Hello my friends. I've written before about creepy behavior of enmeshed narcissistic parents we don't talk enough about. Today I'm going to explain why we, their children, don't discuss it. And that's because it's so painfully humiliating. But we need to talk about it to find recovery. We need to say what happened before we can heal from the devastating damage it did to us. I'm going to explore why we don't but should, using examples of my enmeshed, narcissistic parents behavior.
Narcissistic parents make us feel stupid
These narcissists act foolish and make us look foolish by proximity.
- Narcissists do weird things. My mother wore skimpy mini-skirts when other moms wore slacks and shirts. She behaved "trashy" as the neighbors put it. She had men over at all hours. As she got older, she wore nightgowns in public. People asked me why, like it was my job to do something about it.
- Narcissists trample boundaries. My parents took my possessions, barged into my husband's and my bedroom, rifled through my purse, stole my car.
- Narcissists say weird things. My mom yelled into a public bathroom to make sure all was "safe" for her 40 y/o daughter. A woman scolded her. She wouldn't have if it was me.
- Narcissists neglect. I never knew where my parents were most of time when I was wandering alone blocks from home at 4 years old. Strangers cared more the fact that I was playing by the docks in a strange city, especially when I said I didn't know where home or parents were.
- Narcissistic parents say weird things about us. My dad called me a show off in front of members of a singing group I had started, then invited him to join. He refused to accompany me. He took over and told me I wasn't allowed to sing in it anymore. When I did, because people requested me to, he looked so contemptuously at me. I just assumed he was right. I don't honestly know what other group members felt about him or me. But I gaslit myself that I should just quit.
Narcissistic parents ruin our selves
- They gaslight us that others hate us. My dad said I was a fool, and people were laughing at me. He said they were only being nice and if they knew me like he did, they wouldn't like me. Way to kick off my Imposter Syndrome, Dad.
- They triangulate and scapegoat. My mom and dad both used me to buffer their messed up relationships. They'd tell me one or the other was mad at me and that I had to fix it.
- They exploit your vulnerability. Both my narcissistic parents took advantage of the fact that I was a caring empath. They gaslit me that I was responsible for their problems. I'd cry, fawn and beg to be told what I could do to help.
- They stick their noses in and demand things they've no right to. My mom said I should give my car to my sister and let them all live rent free in my basement. After they had kicked me out of the house at 16 for no reason.
- They enslave. My parents locked me in a room and made me co-sleep with their babies. It wasn't my room it was theirs and I was the free, live-in nanny.
- They start smear campaigns. My viciously angry parents told the entire family I who was ever biddable to their every command, had an anger problem.
- Narcissistic parents do awful things then say we did them. My mother cheated on my dad with many men. Yet made me feel "easy."
- Narcissistic parents are emotionally incestuous. My mother told me the facts of life using personal anecdotes when I was 8. I didn't want to hear it and told her but she kept on. She told me sickening things about my dad and her, and then her and her boyfriends, like I was a sex therapist. I've always confused her shame with mine.
- Narcissistic parents gaslight like breathing. My mom had a married boyfriend who would come over in the morning and they'd make out in front of me. One morning his wife came over and beat my mom up. She told me to just go to school. I've lived with that scar all my life and she says it never happened.
- Narcissists DARVO. My mom made herself the victim and the angry wife, me, the boyfriend everyone else the offender.
- Narcissistic parents are hypocrites in twisted ways. My mom played the organ in church and said she was a preacher. While living in adultery. She told me and my friend that she was "leading men to Christ." By sleeping with them. I can feel wicked just saying it.
- Narcissistic parents prostitute their kids. My mom moved her boyfriend into our house which was also a foster care home. She made me take care of the kids. She made me wait on her sexually abusive to me boyfriend.
- Narcissistic parents betray their kids. My mother has never taken my part over anyone else's. She has backstabbed me so many times, breaking promises, lying, future faking,
- Narcissistic parents demand buy-in. All your decisions must pass their self-serving agenda. You have to go to school locally because who else will do all the housework?
- Narcissists hold you to bargains you never made, then renege on their end. They prevent you from doing normal things because it will take you away from duties they've bound you do but don't pay you for. They write contracts that you never signed.
- Narcissistic parents sabotage our other relationships. They lie to and about people we love. They crybully. My mother told me my paternal grandfather "hit on her." When all he'd done was to confront her terrible treatment of me. This enraged her new bully of a husband who attacked and threatened with bodily harm, my poor elderly grandparents. Then mom told my grandparents I'd chosen to move out rather than admitting they illegally kicked me out at 16.
- Narcissistic parents steal people and things. My mom lied and said my boyfriend hit on her too. She neglected to mention that she basically tried seducing him and it failed. Another crybully tactic.
- Narcissistic parents make you feel disloyal for saying what they did. To that I say
If saying what they did is so bad, what they did must be pretty bad
Narcissistic parents destabilize us with gaslighting
Does it make sense now why we don't report or even talk about narcissistic parent abuse like this? I wish this was the sum of it but I literally could go on for days about the shitshow they made of my life. I have no happy memories with them that they didn't taint in some way. But who would believe me, even if I could articulate it all. The people that were supposed to help me, turned collective blind eyes. They made me thing it was normal. When in fact it was so abnormal that I think other people will think I'm making it up. That's how I auto-gaslight myself. But who could make it up? My whole world had a crumbling foundation. And I've brought that destabilized insecurity into every part of my life. I'd love to let it go but it won't let me go. And so I write...
Love bonding
This is the healthy cousin of love bombing and trauma bonding. It's all the love with none of the trauma. What am I saying? I'm offering us childhood trauma survivors an olive branch to reach out to our wounded inner child. A life ring as it were. And it's simply this.
- Start by saying what happened.
- Write it down. Sing about it. Paint it. Art it out.
- Ignore the gaslighting flying monkeys. They quiet down sooner or later if you don't give them airspace.
- Click your heels together and say "I am not being disloyal to them. I'm being loyal to me."
- Take the balloon ride. But not back home to the trauma. Take a world tour. See for yourself the good that's out there.
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