How concepts of family, stepparents and half-siblings are weaponized by malignant narcissistic parents

 Hi friends. Today in my quest to heal from malignant narcissistic parental abuse, family scapegoating,  CPTSD and the emotional mess my life is, I'm looking at how words like family, stepparents and half-siblings are twisted by malignant narcissist parents. These concepts are weaponized to excuse abuse (physical, sexual, emotional and spiritual), neglect, parentification, manipulation, exploitation, abandonment and scapegoating of children. And then further distorted to gaslight the kid about what's going on. And sadly, they're just some of the things such parents ruin. 

The general definition of family is a group of people who love, care about, nurture and support each other. It doesn't always go smoothly, for sure. But family should not be a dangerous place. And it should not be manipulated by some family members to exploit another. And worst of all, it shouldn't be trashed and  reinvented by parents, then hung as a burden around a kid's neck. 

What do I mean? Well, when I was a kid, divorce among my peers was very uncommon. My same age husband doesn't  know of anyone in his life with divorced parents. In my extended family it was unheard of. So my mom divorcing my dad put me in an awkward place to begin with. Weirder because it was after moving us to Alaska and running around on him while he went for months without seeing us, on some imaginary mission trip. That's the trashing of the family I spoke of. Although actually we weren't much of one anyway. We did next to nothing, including eating meals, together. I spent the majority of time alone (from age 3-4) or with other people. I can't remember anything about the many places we lived. And this wasn't due to work. It was down to them being uninterested, having other priorities and seeing me as a hinderance. 

The reinventing, and super gaslighting part, came when my single parents began dating others, immediately. My mom and probably my dad too, didn't even wait till the ink dried. I was shoved into one weird situation after another through their various hookups. This was very uncommon in the early 1970s and I got blacklisted because of it. Parents didn't want their kids hanging with kid with no dad and a mom with a different boyfriend every week. At least one was married. His wife came to our house one morning looking for him and knocked my mom down the stairs. 

I was told to go to school and say nothing. So I did. And if that wasn't disturbing enough, on the rare times my dad was around, he, at 34, took me to see his 17-year-old girlfriend. I was 9. She still had dolls on her bed and we played with them. I never talked to anyone about any of this because how could I? It would have made no sense in their world. As you might imagine, I got really good at hearing, seeing and feeling nothing. There's tons of pain, fear, hurt, grief, anger, frustration and shame in this lil ole heart of mine. And none of this has ever been confronted. 

But the worst part of all is when they marry again and their new spouses hit the ground running ordering you around, demanding all kinds of scary and unsafe things of you. And your actual parent doesn't do a damn thing to stop them. In fact, mine encouraged them to exploit, manipulate, overwork, scapegoat, shame, mock, humiliate and use me like a personal servant. 

And they have the gall to call them your parent?? Eff that noise! All this business about marriage being "one man and one woman." What about parenting being one dad and one mom?? A kid has two parents, and they, in my case were more than enough heartbreak and work. The last thing I needed was two more immature, needy, demanding, selfish, lazy, entitled, bossy control freaks in my life. 

Mom's bf was a never employed, sexually, physically and emotionally abusive, vicious deadbeat. He told me sick dirty jokes and mocked my breast size (I was 11). My mother just smiled approvingly.  Never once, after she hooked up with him did she ever take my part or stand up for me to him. She let him do whatever he wanted and he did. Hell, I now see she was egging him on all along. She had me kowtowing to him when they were just living together. And then she decided to open a foster home. And shit got really bad. 

Shacked up was the term then. And boy if that didn't make me even more of an oddball pariah. No kid in my entire school or neighborhood (or any other I knew of) had a single mom with a live-in. Most kids didn't think I had a dad, that's how unavailable he was. And that wasn't because he was working. He just wasn't interested. He thought he was cool running around doing his thing like a frat boy. (It took my husband  to point out that none of my parents have been very good at holding down jobs.) I've just learned at 59 that this is called child abandonment and constitutes abuse. 

But boy did he want me back in his life when he got married. She was as sloppy and lazy as a hound dog. And had zero maternal instincts. Well, my narcissist dad wasn't about to babysit another woman and he certainly wasn't going to raise their kids alone. When I was 12, he decided to dip back into my life. He'd seen how much the other two had gotten out of me and wanted his share. No fair them getting all the unpaid childcare and housework! I owed him! So I was brought in as domestic help/nanny/housekeeper and handmaiden to her majesty. Also scapegoat when anything went wrong. 

