The more I expose narcissistic parent abuse the more hypocrisies reveal themselves

Hello my friends. I'm almost 62 and I'm finally working to heal childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse. And the more  I expose narcissistic parent abuse, the more hypocrisies reveal themselves. Here are more crazy-making double standards that malignant narcissists preach but don't practice. Some I just realized a few days ago. 

Note: I didn't "go looking for" parent abuse as traumatized kids are often accused of doing. I didn't "twist" normal parent behavior into abuse because some therapist told me it was. That's another DARVO accusation abusive parents make, saying they're victimized by someone who has "poisoned our minds against them." Actually, I always thought the best of my parents, excusing every bad thing they did and taking the consequences on myself. I'm just now, in my 7th decade realizing it WAS abuse. Something other people knew all along took me a lifetime to see. 

Seen and not heard, except for...

I read a lot of boomers (of which I'm one) saying how back then, kids were seen and not heard. Like that's a good thing? Well, in my case, if only! I was silenced and shut down, AND expected to dance attendance. I had to read minds and jump to do it, without even being told what the hell they expected. Enmeshed parents use you as a cat's paw to get the goodies without burning their hands. They shelve you like a book when they don't need you, then are all up in your business whenever they want something. 

Narcissistic parents be like: "When we want to hear from you, we'll rattle your cage."

The Co-opted Child

Narcissistic and enmeshed parents are pirates and thieves. They smash any boundaries the child may set. They are Space Invaders, usurping the child's personal bubble. They steal our childhood, identity and selves. They pressgang us into endless service to them without ever giving us basic essentials like love and care. They indoctrinate us that we are human doings, not beings. That we exist to serve only them. My dad would prat the Bible (according to him, that is) about how I should always "jump" to joyfully serve others. Sounds good in theory but it's shit in real life. What he did was to co-opt my me and what I did was to lay it down for him to trample on. I never learned where my parents ended and I began. Or if I even did. 

Parentified and infantilized 

As a child, I raised their kids, cleaned their house, cooked their meals and waited table. I wasn't a child but unpaid staff.  I was made to give up my room for anyone they chose to move into it. I had to sleep on floors while they had king-sized waterbeds. They expected me to behave like an adult and their parent as a child and treated me like an incompetent child when I was an adult.  I pretzeled myself to meet their endless demands. I developed a backward crab shuffle, trying to both stay out of their way and be ready to serve. I wore a hypervigilant "self check-out smile" from being always on call. 

 

Horrible for me, normal for them

Reading a post on Reddit AITA, brought this one to mind. The poster explained how being asked to do something in front of the person she was being asked to do it for, made it more difficult to say no.  Makes perfect sense. I was once attacked, by both narcissistic dad and narcissistic stepmom, for asking in front of a friend, if she could stay to dinner. I never was allowed friends over, was excited and didn't think. My stepmom over-reacted, ripped me a new one, "how dare you, you're so rude and ignorant, that was so embarrassing, yada yada." Then my dad jumped into the ripping. He was always onboard for an ambush. Shocked at their intense anger, I began to cry. Then my dad said "you're too sensitive and can't take criticism. You're just showing off." Now the irony is that when my stepmom was upset (all the time) my dad would passive-aggressively suggest TO HER, that maybe I could fix it. He would then invite her to think of some other thing to add to my already endless list of expectations. He didn't even do me the courtesy of addressing me and asking me to do whatever it is he thought I could do to fix a grown woman. I'd go into this fawning childhood trauma response and grovel to please her. So not only was I not able to say no, I was made to feel ashamed for not guessing what she wanted. And nobody cared a hoot whether I was embarrassed or not. 

So when a kid does something, she's too young to know is "wrong", it's horrendous, when a parent does it, it's just a Tuesday.

