Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm unpacking some major hypocrisies I experienced from four enmeshed controlling, demanding parents. Yesterday I recalled with a shock one incident that put these double standards in perspective. An incident so disturbing that trauma bonding and betrayal blindness had made me see it completely wrong for over 40 years.
Gaslighting of Parentification + Infantilization
My parents not only parentified me (made me parent them and their children) they also dehumanized me with infantilization. And not the overprotective kind. I experienced infantilization as being stripped of basic rights and choices and being treated like I was too feeble minded to think for myself. I was ironically expected to act and think like an adult and their parent while being treated like an incompetent child. This created untold childhood trauma responses of fawning and self-harming people pleasing.
"My trauma brain was too young to be this responsible. But then my narcissistic parents gaslit me that my 'failure' was due to irresponsibility... I was too 'foolish' and inept to be allowed to make my own choices."
Gaslighting tricked me on both counts
Being gaslit into thinking I must behave like an adult as a child caused endless anxious hypervigilance, even more intense that an adult parent for a child. They would shame and berate me, then tell me that this was why they had to treat me like a child. I was too "foolish" and inept to be allowed to make my own choices.
Problem was, I was too "ept." As a child, I functioned too well as an adult. Like the broken vending machine child I was made to be, I kept paying out at my own expense. And they kept belittling, invalidating, chipping away at any self-esteem I had. So when they treated me like a child, my trauma brain so only my failure and thought I deserved it. But I was only "failing" at impossible expectations to be an adult before I was ready and a parent when I shouldn't have been.
The Contagious Catch-22
And that created even more problems. No good deed a child does goes unpunished by narcissistic parents. Had I been a little less successful at this parentification game, I might have been better off. If I had refused or told someone what they were doing. But I didn't understand because they had me so confused. And like the stoic parent, I just complied with my "children's" wishes. I humored and placated them. And they didn't thank me for it. There is this endless merry-go-round loop that obedience and catering to enmeshed narcissistic parents gets you. And that is even more petulance, demands and fault-finding. And they pass on this entitlement like a disease to anyone else who want a piece of you.
The Broken Vending Machine Child gives not only with no reciprocity but also no tools. She's expected to act like an adult with no adult agency. She all the work with none of the perks. And this makes her very vulnerable to predators.
The Betrayal Blindness Duck Blind
Here's an illustrative situation that shows the bumpy road of trauma bonded betrayal blindness I lived on. My dad has acted very weirdly inappropriate with me. And my mom was no better. Then they divorced and married new arrogant, entitled abusive partners. They'd abandon, neglect, exploit, endanger and abuse me routinely. Then swoop in and drag me into yet another dangerous situation. I was surrogate spouse and parent, therapist, caregiver, prop and arm candy. One of the milder examples was when my dad, 36, started dating a 17-y/o "Karen" still in high school, when I was 9. He take me roller-skating, I now see, to lure young girls. Then her parents ended it and he married a woman who was only 14 years older than me. He gave carte blanche to use me as a servant, scapegoat and surrogate parent. She took full advantage of that. But I never saw what was wrong with all this.
Narcissistic parents invite others to exploit their children, if it gets the parent something.
The Trauma Bond Trap
I was actually surrogate spouse and parent, servant and scapegoat to all four of my parents. Yet I depended on them for survival so I had to go along to get along. My poor trauma brain was exhausted from being their Broken Vending Machine Child, always giving out good and getting nothing but harm in return. So fast forward to age 19. I'm in college and I meet one of my stepmom's cousins "Ted" who is rich and about maybe 13 years older than me. I didn't think much of it. But come to find out, years later, he had asked my dad if he thought I would be interested in dating him. My dad said no, he forbid it and never told me. Remember, I was 19, past the age of majority. When I heard the story, I thought oh, this must prove that my dad maybe does love me. Though his track record proved otherwise.
I believed all these years that my dad had my best interests at heart when he was only, ever interested in me for narcissistic supply.
Gaslight clears when the lightbulb goes on
Just yesterday, out of the blue, I saw that situation which I hadn't thought of in years, in a new light. I saw that the control freak behind the "caring parent" who had never cared for me. My dad had turned a blind eye to countless dangerous situations I'd been in. HE had made me vulnerable by teaching me that my self-care was selfish. I have been exploited and harmed by so many people over the years. And all because my dad didn't care. So why this sudden concern for me now?
Narcissistic parents think only of themselves
I saw clearly for the first time, the layers of hypocrisy. He didn't care about me. He cared about control and keeping me under his thumb. This man who bailed on his parental duties time and again still felt entitled to a buy-in on who I dated as an adult. He thought he had the right to "forbid" me dating Ted. Yet, YET this same man who said the age difference was too big between us, DATED AND WANTED TO MARRY A GIRL YOUNG ENOUGH TO BE HIS DAUGHTER!
Out-of-control narcissists over-control others. The more someone demands his rights the less he respects everyone else's. Those who scream loudest about loyalty, obligation, obedience and respect owed them, are the most disloyal, irresponsible, disobedient and disrespectful.