And they kept up shit-facade by manipulating words like family, parents and siblings. I was gaslit into thinking that I was actually a member of the family. More fool me. Their new spouses and kids were my parents, brothers and sisters, only when it was convenient for them. I was there to sleep in the same room as the kids, so they didn't wake their parents. I've been made to take care of "my siblings" like I was their parent. To do the heavy, grunt work everyone else was too lazy to do. (bad backs, yanno?) I'm still suffering from the damage to my back, shoulders and hips from this. Or to be the brunt of their anger or jokes. Their kids were taught to exploit me too, big surprise. 

I've been stolen from, cheated, exploited, deprived of a bedroom or even a bed and kicked out of the house (at 16) for the privilege of all this. My toys were taken and sold. Nothing exists from my childhood except what grandparents saved. I've been made to sleep on unheated porches, taken advantage of, left out and kicked to the curb by all of them. I've worked since I was 14, buying  my own shoes since I was 13. My own feminine hygiene products since 15. 

So you'll pardon me for not calling them stepparents and half-siblings anymore. Having family was just a nightmare, literally.  I'm focusing on me and mine from now on. They're my family. 

 

Why I have so many nightmares and bad memories and so few good ones

Hi friends. So by now you might be wondering, um where did the posts about how I lost 100 pounds go and why am I sharing so much negative stuff about my CPTSD, family scapegoating, gaslighting, narcissistic abuse, etc? Well, the answer to that is simple and yet profoundly complicated. The simple answer is because I never could or did. In real time, while the parental abuse was happening, I didn't even know what it was. It's only been recently that I've starting to understand it. 

What got me started down the path was a need to get some peace from a lifetime of bad dreams. And when I say lifetime, I mean the nightmares go waaay back. I can't remember when I didn't have them. And when I say bad, I mean reeeeallllly terrifying, disgusting, horrible dreams. And I can remember them all in shocking clarity. 

I also began to explore why I have so few good memories. I listened to a talk by one of my favorite therapists, Patrick Teahan. He discussed why many people, who experienced childhood trauma can't recall bad memories. I have the opposite problem. Bad memories are pretty much all I have. It's the good ones I can't seem to come up with. 

Oh I thought I had a lot of positive childhood memories, because I was gaslit into believing that the abuse that was happening wasn't wrong. And I was told I was lucky, spoiled, lying about things, too critical, negative, yada yada. And if I had bad experiences, they were my own fault and I brought them on  myself.  A lot of bullshit to smokescreen what was really going on which was ongoing, neglect, endangerment, manipulation, exploitation, parentification. scapegoating, physical, mental and emotional abuse, sexual abuse, spiritual abuse, shaming and abandonment. By not one parent but all four authority figures, two bio parents and their live-ins and later spouses. 

But when I look back, I see that what I perceived as "happy" times were really just less bad times. or working holidays. Or good times for my family at my expense. Like the one family vacation my dad took me on but only just so I could babysit his and his new wife's kids. When I tell my husband my version of fun memories, he says those are just things most kids took for granted. 

That's because I was told I was so lucky to have things like a bedroom. I didn't. I was allowed to sleep in the baby's room, at both my mom's and my dad's homes. Which of course meant getting up with them when they cried or needed anything. So this explains, in part, why I have so many dreams and can't sleep for more than an hour at a time without drinking a lot of wine. I'm geared to being constantly on-call. I'm in perpetual REM sleep and rarely delta. My sleep studies have proved this. Where most people spend about 40% of their sleep in deep delta, I'm in it for maybe 5 minutes a night. 

I walk and talk in my sleep. I often wake crying or screaming. My mom's live-in boyfriend used to make fun of me when I'd wander down from the bedroom I shared with four foster kids (so my uncle and his girlfriend could shack up in what was my bedroom). He and my mom slept in the basement in a cozy little room as far from the kids as she could get. My dad's second wife ( I don't call her stepmom anymore) put a lot of distance between herself and her babies too. No prizes for guessing who had to sleep with (comfort, get up with, worry about) them? 

So it also explains why I'm so difficult to sleep with or near. And why I was not popular at sleepovers or summer camp. I scared a lot of kids with my nightmares and trauma responses. But not my parents. They didn't give a shit that I was going crazy to the point of suicidal with it all. Hell, they were the ones driving me crazy. 

