Hello my friends. I started this blog to discuss weight loss and how I lost 100 pounds. Then I began processing my CPTSD from narcissist parents' abuse and gaslighting. And I saw how weight gain and obesity is directly connected to childhood trauma, abuse, neglect and narcissist parent gaslighting about it all. The story of how I lost 100 pounds is also the story of how I lost (or am working to lose) narcissist parent gaslighting. I'm working to end their reign of terror over me and reclaim my own power. A strange memory resurfaced recently that proved how gaslit, frightened by and dominated I was by my narcissist parents.
Because that's what narcissist parent abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, scapegoating, invalidation, triangulation, manipulation, exploitation and gaslighting distills down to is fear. Narcissist parents create an atmosphere of hostility, chaos, trauma, insecurity which destabilizes the child. But they do it in such insidious ways that it may not be readily apparent to outsiders. They keep the child in her own private hell.
Having said that, my narcissist parents' abuse (by all four of them, bio and then their new partners) was pretty weird even by malignant narcissists' standards. But somehow, I was so groomed to weird that I didn't see it clearly. That's the gassing effect that gaslighting has on victims. Their brains get damaged by the effects of their narcissist parents bizarre and toxic behavior.
I didn't see clearly that deprivation of basic necessities like medical care, a proper home or bed, rest, nutrition, love, kindness was something a child deserves. I somehow knew and didn't know that these were rights not luxuries I had to earn. All I knew as a child and teen was to soothe and placate and humor mom, dad and then their new partners.
What reminded me of all this was something I recall writing in the back of my Bible. (That's in itself is weird and ironic, that they didn't provide basic needs, like period products or a bed or pillow but gave me instead a Bible. Hmm. ) I had written to myself "you can't fix all of mom's problems." I wrote that because I felt such intense guilt and worry for her. Over problems she absolutely and entirely brought on herself and not only on herself but me. And which she showed no concern for me about. Not a bit.
That recollection brought to mind how she must have dumped and dumped on me like some kind of toxic waste site. I can't remember specific things she said (that's another effect of gaslighting...confusion). Rather I recall her never NOT dumping. It was so common for her to exploit me as her personal pity party host that all I ever heard was how terrible her life was. SHE was drowning ME under the weight of consequences of HER very blatantly irresponsible, risky, dangerous, immoral, unethical, illegal, abusive behavior. And making ME feel responsible for her bad choices and also to protect her from the repercussions. Which is what prompted me to write that in my Bible. I was sending myself and SOS to save me from self-destruction trying to rescue someone from her own self.
But here's the clincher. Never once did I stop and consider how I was the one suffering from her choices not her, nor her husband nor her shiny new family. To make matters worse, this is just one half of the story. This whole shitshow was being repeated with my dad, his wife and his shiny new family. They called all the shots. They said jump and I asked how high? It took me till I was 60 (!!) to finally see, thanks to my husband's truth-telling, that THEY had everything they needed and wanted, while I had nothing. I went without so they could demand and take too much.
So part of how I lost 100 pounds was by losing the weight of them. By dropping the burden of worry over them. By starting to care for myself, to prioritize myself over their incessant never-satisfied demands.
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