Do as we say, not what we model

Narcissistic parents not only expect the child to mind read, they don't lead by example. They show the child how NOT to act. In the last example, you might say I asked in front of the friend because that's how they did it with me. If I was inconsiderate and rude it was because I was treated inconsiderately and rudely. The difference is that I was sorry, too much so, and they were just entitled and arrogant. I was emotionally blackmailed into people pleasing and hoop hopping. They gaslit me into thinking this was normal, ONLY FOR ME. No one else in the family was subjected to the coercive control because I was the scapegoat. I learned only FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) to them and that's why it took me decades to comprehend that it was wrong. 

🚩 The core hypocrisy of narcissistic family systems is that they care deeply about how things look to outsiders, but show zero regard for how things feel to the child who is actually living in the danger. 🚩

The "behind closed doors" dilemma

You might be tempted to say, about the invitation request, well, your stepmom was embarrassed because you asked in front of an outsider whereas they did it to you "in private." I hope if you are thinking that, you see what's wrong with it. They were embarrassed for an outsider to see how badly they treated me, that I couldn't even ask a friend to dinner. A dinner I cooked, served and cleaned up after, non gratis, in their adult foster care home (illegally, it turns out). Whereas in private family life, where I was supposed to be safe and loved, I was abused, neglected, endangered and exploited freely because there was no one watching. If I'd said it embarrassed me to be asked (pressured into) fixing whatever it was she supposedly needed, I'd have been  told "you can't be embarrassed. We're family." Trouble is, we only were when it suited them. 

The "Family" Double Standard

I was family when demands were being made of me. After all, "family does for family." Except they don't. I was excluded when anything good went around. I wasn't given basic necessities, let alone treats or privileges everyone else got. My mother was transactional with me like a business associate when she did the slightest thing for me as a child. Normal stuff parents do, she expected remuneration for. BUT I was endlessly obligated to her because she was family. Family for me meant family mobbing, smear campaigns, scapegoating, etc. While I was held to impossible standards in serving them. 

The stepparent twist

Just when you think their gaslighting and hypocritical double standards couldn't get any worse, they flip the script again. My two narcissistic parents got divorced and married two more narcissistic people. So now I had four people to dance attendance on. And four people to humiliate, invalidate, abuse, harass and exploit me. And a quadruple set of double standards to live by. And not one of these Machiavellian narcissists ever cared for me as parents are supposed to. I was shunted between homes on a whim. They moved on a whim. I lived in 40 places before 21, was kicked by my mom when I was 16. I slept on floors with their babies, paid my way for everything. I was left with my mom's boyfriend, alone with her four under-5 special needs foster kids for a week. He sexually harassed me and routinely terrorized me. I was parentified and infantilized by completely enmeshed parents who bullied me till I finally went no contact with them. 

The double life standard

I lived not as a person but as a series of roles I was made to play. All this gaslighting and trauma bonding caused betrayal blindness. It also caused me life-threatening cognitive dissonance and fracturing. I went into an endless loop of dissociative split and resplitting. I have multiple autoimmune diseases from the stress cortisol floods. I lived multiple lives, behind groomed to be whatever was expected of me with no thought for myself. Which translated to no self-care skills. Self-defense was selfish and disobedient, I learned. Turns out, that Bible command to "be all things to all people" is really hurtful to tell abused kids. We're already wearing far too many hats as it is. The image above, that AI made for me, is actually remarkably accurate to the mess of hypocrisies and double standards that lives in my brain. 

How to cope with narcissistic parents

I'll summarize with some thoughts on coping with narcissistic parents. 

• Don't. The more you "cope" the more they'll exploit. These are entitled, ruthless people who take all your good and give only bad. 
• Don't ignore or overlook it. That's what I did to my own suffering. Say what happened and is happening. Call it what it is. They won't like it and that's okay. 
• Recognize that you didn't estrange yourself from them. They cut you out. You're just not holding the door open so they can keep slamming it on your hand. 
• Know it's not your fault or your problem to fix. You don't owe them forgiveness, reconciliation, contact, etc. They will take advantage of every opportunity you give them. They will burn every bridge you build. Some things you can't come back from and childhood trauma is one of them. 
• Know that I care. I'll hold space for you.