Childhood trauma responses: people pleaser and mental load bearer

Hello my friends. In my mission to heal childhood trauma responses to narcissistic parent abuse, I'm going to look closer at the trauma response of fawning (people pleasing) and carrying the mental load alone. Narcissistic parents gaslight scapegoat kids into believing that we bear others' responsibilities that are far beyond our years or ken, that were never ours to carry. We were groomed to trauma respond with fawning and people pleasing, giving everyone what they demand and preserving nothing for ourselves. 

First, a word about the "mental load" term. This refers to responsibilities we take on ourselves or have unfairly put on us that should be evenly distributed. Children are never responsible for the mental load of a family. Here's a snapshot of how overwhelming it is for scapegoat children who are saddled with inappropriate mental load demands.  

What is the "Mental Load"?

In a healthy home, the "mental load" is the logistical effort of managing a household. And that is always the parents job. They may require the children to assist with age-appropriate tasks. But this should be as a way to teach children healthy responsibility. They should NOT be parentified or enslaved to serve the family. And chores should be equally shared between children, not unfairly dumped on one. 

In a home with narcissistic parents, this mental load is placed on the scapegoat child who becomes Overly-functioning so everyone else can under function. The child bears the invisible, exhausting weight of being the family’s "Internal Radar." It's more than just  people pleasing. It's catering to, jumping through ever-shifting hoops, humoring, waiting on, playing the fool, dancing like a performing little dog, anything and everything the narcissist demands at any given time. Scapegoat children become slot machines, always paying out. 

And if it's difficult for adults to over-function, imagine how impossible it is for children. Before they are barely speaking or walking, these scapegoat children are already tracking, anticipating, and managing the moods and needs of adults to prevent a derailment of peace. It is not just doing the chores; if only it were that simple. It's guessing what the narcissistic parents want and being punished no matter if you guess right or wrong. 

It is the soul-crushing responsibility of ensuring SINGLEHANDEDLY that the "trains run on time" (credit to YouTube psychologist Dr. Ramani for that apt description.) It's having to prevent narcissistic parents from derailing said trains. It's being housekeeper, butler, gardener, upstairs maid, nanny and whipping girl all it one. 

In the context of childhood trauma, the mental load is more than just a "to-do" list. It is more than just a mental load. It is emotional, mental and physical over-functioning and hypervigilance —not just to keep the family mask in place, not just to keep the narcissistic parents supplied. It becomes the child's invidious task to keep everyone in a semblance of safety.  FROM CHAOS CREATED BY THE NARCISSIST. It is burnout. It is exhaustion. And if it's not an adult's job to regulate everyone else, it certainly is not a child's job. 

As you can probably see, the people pleaser + mental load carrier trauma response is deadly for children. It enfeebles and cripples us. We have been made to sign away our common sense, individuality, sense of self and childhood, to cruel taskmasters. And it does NOT transition well into adulthood, making us vulnerable to predators, takers and narcissists. We are hypervigilant to others "needs" which are often just more demands. We were taught to serve everyone often by religious narcissist parents because God says to. But we give away far more than we can afford to lose. We strip our own resources and wear ourselves to nothing. 

We are overly empathetic, and yes, that is a thing. You can empathize too much. We traumatized kids prioritize everyone's feelings, wants, demands at our own expense. We are sensitized to everyone but ourselves. We are so exhausted, taking care of adults and parents, even as young children, that we have zero energy left for us. We experience burnout from lugging this adult mental load as little kids. We took the Bible command to "bear one another's burdens" waaaaaayyy to literally. And it wasn't even written to children but to adults and especially, to parents. 

And though the fawn trauma response doesn't transition well for us, it does benefit everyone else around us. The people pleasing mental load bearer makes everyone's life easier. We reduce their stress by being overly stressed out on their behalf. That's why the condition scapegoated children suffer from is called CPTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder). Although actually it's just Traumatic Stress Disorder because narcissistic parents continue to traumatize all our lives. And we become targets for other controlling, needy, demanding people. We absorb too much worry, anxiety, caution and trepidation through pervasive FOG (fear, obligation guilt).  

