Hello my friends. Today I'm going to show you how my Christian narcissist parents' abusive, hypocritical double standards make my story unique. Now, if you know about narcissists, you'll be asking, aren't they all hypocritical, holding themselves above rules they place on others? Yes they are and do. But the Christian narcissists take it to the next level dressing up their arrogant, entitled expectations as gospel truth and placing burdens on people that they don't carry. And then Christian narcissist parents level it up again, by grooming their child in their own self-serving, self-styled cult. And then my parents (all four) took it nuclear. Here's how my backstory of abuse differs radically from any I've ever heard.
So your garden variety religious narcissist is an inflexible, bossy, binary know-it-all. It's their way and nothing else. They gaslight that what they are teaching (or beating you over the head with) is God's way but it's not. Because by their very rigidity, they violate basic Biblical principles. BUT they also, at least ostensibly, live by these principles. Sort of.
For example, they preach against abortion and would never take someone for an abortion. And they would NEVER have an abortion. My mother did both. While still preaching that it was wrong for everyone else. She never admitted to doing this nor did she repent. It was just another rule she herself was entitled to enforce but not practice.
Mainline religious narcissists also preach against adultery, pedophilia, divorce, infidelity, promiscuity, fornication and "living in sin." And so, ergo, don't do these things. My mother and father did all of these with various other people while married and after divorce. Blatantly. Openly. While still Bible beating and actually preaching and even doing "mission work."
Now having said that, I'd not be surprised if other judgmental, self-righteous Christians lived hypocritically. We know they anti-abortion folks have had and paid for abortions. We know that they get divorced, remarried and cheat while still telling others not to. But the difference is, most of them are clandestine about it. A dear friend's husband was able to keep his adultery secret for years. So, while not defending him, at least he felt some shame about it.
My parents felt none. Zero. My 36 y/o dad "dated" a 17 year old and took me on dates with them. I remember sitting on her bed and seeing all her stuffed animals lined up. And my pushing-40 preacher dad arrogantly claiming this was all fine and dandy. He gaslit me saying this was all part of God's plan. My church organist mother had a series of affairs (such a nice word for such a disgusting behavior). She made out with her creepy boyfriends in front of me. She accused me of being "jealous." I was 8.Then she moved her boyfriend into our home and made an "apartment" for them in the basement.
She was running a foster care home and kicked me out of my room to sleep with the four special needs kids under 5. (I said you can't make this up). She allowed several unmarried couples to sleep together in our house, one couple in my room. This was NOT kosher in our quiet family friendly neighborhood. And yet she read her Bible daily and ostentatiously prayed and bragged about leading people to Jesus. In fact, that's how she spun having her affair with a married man: witnessing to him by sleeping with him.
Mainline Christian narcissist parents may be PITAs to live with but they do at least provide basic care for their children. By basic I mean food, a bed, shelter, clothing, medical care and safety. They don't make them do all the chores, including heavy housework, co-sleeping with the babies and waiting on them and their new spouses like a servant. Mine did not provide much of anything. I've been pretty much on my own all my life often not having a clue where my parents were. My dad went on a two year "mission trip" when I was 6. I just learned last year that this constitutes child abandonment.
This is a very small snippet of the insane chaos I've lived with all my life. But don't hear what I'm not saying. This is not a competition to see who has the worst story of parental abuse. It is me trying to get myself fumigated from all the gaslighting so I can be healthier. And it's also about me recognizing that my personal story is so extra weird that it's uncharted territory. I've never been able to address it because it's so hard to explain because there's no precedence.
And because people bring their own life frame of reference and mine doesn't fit in any. I've been dismissed and pooh-poohed often enough to make me disbelieve my own experience.
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