And d'ya see how I call them my parents' homes? That's because I have never, till I got married, thought of homes as mine. I still have trouble remembering that this is actually my home. I live with other people in their homes and boy howdy, did they rub that in my face. Even when my mom moved her layabout, unemployed boyfriend into our home. It was his, not mine, or so I was told. And when he deemed me unfit to live in "his house" I was kicked out. Literally. I had to go and live with an elderly lady in town. And my  mom let him. Even though they were using my child support freely as their own. And I was (wait for it) sleeping with and getting up with their kids. They really shot themselves in the collective foot that time. Now who was going to care for their kids? 

I learned on Reddit that this type of life has a name and it is hidden homelessness. When a kid couch surfs between parents' homes. And it's hidden because no one acknowledges it. My parents would say I had two homes. In reality, I didn't have any. I had a place of employment at which I slept, badly. 

And I don't have good memories because I don't  have any. At least none with my parents and their new partners. The good ones are with my grandparents. And even there, I've blocked out a lot. Seriously. My cousin tells me that we had fun a family get-togethers when I went with my grandparents. I don't even recall meeting him. Which is really a shame because I could use more happy memories. 

I'm not sure whether I had happier times and can't recall or if there just weren't that many. I know that my response to trauma was freeze and fawn. I just kind of tried to ignore the crazy and placate the crazies. I couldn't take flight or fight it out. That wasn't safe. So I think that what happened is that good memories were iced out with the bad. That in trying to just survive with all the shit that I was living with, I had to just go numb. And in constantly pleasing people and humoring them, while ignoring my own pain, I damaged myself, my ability to think clearly, feel honestly, sleep peacefully and care for myself. 

But where I might have been able to drown out the fear, shame, misery and pain during the day, I couldn't at night. And I think my dreams having been waving red flags and screaming at me to wake up. To quit believing the gaslighting and protecting my persecutors. To start naming the abuse and calling out the abusers. To start dealing honestly with all this suffering because it's killing me. 

My bad brain-damaging experiences with church youth groups and summer camps

Hi friends. Part of healing from parental narcissistic abuse and CPTSD means looking at my various experiences with it, and why and how it occurred. Two side sources for me, beyond but also stemming from what was happening with my four parents, were church youth groups and Christian summer camps. Both of these situations can be (and often are) breeding grounds for child abuse. 

As I write this, I'm hearing voices of former friends, clergy and youth leaders, scolding. "How dare you, Marilisa?! Christian youth groups and summer camps are wonderful experiences for kids and youth leaders are spirit filled people preaching the word of God!!" That's what I was force-fed to believe too. And toxic shame and Christian gaslighting kept me quiet all these years about what really happened. What I see as an adult who has worked in the helping professions, is that summer camps and youth groups are a pedophile's playground and bloody dangerous for kids. This is my story and about damn time I told it. 

To begin with, let's look at the structure of youth groups and summer camps. Generally, they are led by a volunteer (or very low paid) staff of teens and young adults not that much older than the kids they are "ministering" to. And then there are the hangers-on, older teens and young adults who've graduated but just can't seem to make the break from youth. They are just old enough to make the age difference weird. 

Many are incredibly immature themselves, obviously. Most of the ones I knew (ages 19 to 22 or so) (when I was young, but also when my kids were young) didn't have real jobs or at least anything demanding. They weren't in college. They had no social life outside youth group or camp. They didn't fill any function within the group and were in fact more liability than asset. They were allowed to just hang out with kids, welcome to participate in sleepovers and group outings. Most were known to be psychologically disturbed, unstable and even violent. They'd had run-ins with the law. But no one saw anything wrong with this AND THEY WEREN'T MONITORED. 

In a school, they wouldn't not be allowed on the premises without a good reason. I don't like it either, that youth leaders are allowed into public schools to meet with kids. At summer camp where the child is there for a week or more, being around all this, it's just an accident looking for a place to happen. Now you might argue that the leaders were going into youth ministry as a career. Camp is like their student teaching. Ehh, no. Been a student teacher. We were monitored by a supervising teacher and the entire school staff. Camps are just open, poorly structured free-for-alls that allowed adults 24-7 access to children. 

And that doesn't even start to cover the fully-fledged adult ministers, camp directors, and leaders involved. Christian camps and youth groups have a bad habit of deifying these people. Most of the ones I knew didn't do anything except walk around in Jesus sandals and big beards, collecting admirers. I can still hear my personal creeper, Pastor Will (not even sure if he was ordained) singing in his big baritone voice, "There is a balm in Gilead" and all the campers wetting themselves like star-struck groupies. It's nauseating how he got off on that adulation. When I told my older son about my experiences, he said "Mom, you're describing a cult." 

