrate and exhaust the child who never knows what's coming. They play on the child's weaknesses. They zap her strength in cunning ways. The only consistency is inconsistency. And the only predictable is chaos. It's all fake facade. The only thing the child knows is trauma response.
23) Sociopathic narcissist parents who claim to be Christians, mock God. They will say that what they do is fine because "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven." Only they're not Christians and they're not sorry so can't be forgiven and that's false doctrine and Jesus never promised carte blanche forgiveness only to his followers. And all this mercy they claim for themselves they withhold from others, especially their children. They are more harsh than any god in history. They make up lies about people to smear them and to show their own "holiness" in contrast. But they are not holy, they are unholy demons. Real Christians know Jesus's voice and follow it. They try to keep his commands and don't make up bullshit excuses when they don't. They don't weaponize and exploit forgiveness to shelter their sin. They don't hold people to burdens they won't carry. If that isn't hypocrisy I don't know what is. Jesus had a term for people like this: white-washed sepulchers full of dead men's bones. And let us never forget. God will not be mocked. Their day of reckoning is coming.
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