The secret agenda shell game
Now I know, the flying monkeys like my stepmommy dearest will say, oh your dad just wanted you not to make the same mistake he did. No. Wrong. Because he never admitted he was wrong to hit on a child. He was angry with her parents for denying him his "right" to date her. All he felt was wounded narcissistic injury. And the fact that he never told me about Ted's interest in me, just proves he wasn't interested in my welfare just throwing his weight around. He never liked Ted and was jealous of his wealth. My dad and his new wife also hated each other. Dad was just looking for an excuse to stick it to her and her family. And thwarting my happiness, making me feel small, stupid and powerless, was just bonus added narcissistic supply.
Narcissists are tricky and sneaky script-flippers.
It was my mistake to make
Interestingly, turns out, Ted was not a very good person. And I was dating someone else at the time. Which supposedly was a reason my dad never told me. But he had it in for that guy too. Not because Dad loved me so much. He just didn't want to lose control of me. And my free live-in maid and nannying services. And I probably wouldn't have dated Ted anyway. But all that is beside the point. It was my decision to make, not my dad's. He had no right to keep it from me. It's like diverting someone's mail ostensibly to "protect them." That is illegal. It is mail fraud. Regardless of any outcome, it is their letter to do with as they wish.
I had proved, though I shouldn't have had to prove anything, my ability to succeed without their help. I deserved the right to fail on my own too.
The inherent infantilization in it all
The fact that my dad didn't tell me, shows he thought I was too stupid to make good choices. It also shows how arrogant, entitled and manipulative he was hiding information. He really thought he owned me. I was 19, and finally really an adult, not just a child expected to act like an adult. I was a 4.0 college student. And I was older than poor Karen, whom he wanted to make my stepmom (!) A caring, supportive dad would have told me, explained his concerns and left me to make my choice. Even if it had all gone wrong, it was my choice, not his His was the responsibility to help me with the consequences. But then he was never there for me as a child.
The audacious arrogant lies
Lies are not just told. We lie by what we hide as much as by what we say.
This is what galls me the most. On top of treating me like a foolish child expecting me to screw up, were the lies and coverups. My dad knew but told my stepmom not me. My stepmom knew. Yet never told me. I, who had raised their kids, apparently couldn't be trusted with knowledge that would affect only me. If they were so concerned, why tell me at all? I think it was to rub in my face how they could and did control me. She was certainly very smug about it. She knew my dad never told me and she knew why. Because they were both arrogant control freaks who thought they knew best on things that were none of their business. And they resented the fact that I would get nice things, I guess.
And then I wonder, what else did they hide from me...?
Retrospective resentment as reclamation
I don't regret for a moment not having dated Ted. If I had even decided to which I doubt. I thought he was weird and gave off the same creepy pedophiliac vibes my dad did. I ended up marrying that other guy I was dating and I love my life now. But this has nothing to do with Ted or any of that. It's about the anger I feel at having been duped. Of being played and manipulated and controlled. It's about how I believed all these years that I was the problem. How I trusted faithless, untrustworthy people. I begrudge him never having told me the truth. I resent his arrogant meddling. I'm not mad he never admitted or apologized. I'm angry that I never confronted him because I never saw his true colors. I'm sad that my inner child always defended these very offensive people.
We're told resentment is bad. However children of narcissists don't resent enough. We WERE resented and we have absorbed this as something that was our fault. We resented and hated ourselves. It is a necessary to feel and express the frustration, to begin healing from childhood trauma.
Childhood trauma recovery takeaway for today
Traumatized children need to fume, for awhile. In fact, we need to do a lot of things we were told were wrong. Like hate, resent and rage at all the abuse we suffered. We need to hold the guilty responsible. We need to blame the perpetrators instead of ourselves. Only then can we get to a place of genuine self-respect. The pendulum swung too far in the wrong direction and now to balance it, we need to swing it in the other direction.
At its core, resentment is an emotional alarm system. It is the bitter indignation felt at having been treated unfairly. It is a secondary emotion—a protective shell built over primary feelings like sadness, hurt, vulnerability, or anger.
When you are raised by narcissistic parents, your "alarm system" is frequently sabotaged. You are often told that your feelings of unfairness are "wrong," "ungrateful," or "dramatic," which leads to internalized resentment—the feeling that you are the problem, or that your existence itself is an inconvenience.
For a survivor of childhood trauma, moving into resentment is actually a developmental milestone. Here is why:
It marks the end of "Betrayal Blindness": You cannot feel resentment toward someone you are still idealizing or making excuses for. When you finally allow yourself to feel resentful, it means you have stopped protecting your abuser.
It validates your boundaries: Resentment is the internal "No!" that you were never allowed to say out loud. It is the ego re-asserting that your time, energy, and life belong to you, not to them.
It is the "Heated" version of Truth: While anger is often a quick, fiery reaction, resentment is a slow-burning realization that a debt is owed. In your case, it is the recognition that your parents stole your childhood, your agency, and your autonomy.
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