Couldn't have said it better. Trouble is, I didn't understand it at the time. His attention felt icky-groom-y. All the weirdos that latched on to me, made me uncomfortable. At the time, I guess I sort of liked the attention because I didn't get it at home. But no, that's not it. I was TOLD that I liked attention. But what it really was, was my damn empath in charge. I felt sorry for them. I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Not even when they tried to paw and kiss me. Blech. And I got in trouble for "making out" on the bus!! 13 year-old me was made to sit in the little exit well of the bus (that's not even legal) while the effing 19-year-old remained in the seat.  

So how about the "youth leaders" actually acting like leaders and putting that perv off the damn bus! And maybe instead of shaming me, they could, I don't know, find out if I was okay??? That's what I'd have done as an adult. But then, I'd not have let a 19-year-old near a 13-year-old. And he wasn't the only one. But no, they just turned a blind eye to all the sick stuff these guys were doing, letting me be the damn sacrificial goat. Probably glad someone else was dealing with them. 

And don't get me started on the shit that can occur at a campfire under cover of darkness. Did it really take "Friday the 13th" to teach us that? It gives "ministry" a whole new meaning. But it's all just  ignored. Hell, even I ignored it. "Boys will be boys" shit. Feeling you up means they like you. Small problem, though. These "boys" were grown-ass adults leching on a vulnerable kid being held hostage by her own sense of compassion and fucking useless "leaders" ignoring it. Pass the marshmallows and lets' all sing another verse of Kumbyah.

And why was I such a target anyway? It wasn't for my incredible good looks. I was just a frizzy-haired, bespectacled teen. In fact, if I had been very hot, they'd have left me alone. Out of their league. Because Christian youth groups are no different than any other. They put wayyyy too much stock in looks and affluence. So was family money or lack thereof the issue?

True I wasn't the richest kid there. Actually the stalkers all came from very wealthy families whom I now believe shunted their adult kids onto church groups to distance from the embarrassment. I laugh now to think of families donating a pew with the proviso that Camp Happy Christian take Randy and Preston and Jim and John and Chuck and other Jim, off their hands. The other wealthier kids (and you'd be surprised at how many really wealthy kids there were) wanted nothing to do with the creeps. So they hung out on the fringe, let to other nobodys like me to deal with. Like goes with like, I guess. 

And who's gonna believe the poor nobody if she were to report them, if she even got up the nerve to? The leaders who were turning a blind eye in the first place? Not bloody likely. The irony was and still is  that the victim of molesting is made to feel like the problem. Look how I was slut-ified and segregated from the precious baby boys on the bus? Not going to risk THAT happening again, ta very  much.  And I know broken record. But regardless of how often you may have heard it, the person experiencing feels like the only one. 

I may have looked "easy" but only because I was trying too hard to be too nice to these guys. Why the devil did no one see that? Why were they so quick to believe and treat me as if I was trash? Cuz now I look back, I was modest, moral and quite innocent. Naive, actually. Which made me an easy target. None of  my four parent knew, let alone cared, where I was or what was happening to me. Unless I was late to do one of my many chores or babysit their kids. And all four had subjected me to super nasty, disturbing sexual exploitation before and pretended that it never happened and if it did, I brought it on myself. So they had me conditioned to feel like the dirty one. 

I never wanted any of this. All I wanted was to be a kid with normal kid experiences. But it was in my parents' self-interests to keep me ashamed and cowed. So needless to say, I never told anyone any of the things that happened. I only just started revisiting the experiences a few years ago. Too ashamed that I'd be faulted and resigned to the fact that nobody gave a shit. Too afraid to find, as so often happened in my nightmares that I was a disgusting, deviated, morally depraved person not fit to live. 

And that's what marked me. Pedos can smell shamed, neglected, abused, gaslit, uncared-about kids like a BBQ. They have an unerring sense about who they can molest, terrify, gaslight and mentally eff up, unchecked. And the narcissistic megalomanic "preachers" are the dead worst.  A 21 year old acting creepy is bad enough. A 45-year-old pastor with a wife and teens of his own, is a menace. It's even worse than pedo priests, which don't get me wrong are sick enough. The minister has family who will suffer and whom empaths like me work like hell to protect. 

If I didn't dare to report a 21-year-old, I wouldn't dream of reporting Pastor Will. Who am I going to tell, his wife? His kids? His many followers who believed he walked on water and raised the dead? Nope. I would and did assume the problem was me. I somehow came on to him, led him astray, etc. I didn't even acknowledge to myself just how really gross he made me feel. And how he made me a pariah among the other camp counselors. (That's the isolation and grooming part of pedophilia).

