Role reversal games: enmeshed narcissistic parents withhold then expect from kids

Hello my friends. In my mission to recover from childhood trauma due to narcissistic abuse, I'm exploring things enmeshed narcissistic parents expect from by don't give to their children. This may be triggering to you, if you experienced childhood trauma from abusive parents, so please, read with caution. 

Disturbingly hypocritical expectations

Normally reciprocal things like love, honor, respect and loyalty are curiously one-sided in the narcissistic parents' favor.  Things a child should expect, become strangely inverted with the parent on the receiving end and the child on the giving end, like parenting, spousal relationships, caregiving, nurturing. So what is normal becomes very bizarre when the parent who should be giving it is only taking it. And some things parents have no right to demand of their child, period. And yet they do, particularly with the scapegoat or "broken vending machine" child. 

The constant pay-out child

In the "child roles" model, I coined the term "broken vending machine child" to describe my own role with four narcissistic parents. The parents have "broken" or conditioned this child with gaslighting and coercive control, to give good good (kindness, mercy, loyalty, support, caring, generosity, service, help) whatever the narcissistic parent demands at any moment. Yet she is told to expect no "payment" in return. Her machine just doles out goodie with no coins being inserted. What she receives is neglect, abuse, blame and shame and exploitation. 

Enmeshed parent space invaders

All this child gaslighting is accomplished with dirty sneak attacks like "enmeshment." Parent enmeshment is a misleading term suggesting that the parent is somehow accidentally trapped and caught up with the child. But enmeshment is completely intentional. They view children as possessions. They trap the child like a fish in their net of FOG (fear, obligation and guilt). Enmeshed parents trample boundaries, invade space, usurp the child's self and implant false ideas of obligation to them. They take over and dominate the child.  Her being is just another of the goodies that narcissistic parents feel entitled to take. She is just more collateral damage in their quest for narcissistic supply. 

The surrogate parent role reversal 

In this broken family system, this child the scapegoat, whipping girl, servant, surrogate parent and surrogate spouse all rolled into one. Let's just let all that's wrong with the surrogate role marinate a bit. This child doesn't just wear many hats. She doesn't just wear hats that belong to others (household manager, nanny, mental load bearer). She is gaslit into believing she is actually responsible for the role she's expected to play.  As surrogate parent, she not only helps with other kids, she parents them. She also parents her parents, who've flipped the Parentification game board so that she plays the role  mommy and daddy for her mommy and daddy and all the stepparents they drag in. To do anything else would by disloyal. Yet they themselves broke faith with the child at birth by their sick role reversals gaming. 

The surrogate spouse job description 

Surrogate spouse brings in a whole sicker level to the enmeshment game. It's so bad that I have to be careful how I write about so as not to flag the censors. The surrogate spouse child is the just the  "emotional incest" it sounds like and is a very creepy form of CSA. What makes it creepiest is that it hides in plain sight. And emotional incest is just as insidious as physical CSA. It includes but is not limited to expecting the child to do or be

• counselor
• confidante
• emotional prop
• fixer
• mother his children
• boyfriend or girlfriend
• bait to lure people (my dad used me to attract girls half his age and normalize his pedophilia)
• provider
• loyal dogsbody
• arm candy
• servant
• personal assistant
• shoulder to cry on
• ego stroker
• pacifier 
• companion
• sugar daddy/mommy
• date
• liaison
• social network
• all this for the parent's new partner/spouse as well

Expecting an adult partner to be all these things is bad enough. Expecting a child to is so evil I have no words for it. 

 

Interesting AI trauma "mirror" 

I've been using Google Gemini to create images for my articles. I explain what I want and she envisions it. And though I don't completely understand AI, it seems that images created accumulate in her "brain."  You'll note how each image I used for this one has elements of the previous one, like the broken video game in the giving goddess child image. So the final image above ended up being quite mish-mashed. But look closely at that image because there are a lot of metaphors going on that even I didn't connect. And I doubt AI intentionally connected although in a way, she did. Somehow she assembled the concepts into a huge confusing mess Which is PRECISELY what abusive narcissistic parent gaslighting feels like! A mess! 

I asked for a wolf shepherding sheep to show how narcissistic parents groom kids. And AI morphed the previous giving goddess image that represented the child into a greedy many-armed wolf parent taking from the child. I was about to discard it when I realized it is exactly what I needed to show the mixed messages of game-changing role reversed parents. All the scattered remnants show the confusing voices in my head. It's perfectly reflects the chaotic, nightmarish interior monologue in a childhood trauma brain. So even AI "gets" how damaging enmeshed parent gaslighting, brainwashing and abuse is. And that helps me "color in" the bizarre constant nightmares and bad dreams I experience. I find this fascinating. 

Wabi-sabi

Normally I'd end with a concluding "bringing it all together." But that's not what I need and maybe you don't either, if you've experienced narcissistic abuse. The tidy sermonized, "poem, prayer and promise" oversimplifies without acknowledging our trauma. So I'm ending in wabi-sabi, a Japanese concept of sitting with chaos and finding beauty in imperfection. I'm not excusing what our parents did. I'm honoring our courage to survive it. 

Kintsugi moment: No matter how "broken into pieces" we might feel, we are still gestalt. Our whole is greater than the sum of the many fragments they shattered us into.