We tippy-toe around never feeling able to walk solidly on our own two feet. We don't take up our own space because we're afraid to maybe to step on others' toes. We're constantly bowed in fawning servitude. We carry that physical and mental load like overloaded donkeys. We can't see because we don't dare look up. We're forced into unnatural humility that is more humiliation (there's a difference). This groveling makes us awkward and ungainly. We stumble and fall and then we get yelled at for being in the way, a nuisance, clumsy. Which is inane because the people yelling at us are the ones who made us anxious people pleasers in the first place. 

Demanding parents weaponize incompetence. They "don't feel well" or have a "bad back" or doesn't feel like doing something. We scapegoat kids are made to do it for them when our own backs are screaming with pain. And we are too young and small to have to shoulder such heavy chores. Duties no one else is made to perform including the other parent who should be if anyone should. 

We remember all the details our irresponsible narcissistic parents won't. We raise their other children. We co-sleep with them, waking up and caring for them because their parents are too lazy to. We mop floors on hands and knees because parents won't buy a mop. We iron clothes before we are tall enough to reach properly. We lug heavy vacuums that are deforming our growing backs. We get ourselves places without transport. We are forced into unsafe situations because our parents don't care what happens to us as long as they can do what they want. We learn too young how to semi-navigate but we don't learn healthy self-care skills, only bare minimum survival. 

We are exhausted from having to do things many adult can't even do and our narcissistic parents won't do. And it is all normalized and everyone is fine with it because it keep arrogant, entitled parents fueled up on narcissistic supply. Nobody else has to deal with their crazy-making behavior. 

Other people might even shame us for complaining if we ever do because "your dad is so nice" or "your mom's such a sweetie." But they only look  that way because we are doing all their adulting for them. We keep their masks in place by carrying the mental load that is rightfully theirs. These blind guides and flying monkeys can say this because they don't have to live with them, humor them, soothe and placate them, suffer their venomous rage and live at their beck and call with no lives of our own. 

I'm still in a wide open prairie space of learning and healing from childhood trauma responses like fawning. But I think one big way to heal is to see the gaslighting blind guides and narcissists for what it is: nonsense. We never did and don't owe them subservience. We don't have to be people pleasers especially for arrogant demanding people who will never be pleased. We each only have a responsibility to  and for ourselves. We can set the mental load down. We can go no contact. 

If they don't like it, pfft, who cares? They were never going to like anything we did anyway. They were always going to exclude, invalidate, dehumanize, enslave and kick us around anyway. We are not human B.O.B punching bags. It will never be a fair fight because we can never hit back. We were only ever the ones getting sucker punched. 

If you've been on the receiving end of narcissistic abuse, I have some homework for us both. Ask yourself these questions. 

🌱 Reflection: Setting Down the Load

Take a moment to sit with these questions. You don't have to solve them today; just notice the weight. I find journaling or blogging in a format such as this helpful. I also use Google Gemini to bounce my reflections off from and have found this AI tool remarkably therapeutic. 

• • Where am I carrying the mental load? (Think of the things you track for others that they are capable of tracking themselves.) Who says I have to carry it? (Is it someone else demanding, "guilting" or "not so gently hinting"? Or is it me trauma responding with FOG--fear, obligation and guilt. These questions are so critical and you might be surprised at your answers. 
• • What "catastrophe" am I trying to prevent by over-functioning today?
• • What will happen if I set this burden down? Predict worst case scenarios. Will people actually suffer or just be inconvenienced? 

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Note on Sources:

The phrase "keeping the trains running on time" in the context of narcissistic family dynamics is a concept frequently explored by Dr. Ramani Durvasula, a clinical psychologist and leading expert on narcissistic abuse. Her work on CPTSD and the "fawn" response is a vital resource for those navigating the healing process.