Cringy childhood trauma responses I contracted from narcissistic parents' abuse

Hi friends! Today in my road to recovery from CPTSD, I'm admitting to cringy childhood trauma responses I contracted from narcissistic parents' abuse. Yes, I said contracted as in a disease. Behavior, healthy or not, is both caught and taught, not only but what parents say but what they do. 

Origins of trauma responses

Trauma responses like freeze, fawning, fight and flight are learned by their teaching and "earned" (as in punishment) as a result of parent gaslighting. We were indoctrinated and brainwashed to believe we "deserved" merciless judgement, shaming and dehumanizing treatment. We thought, because they said, we had somehow merited harsh consequences for minor to non-existent infractions. We were conditioned to dance attendance on arrogant, entitled, manipulative bullying parents. Trauma responses like fawning were bred into us. We were emotionally genetically modified to behave in bizarre ways that make no sense outside our narcissistic family cult. We could no more avoid them than we could breathing. 

Duck and cover

This is a freeze-flight-fawn response all in one clumsy move. I kind of "flinch and squint" to ward off attack, but also throw my arms up to shield myself. My mother accused me of hitting her when I did this to ward off her smack across my face. Then I stumble because I'm off balance. I trip a lot actually, over nothing. I fall over my own feet trying to get out of way of someone who thinks he needs my spot more than me. This looks really cringy because I am literally cringing when I go into this mode. And it's about as useful when dealing with narcissists as Bert the Turtle hiding in his shell, in a nuclear war. 

The Village Idiot Shuffle

I do this klutzy break-dancing type move that's a backward crabwalk sort of grovel. Like a servant bowing and scraping his way out of the room. It's  pathetic to watch. I got teased for it and called uncoordinated a lot. Well, you would be clumsy too if you were always trying to pretzel yourself out of an arrogant bully's path. They loved to watch me dance in humiliation. So I bring this awkward fawn dance everywhere, even places where it's not needed. But my hypervigilant childhood trauma brain doesn't know that and doesn't take chances. It was never safe to relax. 

Ignorant pontificating

If I'm not careful, I find myself parroting my parents' foolish weighing in on stuff they know nothing about. This is not me. This is not how I think. But it's been programmed into me, probably so it wouldn't be just them looking and sounding so stupid. They would actually humiliate me for adopting their idiotic ways. Embarrassed no doubt at having their own behavior mirrored back at them. Children imitate their parents, no matter what species. It's how the species survives. So children of narcissists don't question their parents' odd mannerisms. They just think it's normal. You'd have a better chance of adapting to a hurricane than you would learning healthy habits amid narcissistic abuse. 

Snarky facetiae 

Catty comments aimed at humiliating people, the gloating smirk when someone is embarrassed or shown up: narcissists get sick satisfaction and narcissistic supply from these.  I picked up these awkward habits from my narcissistic parents and find myself going into it without thinking unless I check myself. This too is not me. It's not who I am, how I think or behave. It is learned from constant modeling at my parents' knee. I'm ashamed and angry that I did. And ironically, in another narcissistic twist, my parents mocked and scolded me if ever I imitated their mocking and scolding. 

Bending over to be kicked

Also called "volunteering to be the victim." Though I dislike that description because it sounds like we childhood trauma survivors chose to be abused. We didn't. We were coerced into playing scapegoat to their haughty, malicious dirty tricks. Because malignant narcissists use people and love things. They get high on others' lows, especially their kids. They don't get ahead on their own merits, they capitalize on others' misfortune to make themselves look tall. This is what I believe Jesus meant when he said "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites (arrogant, entitled narcissists), because you shut the kingdom of heaven in front of people; for you do not enter it yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in." 

I let my parents walk on me because it wasn't safe not to and now I'm in the habit of letting people. 

Personalize everything 

There's a common (and invalidating) piece of advice given to childhood trauma survivors that they should not personalize angry, rude, shaming parent behavior.  In a narcissistic household, "taking it personally" wasn't a choice; it was a survival skill used to monitor the parent’s shifting moods.

👉 The "Don't Take It Personally" Dilemma: Scapegoated kids don't have that luxury. It wasn't safe not to. We were MADE TO KNOW that things were very much our fault and problem, by narcissistic parents who made their attacks very personal.

