Narcissistic parents confuse and destabilize kids then shame their confusion and self-doubt

Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal CPTSD from a lifetime of malignant narcissist parent abuse, I'm exploring how CPTSD causes constant confusion, self-doubt and difficulty making decisions. I'm also looking at how narcissist parents confuse and destabilize you and then shame your confusion and self-doubt. Narcissistic parents create your CPTSD then ridicule your trauma responses. They mock you for being fearful, indecisive, insecure and anxious. 

First, here's some info on CPTSD. Those of us with CPTSD never feel safe or secure. It robs you of inner peace. CPTSD steals your ability to fully embrace joy. Our malignant narcissist parents taught  us to be afraid, very afraid of them. Nothing is simple or straightforward for us. Ever action or choice is fraught with anxiety, hypervigilance, FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) and endless second-guessing and overthinking. 

And that is because I am always confused. Dysregulation is a frequent visitor. I got used to expecting surprises and not the good kind. The suckers punches of parental anger and disapproval which always came the minute I relaxed. So I don't really know how to relax or what that would feel like. It's hard to impossible to explain to anyone who hasn't experienced this. Those who have know exactly what I'm talking about. 

They say things like "but that's not the way it is for you now." Ehh, potato, potahtah. It feels the same now because I was conditioned so thoroughly to think and trauma respond like this. Learning new things is hard at any age. Learning new things as a senior citizen is harder still. Unlearning things that you were coerced into doing and punished for not doing, that borders on impossible. I am hard-wired to feel insecure whether I am safe or not. 

And then there's that confusion. Here's how my narcissistic parents hard-wired that into me. I was expected to do the right thing always, without being told what the right thing actually was and certainly not having right behavior modeled for me by my parents. I was just expected to divine it. And I was always being told I got it wrong. I couldn't win for losing. My narcissistic parents had a comeback for everything. Which is really weird. Why would they need a weapon against their child? 

It always felt like someone was angry with me. I was continually hearing how I'd let someone down, but never how. At both my mother's and father's new homes, there was an undefined by clear atmosphere of oppressive hostility, aggression and passive-aggression. And it was made clear that I was the one causing it. Though I was a cheerful, biddable, people pleasing kid. 

It was so bad that I have dreams about it now, in which I have done something unspeakably wrong and I have no idea what it is. I beg people to tell me and they just sit glaring hostilely at me. Of course, in my dreams I'm also being expected to do six impossible things at once so that could have something to do with it. When I look back, I see these are not dreams but memories, all jumbled in that confusion I spoke of. 

I see now too, that keeping me confused, insecure, frightened, anxious made me even more useful to them. If the Lord loves a cheerful giver, a narcissistic parent loves a terrified one. It gives their colossal egos one hell of a power trip, which is sick in itself. But fear also keeps the child docile and in line. And being impossible to please keeps the child always striving harder to please. It confuses her that they aren't happy because she is such a failure. It never occurs to her that they are weaponizing it. 

And as if that confusion wasn't confusing enough, the malignant narcissist parents use her own confusion against her! They make her feel inept because she "can't do simple things." Simple which no one else has to do and certainly not for an audience. I never saw any of my parents lift a finger to help. And why was I, a kid, doing all their adult work anyway? 

They say shit like "you wouldn't be so confused if you were right with God." "It's God that is causing you to doubt yourself." Or "you're not tired. you're just exaggerating or showing off." Or "you're too sensitive." We don't' ask that much, just that you do your part in the family. Why do you have such a problem with a few chores?" "You need to lighten up. You're too serious." Funny, though, I never expressed frustration with my lot. So I didn't know where that was coming from. Till now. 

Now I see it was coming from the constant game of Whack-a-Mole they played. No matter what I did, it got smacked down. This keeps the kid nervous, dodging and off balance. Remember that destabilizing I mentioned? I was always going to be smacked down no matter what. They said they didn't say well done because I'd get a big head (said the most arrogant people I've ever known). 

Truth is, they couldn't risk praising me because then I might not be so quick to jump. I might actually feel part of the family and let down my guard. And I might see how badly they'd been treating me and that it was no fault of mine. I might start questioning and then their narcissistic fantasy house of cards could tumble. In short, I might leave and take away their source of narcissistic supply. 

It was never about me learning right from wrong. It was about me learning to be afraid. And ergo the confusion. It's impossible for someone to be wrong all the time. And I probably did a lot right though their gaslighting is so loud it feels wrong to say so. But if  I found that out, I might use it to differentiate right from wrong and then discover that they had been preventing that with their gaslighting perversions and distortions. If I found out that I had the ability to fly, that the cage they put me in was fake, I might fly away. And then who would wait on all of them? 

So as for God being the one causing my self-doubt, mmm, I don't think so. I think He may have been helping me see that they were the ones to doubt. That they spoke with forked tongues, put millstones on my neck, tied me up to burdens they didn't help carry and led a little child astray. And this is very much not okay with God. On this I am not confused. 

But on everything else, I am. Making decisions is terribly challenging for me.   I second guess everything I do. Because so much of what I was taught was right, was actually wrong. And much of what they said was wrong of me, was in fact, correct. But it still often feels the old way that taught me. So now everything requires me to analyze which is the right course? Usually I find that if I do the opposite of what they said, I get it right. 

But then there are those ringers they threw in, just to keep it interesting. Sometimes, they were right. But not by design, by accident. Or to confuse me further. Which is really exhausting to sort out. The only thing that consistently works is to just throw it all out, baby, bathwater, bathtub, bathroom, house, and start over with a fresh slate. That's why I ask a lot of questions of people which might sound obvious or stupid. I am trying to relearn the safe, healthy, positive way to think about things.