But that's a story for another post. I'm too drained to write more. 

My wedding anniversary brings up ugly CPTSD reminders with happy memories

 Hi guys. Happy anniversary to me. Husband and I have been married 37 years today. And among the many good memories are some sad reminders of ugly CPTSD abuse from family of origin at our wedding. Even on what is supposed to be one of  the best days of my life, my bunch found ways to damn near ruin it. Here's how. 

My dad and stepmom weren't as bad. Of course, being a narcissist, my old man (he called himself that despite me asking him not to, so now he's gone, what the hell, I may as well too) had to make it all about  himself. All he could talk about was how hot is was in the church and how miserable he was. Not how sad he was to lose a daughter or how pretty she looked. Every year on my anniversary, that's the only thing he'd mention. He thought he was so funny being a callous dick about my special day. And they didn't offer a damn dime to help pay for it. Neither did my other side. 

But that was only the tip of the cluster-eff iceberg. My mom and stepdad have both been scammers all their lives. Looking for free stuff. Stealing from me. Conning me into buying their junk car and then stealing mine. Keeping a lawyer on retainer for the many times they have sued. That kind of thing. And the folks they associate with are just as bad. 

So my mom's friend "Martha" ran a catering business. Not very successfully it turns out. But my mom told it a different way. And being the gaslit CPTSD-screwed-in-the-head people pleaser I was, I thought I'd send some work her way to be kind. It was never about me or having what I wanted. Oh no. It was about making others happy. 

Well my grandma (dad's mom) who by the way is my rock and she-ro, was paying for the reception. And she wasn't on board with my mom's pal doing the catering. She could smell a scam a mile away, God love her. But she humored me. Anyway Martha talked a good talk about what all she'd do and make after we agreed on a menu. Grandma paid her in advance. 

Well, day of, nothing was as discussed. Not even the flavor of punch. Grandma had offered to let her use some beautiful serving ware but Martha said she had her own. What she brought was shitty disposable foil trays that I wouldn't use for a picnic let alone a wedding reception. She'd cut back on ordering enough ham and we ran out half way through, before my husband and I even got up to the buffet. (Why, you ask wasn't the wedding party served first?? I'll get to that). Martha said my grandma told her to order less but that was bullshit because Grandma was just as horrified as I was and she wouldn't have done that. 

The cheating woman had just pocketed the extra and probably divied it up with my mom. Which reminds me, my mom offered to take back some rented stuff while we were on honeymoon and failed to get my deposit back. She said they didn't give it to her. But now I realize she probably just kept it. That's how she is. 

So why did the bridal party  not get served first? That's another issue which involves another of my mom's scam-pals. Mom and her live-in boyfriend had a foster care home when I was 11. (a huge scam in itself and one which was responsible for a big chunk of my childhood trauma. That's covered in past posts). Anyway, one of her foster care folks was "Marilyn" who I was made to call sister. She basically came in and took over the show and screwed me over many times in the ensuing years. 

Supposedly I told this sister that she could be in my wedding. I didn't but she gaslit me into believing I had and sucker me felt guilty. I had one bridesmaid who was also my maid-of-honor. I was trying to keep it simple and in budget because I was paying for it all. And that one person sure as hell wasn't going to be Marilyn. But to soothe feelings, I asked her and her even scammier (and super creepy) husband to be master and mistress of ceremonies. My mom just quietly approved. It was a stupid idea, of course. She couldn't organize her way out of a paper bad and had even less class than Martha. 

Also like Martha, Marilyn lied up a storm about what she was going to do and proceeded to do none of it. Not one thing. She promised to throw me a shower which I had to plan and pay for and she didn't even show up. She did manage to collect presents and I gave great thank-you gifts. Worst of all, and my toes curl to remember, was that she brought her three wild brats who ran back and forth screaming and laughing DURING THE CEREMONY.  The minister  had to stop to tell them to knock it off. 

At the reception, (here's why we didn't get served first and why we ran out of food) classless Martha just announced the buffet was open (she'd been letting her bunch eat from the buffet already) And even tackier Marilyn (who should have been directing traffic) and her tribe RAN UP, pushed others out of the way and heaped their plates with food. And I mean heaped. And then cut in line to get seconds when many people hadn't even had firsts. The other guests just sat there aghast, with their mouths open. 

