Hello my friends. Today I'm examining a weirdly conflicted CPTSD trauma responses I have from growing up in chaotic narcissist parent abuse. These are equal and opposite reactions I've developed from being in the crosshairs of malignant narcissistic abuse. And crosshairs is a good metaphor for this contradictory perpendicular double standard we find ourselves in, pulled one way and then diametrically the opposite. Thanks to the work of YouTube therapists' Dr. Ramani, Patrick Teahan, Jerry Wise, Danish Bashir and Dr. Les Carter I'm beginning to untangle this tangled web pf deceit my narcissist parents wove.
Always in demand and in the way. I find myself in this contradictory trauma response so often. I feel both the weight of endless expectation PLUS a sense of always being in everyone's way. I am always juggling too much responsibility with too little accommodation. My dad literally told me it was my job to duty to do all the adult work while out of the other side of his mouth, telling me to be quiet while the "adults" were talking. So I got used to being hypervigilant and groveling while also squashing myself into a pretzel so I didn't cause them any inconvenience. I was the unobtrusive yet ever-present servant.
Necessity and nuisance. If my narcissist parents had just abandoned me, it would have been easier. But no, they needed me too much to jettison me. I provided too much in the way of emotional dumping ground, surrogate spouse, surrogate parent, slave and scapegoat. They kept me around to do the heavy lifting, but very grudgingly.
Expect one-sided transactions. We hear that transactional relationships are unhealthy. I'd have loved to have a transactional, give and take relationship with my narcissist parents. If only I received from and not just paid into them. If only it wasn't just me giving out good things like a broken slot machine. If only I hadn't learned the trauma response of expecting to be backstabbed, extorted from, exploited and used. If only I hadn't believed their future faking.
Do too much and expect too little. I heard an amazing quote on YouTube that "narcissist men don't prey on weak women. They seek out the fixers who have been taught by toxic parents to expect too little." I took it two steps further. I expected nothing good and planned on being taken advantage of. I prepared for exploitation by endlessly giving because they said to. My dad said "we" (meaning me) should give with no expectation of reward. He might as well have given me a Molotov cocktail and told me to stand there while it blew up in my hand.
Self-care is selfish. Oh how my narcissist parents weaponized this against me. They took damn good care of themselves, too good, at my expense. While grooming me to believe that me having needs, ideas, opinions, a voice, wants, goals, aspirations was selfish. That self-defense and self-protection was somehow self-centered. Well, they would say that, being very entitled themselves and being the reason for me needing to defend and protect myself in the first place.
What I learned was dysfunction trauma responses of fawn to predators, freeze in fear and fix whatever anyone else broke. I learned to let fear, obligation and guilt drive my every action. This little girl you see in the picture was already anxiously hypervigilant against offending those two arrogant, entitled and manipulative people with her.
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