Hello my friends. I did a piece recently on the terrible impacts on children forced by narcissist parent abuse, into dissociative splits and ultimately dissociative identity disorder. I didn't cover them all, because I'm writing this in stream of conscience, as I'm discovering them. So this entire blog represents my work in progress: healing myself from complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Today I want to explore more negative impacts from cognitive dissonance that parental abuse and neglect causes. And not just abuse but specifically malignant narcissist parent abuse.
First what is cognitive dissonance. Well, think music--dissonance is the jarring, off-key notes that don't fit with the rest of the composition. In life, they are the experiences that don't fit with the our reality, our lives or with society at large. They are the hypocrisies, the conundrums, contradictions, inconsistencies and incompatibilities that we cannot integrate into our understanding. They cause us to go into dissociative splits in which we fragment into different personas to balances these imbalances.
Every child experiences some inconsistencies from their parents. Malignant narcissist parents are one endless revolving door of chaos and confusion. They change things like rule or expectations or circumstances or who we answer to, on a whim with no warning. They uproot us, they tear apart relationships, cut us off from loved ones, abandon us, endanger us and then gaslight us about it all. They leave us to suffer the consequences of their foolish, irresponsible and traumatic actions. I have been plagued by trauma nightmares all my life. My mother and dad, who caused them, sleep blissfully and even make fun of me for my trauma responses.
So the biggest and most fundamental form of cognitive dissonance an abused child faces is the fact that parents who are supposed to protect and care for her, endanger her regularly. AND they also expect the child parent them, to always make good choices, to forgive and cover for them, to take on herself the hurt of their behavior so they can continue to live irresponsibly. And that doesn't fit with anyone's idea of parents. Not social, religious, psychological or moral. It defies all cultures, traditions and time periods.
This is not due to parent ignorance or mistakes. It's purposeful and intentional demolishing of the child's infrastructure, foundation, framework and support system. And the fact that it's so counterintuitive to any kind of family structure the child sees around her, she cracks. She feels utterly alone in all of this because she is. There was no one to validate me, to defend, to assure me that my narcissist parents were the problem not me. And so even now, I question, was it me? Did I imagine, invent or exaggerate? Were my parents right the fault was entirely mine? That I was too sensitive, a show off, arrogant, lazy, disobedient, a disappointment? That is what my inner child has always believed.
So let me segue a moment to point something out to little me. How could you be both exaggerating and making it up for attention and at fault? Either it didn't happen or it did and you were to blame BUT NOT BOTH. And that just one flaw in their gaslighting nonsense. They overplayed their hand. And beyond that, how can anyone be always in the wrong? It's not possible. And how can a child cause adults' actions unless that adult is placing inappropriate burdens (FOG-fear, obligation, guilt) on her or failing their own obligations with DARVO (deny reality, attack the innocent and reverse victim and offender) or gaslighting (denying reality) or parentification (forcing adult expectations on a child). Or all of the above.
However, a still-forming child doesn't know any of this. She only knows parents. They are her lifeline (a fact which they exploit to frighten and coerce her into compliance with their abusive actions). Which is one ways the fubar her by twisting normal relationship dynamics to suit their evil intentions. They intentionally destabilizes her to keep her off guard and dancing for scraps which they feed her just enough to survive their torment, no more. It is that bad.
In order that her head doesn't explode with all these contradictions, the abused child splits herself into parts, to accommodate all the fantasies and fake realities the parents have forced on her. An abused child's life is not simple. It's complicated and dangerous AF. She doesn't have the basics and every day is a battle just to scrape by. She absorbs all these lies and distortions about herself. She somehow fits them into her self-perception. But since the shit they taught her doesn't coexist with any real or healthy version of reality, their versions take precedent in her mind. Talk about your out of tune cacophony of cognitive dissonance.
Now all this hell, repeated at high volume on autoloop creates a permanent fracturing of reality into what we call dissociative identity disorder (DID). Like Major Tom, she is cut off and drifting out into space. The fracture goes so deep it becomes a fissure, like the San Andreas Fault. Trouble is, though it hides in plain sight, no one sees the child's shattered little self, unless they look. And very few people bother to do that. Easier to just walk by on the others side and pretend everything is fine. Because it is fine for them. They aren't the ones having to live with these imposters.
And there is not coming back. You can only go so far down a dissociative split black hole before you can't come back. Sad thing is, the child did this to herself or let it be done to her, to appease selfish, arrogant, mind-effy, inhumane, sadistic parents. We tried to please unpleasable people because we didn't know they weren't mommy and daddy, but fraudulent, soul sucking dementors.
And we end up looking like the frauds. We don't know how to be our genuine, authentic selves because we don't know who we are because we weren't allowed to be whoever we are. And my tormentor parents played on that, calling me (ME) the fake one. The liar, the attention-seeking poser show off. If you met my parents you'd see what laughable hypocrisy that is! Pot meet kettle. But again, a child knows none this. A child brings light and flowers and kindness and sweetness to their dark, wicked, hateful Battle of Ypres.
And so to wrap her mind around it, she compartmentalizes. She splits herself into many fractal pieces. Like a broken prism. She lets herself be treated in ways she doesn't deserve just because they say she does. She believes malicious lies about herself to humor mommy and daddy, stepmum and stepdad. She dispense endless free passes, turns a blind eye, rolls over for abuse and carries the shit can, for others at her own expense. "You know you got it if it makes you feel good." She everything for everyone and nothing for herself.
No child asks for this. No child is born with it. Dissociative identity disorder is created from the necessity of having to juxtapose horrific parental abuse with everything that's good and normal and clean. It's born of the child having to go around with Perma-grin, to cover up what she's enduring and to shield her parents from consequences. Oh what a sad little child.
Is there any hope for her? I'm not going to gaslight you or myself or hold out toxically positive false promises. It's pretty grim. The one little fairy in this Pandora's Box is that somehow, some kind genius loci, some avenging angel, call it God or what, helped me to, as much as possible, not pass this on to my own children. I didn't do it well. I made many more mistakes and wrong choices than I wish. I didn't get my toxic parents evil until very late. But as my dear daughter once shared,
"my mom wasn't able to overwrite all our generational trauma but she did erase a hell of a lot." So I guess there's that. I don't expect to get to the promised land with them. I just hope to have helped them get there or at least not stood in their way too much.
What can we for children now? Ask the awkward questions and listen to their answers. Hold space for them but don't just sit there. Hold them. Reach out and take their hand.. Say for them what they still don't know the words to. Acknowledge without judgement. Please, let's quit the toxic positivity. Don't scold, pooh-pooh, patronize or say "oh your parents really love you." Don't invalidate their feelings. Right now it feels to the child that they don't. And who knows, maybe, like mine, the parents really aren't loving and you're just playing flying monkeys. Give space to feel feelings. Articulate their pain until they can articulate it for themselves.
Too many children are living with trauma we've only read about. Let's prevent further outbreaks of dissociative identity disorder. They're having to make unenviably choices the likes of which most adults will never know.
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