And so between Martha's skimming off and Marilyn's oink-fest. We ran out half way through.  My uncle had to run to D&W to get more. I don't know if Grandma was more mortified or enraged. Made me look and feel like such an idiot. And we  had it planned so nicely. I could just cry remembering. Or hunt them down, one by one and slap them till my hands hurt. 

And as if that wasn't upsetting enough, my mother-in-law went out of her way to make things worse. I did my very best to include her in everything and make her feel special. But she literally sobbed all day. Ugly crying, not tears of joy. She was "losing her baby boy" "heartbroken"  and told everyone so. "me, me, me,"  Even in the blasted pictures, hours later, she's still scowling and miserable. My husband says it was like a funeral around their house. 

And did my mom, stepdad, dad or stepmom step in and help? Nope. They didn't even corral their own kids very well and let them make stupid faces in my wedding pictures. It was such an epic shitshow that several cousins specifically remembered, and said they'd learned from my mistakes. I was the first cuz to get married and they said they were gonna make damn sure none of this  happened at their weddings. You're welcome for the lesson. 

We had a kick-ass honeymoon. I never said anything to anyone. Just laughed it off. I even defended and remained friends with these people. That's how gaslit people who have been abused by narcissists live. Hiding their feelings and feeling shame for other people's shitty behavior. And let this be a warning to anyone living with narcissists, they will ruin everything they can for you. The more special the occasion, the happier you are and especially the more about you it is, the worse they will behave. And if they let you off once and actually don't do anything to ruin it, watch your back. Know that it was accidental and it'll be worse the next time. 

(And if, by some chance, anyone involved is reading, you know who you are. Consider yourself on notice. I may have sucked it up back then but not anymore.)

Why "faith over fear" is bullsh*t: what faith and fear are and aren't

Hi friends. Part two about why, based on my experiences and common sense,  the "faith over fear" trope is dangerous bullshit. I ended the last post pointing out how the promoters of this don't know what faith or fear mean. To continue with this, let me say what faith isn't. Presumably, when they say faith, they mean faith in God. But you have to wonder. 

Especially when someone tells someone in a difficult situation, to have faith, when the teller isn't in the situation and knows nothing about it. That's toxic positivity. And hypocrisy. And shaming. If someone is in a bad place and afraid, telling them to have faith over fear is just opening your mouth and crap pouring out. Faith in what? That the abuser will keep abusing? Yep that's for sure. That they should just tie a knot and hang on? Tell me you don't care without telling me you don't. Or just shut up and love them.  

In the case of a pandemic, telling other people they won't get Covid if they have faith is like clicking your ruby slippers together and hoping you'll get back to Kansas. Actually, you'd probably get father with the red shoes. Another problem is telling others to have faith while living very unfaithfully. Or bragging about how much faith I have. That's not about God at all. It's just me, me, me. Honestly the way some people talk, you'd think they were God. Oh wait...

My parents were masterful at weaponizing scripture about faith against me. They themselves Hedonistically did exactly as they pleased. They twisted their every foolish, dangerous, illegal and abusive choice into an act of faith. They said God told them to do it. And how can you argue with that? It's impossible to prove God didn't tell them.  Oh and they loved the verse "lean not unto thine own understanding" as it applied to me (not them, I later realized). Any time I questioned, I'd get accused of trusting myself and disobeying God.  

I lived with that crazy gaslighting all my life. Until I started really listening to God. Then I began to see the flaws. It wasn't God they expected me to obey, it was them. Because what they expected of me had nothing to do with what Holy Scripture tells me God expects. Some of it was anathema. In their heads, they were gods, not subject to the real God and making up rules for me (that they would break) as they went along. Their will for me was self-centered and their demands, contrary to God. 

Running around on each other and dragging me along. Shacking up with dangerous, abusive, narcissistic partners and making me subject to them. Making me parent them and their children. Neglecting my care. Coveting and then lying, cheating and stealing to get it. Stealing from me. Forcing me to do their work. Putting the focus on their selfish wants and needs. Leading me astray. Subjecting me to deviant, immoral, degenerate behavior. Making me be an adult without ever being a kid. And calling all of it God's will for me. 

So yeah, I was afraid. I was in a perpetual dry-drown of fear, self-loathing and shame. I still am a lot of the time.  It was so bad I didn't know how bad it was. I thought constant pain was normal. I've blanked out not just experiences, but months and years of my life. My memories are like Swiss cheese and not baby Swiss. Huge gaping holes where memory is supposed to be. More hole than cheese actually. But at night, they're there, in endless dreams and nightmares. They are so constant, vivid and pervasive that I have trouble separating dream from memory. I have a dream memory bank in place of an experience memory bank.  And it's all so scary. 