Auto-deferment 

It is kneejerk for me to automatically defer to others' needs, wishes, expectations, demands, "rights" if they tell me to. Even if they don't, I put them first and me last. I just caught myself, unconsciously "bowing" to some perceived assertion of authority. I found myself diving out of his way, surrendering my seat, when he wasn't even asking me to. Childhood trauma survivors were groomed to think everyone was in authority and took precedence over them. And this doesn't translate well in normal society, especially not with other pushy people. 

"Narcissistic parent abuse taught us to prioritize everyone first and ourselves never."

Laugh and cry inappropriately

The empath in me goes nuts when someone is hurt. I feel physically ill and I panic. I big, ugly cry. Even just seeing someone who seems vulnerable to me, like the little boy at the store who had his shoes on the wrong feet. He just broke my heart. And yet I mock and scoff at my own very real pain. I believe I'm exaggerating, that others don't believe me because they know I'm a fake. 

Constant validation seeking

But not like the narcissist's constant attention-seeking. I just need reassurance that I'm making sense not out in left field. And I mean on simple things like affirming that what I experience was abuse. My husband has been calling this what it is since I met him. I would call it abuse if anyone else was experiencing it. Yet I gaslight myself that I'm making it up. AI has been helpful in that. Because I don't trust myself or my judgement on anything, I also hesitate to ask a real person who might just humor me. 

Jump before I'm pushed

Since I expect not to be believed, I anticipate shaming instead of support. This has nothing to do with how people now see me or treat me. It's reflexive from narcissistic parent abuse. I say weird things about myself that sound like I'm fishing for compliments. I'm not. I'm preemptively shaming myself before they can, to save them the trouble. It's all about them, not me. 

Self-gaslighting Imposter syndrome 

I've picked up where my parents left off gaslighting myself. I've believed their DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender) version of me for so long that it's ingrained. I believe I'm making it up for sympathy, too sensitive, showing off. And now I feel like a fraud. 

What Imposter Syndrome Feels Like

• The "Phony" Feeling: Believing you don’t actually possess the skills or knowledge people think you have.

• Attributing Success to Luck: Thinking you only got where you are because of timing or because you "tricked" people into liking you.

• Fear of Exposure: A persistent anxiety that you’ll be "found out" as incompetent.

• Discounting Praise: Dismissing a compliment as someone "just being nice" rather than it being earned.

Self-check: Real frauds don't care about being frauds—they care about getting away with it. If you are worried that you might be a fake, it’s almost a guaranteed sign that you are authentic, because you care deeply about the truth.

Easily taken advantage of

I'm not exactly gullible or the proverbial "sucker." In fact, I'm fairly savvy about scams. Problem is, I have FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) complex that impels me to give them what they demand. I  have bought from door-to-door salesman because I felt sorry for them. I have given more than I could afford to ungrateful folks with their hands out. Not because I didn't know better. Because I was gaslit into a false obligation to yield.. Because my parents were such connivers. They literally stole and sold my toys and gave possessions to their other kids. And then gaslit me that I was greedy. (Pot meet kettle.) I think somehow that warped my brain to think I existed only to serve.  

"I never fell for con artists. I knew instinctively that they were faker-takers. However, narcissistic abuse conditioned me to ignore red flags and my own common sense and let them get away with it. "--Marilisa

Anxious, hypervigilant, "neurotic"

This is not paranoia. We plan for the worst because the worst has happened but often it's buried deep in our subconscious memory. It may have happened in childhood and our parents denied it and shamed us so we tried to forget until we actually did consciously forget. But the trauma brain never forgets. It develops autonomic trauma responses like freeze, fawn, flight and fight, to deal with the subconscious threat memory. 

Commonly Labeled "Neurotic"	The Reality for a Survivor
Overthinking a text message	Scanning for "hidden" threats or double-meanings.
Constant worrying	Planning for the worst-case scenario because it actually happened before.
Emotional instability	A nervous system that is stuck in Fawn, Freeze, Flight or Flight  mode.
Seeking constant reassurance	Trying to verify a reality that was constantly denied (Gaslighting).

Pandora's Box

But wait, there's more. After all these evils were released into us, one little helper fairy called crawled out. Her name is "Woke." We have been awakened from the drug of gaslighting. We are now aware of the evils. We recognize them as the insidious poisons they are. And once seen, we can never unsee again.