Healing CPTSD by deposing the tyrannical enmeshed narcissistic parent

 

Hello my friends. Today in my childhood trauma recovery journey, I'll show how healing CPTSD starts with deposing the tyrannical enmeshed narcissistic parents from their imaginary thrones. Enmeshed parents abuse power they never earned, to coercively control us. These arrogant entitled hypocrites used all the dirty tricks of double standards, deceit, manipulation, neglect, abuse, narcissistic rage, parentification, triangulation, scapegoating and gaslighting. And that gaslighting was the most insidious and "sticky." 

Narcissistic Parents' Delusions of Grandeur 

Narcissistic parents don't just have delusions of grandeur (being above it all, entitled, arrogant, beyond consequences, etc.) They groom their child to believe this about them, using a complex gaslighting con game. Gaslighting isn't just lying. It's orchestrating a false reality which is obviously easier to accomplish with children who are codependent upon their parents. And the fake reality that enmeshed parents indoctrinate children into is a narcissistic fantasy cult in which they are gods to be worshipped and the scapegoat child is just a loyal, devoted pawn in their narcissistic cult. 

Narcissistic Parents' Delusions of Persecution

All narcissists, especially the vulnerable narcissists, feel put upon all the time. Even grandiose narcissists with their main character energy, have a sense the world owes them a mammoth debt that it's failing to pay. They go around with wearing "victim of injustice" mantles. Their perpetual wounded pride sees insult everywhere. Healthy people know this isn't real injustice but ego insult or narcissistic injury. But the child, being a child, doesn't know they're just "butthurt" and thinks someone really has harmed their parent. And do they exploit that, especially the malignant narcissists. For them, it's cake and eating it too. Dark tetrad parents get to crybully plus get the sick pleasure of traumatizing their child. Yes, bullying parents get off on terrorizing kids. Yes it's disgusting. 

Who's the real victim?

If the child is already an empath, like I am, this idea that our parents have been hurt, causes us existential crisis and core cognitive dissonance. Our common sense child mind can't see that any harm was done to them but it's not safe to say so. Because our all-powerful, influencer parent is pouting and we assume they must be right and we must be wrong, or worse insensitive.  And narcissistic parents are very good at playing the victim. They exploit our compassion and deceive us about slights they've supposed suffered. Ironically all while causing us insane, intense, intentional suffering both in their hurtful actions and by making us feel sorry for them. It goes beyond DARVO blame-shifting to werewolf-ish shape-shifting. 

Trauma Bonding Causes Betrayal Blindness

What's most upsetting isn't that the narcissist parent believes they're bulletproof and special but that their child believes it. Traumatized children carry this bizarre image of their arrogant, entitled parents as deities, into adulthood. Even if we go no contact with our abusive parents, that false notion of their invincibility and center-of-the-universe-ness remains, embedded in our trauma brain. We cannot fathom, that they weren't always right and superior. That is some heavy duty gaslighting accomplished with bread crumbing, future faking, DARVO, FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) and terrorizing us. We're trauma bonded to them and that causes betrayal blindness. We couldn't see how they destabilized and sabotaged us no matter how hard we try. 

We can't see the abuse forest for the all the trees of harm. 

The Childhood Codependency Conundrum

Codependency is a term used to describe a relationship where two persons have an unhealthy drug-like dependence on each other. It's not one of symbiotic reciprocity and mutuality. It's one-sided demand and take and the other, fawn, humor, placate and people please. Which weirdly does describe the narcissistic parent-child dynamic but not normal parent-child relationships. Children are logically dependent on parents for survival. But enmeshed parents weaponize and manipulate healthy attachment by making love conditional, parentifying us (parent-child role reversal) exploiting her for personal gain and need-shaming. They force us into unnatural roles of confidant, protector and caregiver. 

Deposing the dictator

I will probably never shake the false narrative that my four narcissistic parents were rulers to be blindly obeyed. But I can begin to stop letting them rule me. I can talk back to their malicious disingenuous voices in my head. I can poke holes in their irrational delusions. I can stop worshipping at my narcissistic parents' altar. I can push past the discomfort of doing something new. I can work to defog and de-gas the noxious fumes of gaslighting. I can pry my hands off my eyes and see their deception that was staring me in the face all along. It's safe to admit that they weren't powerful leaders, just weak, cowardly usurpers. I can leave and go no contact with  toxic people.