But I'm supposed to just smile and fake none of this happened? I'm supposed to say the right words and hope it gets better? Because that's what this "faith over fear" crap implies.  I'm supposed to feel ashamed to admit that I know nothing but scared shitless? I should feel guilty because I don't even know what let alone who to trust? Well, been there, still do that. My problem isn't trusting, it's trusting too much and the wrong things and people. It's being too obedient to my parent-gods. It's putting them above God. 

Now that's a problem and maybe the crux of it. God's first commandment in the Jewish and Christian Bible is to have no other gods before Me." Well, blew that one. My parents made themselves my gods and did I worship and bow down to them! But in my defense, I was a gaslit (brainwashed) kid. I was taught wrong. And recognizing that is where I'll find my healing. 

Bear with me while I get this sorted. So, I was taught to make parents, their partners and kids, gods. But there's no other god before the God. I put my trust in these false gods. I shouldn't have but I didn't know better. I was terrified of them, their crazy demands, harsh punishment and worst of all, their sadistic twisting of everything. And the fact that I was so afraid, shows they were fake. Because God is LOVE. His commands make sense. He forgives. Also the fact that I was so signally uncared for, mistreated, unloved, neglected, manipulated, abused and shamed shows up their wrong. 

God cares, loves, shepherds, nurtures, tends, teaches, leads, guides, walks with, carries, supports. He also warns us against danger and dangerous people. Unfortunately, I was so little when the abuse began that even if I had heard His warning, they would have shut it down. I would have been shamed for daring to hear God when they were only receivers, especially if He was saying they were wrong. They firewalled me off from God, lest I catch on that He was the real one and they weren't. 

They created a little narcissistic fantasy world, a parallel universe, in which only we existed. Religion was such a convenient weapon for them. They could hide their own sinful behavior behind a smokescreen of Christianity. They twisted scripture to not only condone but command their wickedness. 

But hold on. I've said I wouldn't have understood those warnings even if I'd heard them. Well, that's because I would have assumed that God would never contradict them and what would stupid me know anyway?  But what if, on some deep level, I did hear and understand. Was my gut telling me all along that something was rotten in Denmark? Is that what the dreams are about? Is that why big pieces of my memory are gone? Was that God shielding me from too much pain and suffering?

There is a large faction of so-called Christians who preach that trusting your gut is evil. That you're trusting yourself, not God. Ironically, those are often the people, like my parents, who are doing things that send up the red flags that your gut is responding to. I say that our inner voice is the only thing we can trust, especially victims of parental abuse. That's where God's  Holy Spirit (the still small voice) resides. I may not have understood what I was hearing or even that I was hearing anything. But that doesn't mean God wasn't there. I think. It's all still really difficult to rethink. 

I didn't feel it at the time. I still often don't. But I guess He did protect me because I'm still here. However it wasn't because I had enough faith. It was because He has enough love. I didn't do anything. I don't always even reach out to Him when I'm in a riptide. I just keep splashing and He rescue-swims with me. So in a way, my fear is a good thing. Because it showed me that something is unsafe. And faith is nothing more than accepting that it is and moving as best I can toward safety. 

Why faith over fear is bullshit and how that toxic positivity destroys traumatized kids

 Hi my friends. Last post I promised an earful on why the "faith over fear" trope is bullshit. It's generally bullshit but especially when it comes to traumatized kids of narcissistically abusive parents. "Faith over fear" is unChristian, unBiblical, ignorant toxic positivity that just smacks hypocrisy and slippery slope selfishness.  It was a raw spot for me to begin with. Covid made it so much worse. 

I'm so damn tired of hearing, during a bloody pandemic, how we could avoid Covid if we just have enough faith. And how taking precautions like wearing a mask and getting vaccinated is "fear-mongering." When used with traumatized children who are terrified of their scary bullying parents, it's sick. I've been physically, emotionally and sexually abused, neglected, abandoned, manipulated, parentified, dismissed, scapegoated and gaslit. And let me tell you, no amount of faith is going to see you through that shitstorm. It's fucking horror movie you can never shut off. I dream about it every night. 

I was weaned on fear. Fear of abandonment which could and did happen with alarming frequency. Fear of my dad taking his own life as he threatened to many times. Fear of what bizarre and scary thing my parents and their partners would do next.  I was told to be afraid, very afraid of what my mom and dad and their partners would do to me if I didn't obey. If I didn't let them do whatever they wanted. Living in fear was my God-given duty. To not fear them would be sinning. 

So tell me, how then was I supposed to also have faith and not be afraid? What's wrong with this idea that faith trumps fear is in how it's used and with whom. It is always someone who is not struggling with a terrible situation (or who has his or her head wedged firmly up his or her posterior about said situation) pontificating to someone who is smack dab in the middle of the shit. 

And they never tell you how to leverage this magical faith let alone what it even is. And I'll tell you why. Because they don't know themselves. It just makes them sound like they know what they're talking about and that makes them feel superior. And because the Bible kinda alludes to this, bonus brownie points added. 

However, the scripture they are referencing has nothing to do with how they are using it. "Perfect love casts out fear" is the correct quotation. Perfect love. Which is from God alone. And it's love, not faith that drives demons away. Because another thing they get wrong is the definition of fear. Fear is not caution. Or trauma induced obedience. Or compassion. In some cases, it's just common sense. Fear in this case is the slavery to demonic forces that we in the world are subjected to. So love casts out evil. We are also told in other scripture to fear the Lord. We are commanded to fear! Fear in this case means respect. 

But being accurate isn't something the "faith-over-fearers" worry about. In fact, being vague and hinty is part of the passive-aggressiveness. It's meant to make a person with rationale, reasonable concern feel inferior to their moral superiority. Held up to a little clear-headed scrutiny, their kitschy catchphrases are shown as meaningless, baffling bullshit. 

Because if they don't know what fear means, they surely don't know what faith means. None of us really does. You can put your faith in a lot of stupid things. Is it belief? We believe a lot of stupid, untrue things. That just sounds like opinion to me. And like buttholes, we all have one. Is it blind trust? That sounds dangerous! And then there's the matter of what one says he believes in versus what he lives like he does. 

A lot of right-wingers (who are usually the faith-over-fearers, proclaim to believe in God. But they live for Donald Trump. They wear shirts that say "Faith, FLAG, FIREARMS" (not in that order.) So your faith is in a piece of cloth and a gun. Hmm. Gotcha. So if you get Covid because you won't wear a mask or get vaccinated, you're gonna run it up the flagpole and then shoot it? And if you give someone Covid because you won't take precautions, that's honoring God?? Wow. Stay away from my loved ones please. 

But the biggest concern with "faith over fear" is with people who've suffered from abuse and live in terror of abuser. That's going to require a part two. So stay tuned. 

Why I'm too reliable and why I hate it

 Hi friends. Mar here with  more on my life with narcissistic parental abuse, neglect, abandonment, manipulation, parentification, exploitation, unrealistic expectations and gaslighting about it all. Today I'm looking at why I'm too reliable and why I hate it. 

First, you might be wondering, can you be "too reliable" and isn't that a good thing? As one who has been through a lifetime of being the predictable, stable adult  amid the very childish behavior of adult authority figures, oh hell yes, you can and no, it's a very bad thing, for me. 

Lately, I've been opening up about how the four parents (two bio, two step) have always put way too much expectation of me. Heavy housework, taking care of adults (who didn't need care and didn't take care of me) parenting their children and foster kids (including sleeping with them so the adults could have "privacy."), being always obedient and never questioning, basically not being allowed to be a kid and certainly not a teenager. 

They would gaslight me that it was my God-given responsibility to be bossed around by but also to care for them, their boyfriends and girlfriends (later stepparents). I was even subject to their kids. I literally had to babysit my parents and tend to their petulant and unrealistic demands as if I were the parent and they were the kids. But yet they still expected that I would obey them like a little child, even when I was nearly an adult. Both ways of treating me were inappropriate. 

When they threw temper tantrums at me, berating, hitting, screaming at, shaming, name-calling, cursing, I was expected to just forgive and forget without ever getting any apology. And not just my two bio parents. That would have been more than enough to deal with. But they also expected me to tolerate whatever anyone did that they forced into my life. 

I learned very young that I had better be on pointe at all times, to say yes ma'am and no sir. To comply with any and all expectations and to read minds about what they expected. In so doing I might, just might, earn their love. Yes, earn. I didn't deserve it, you see. And (wait for it) no matter how hard I tried, I never succeeded. I see now that it was very much in their selfish, self-interests to keep the prize just out of reach, so I'd keep striving. I didn't catch on till I was 59 that I was never going to reach it. 

I was always so frightened of them as well. They saw to that. By gaslighting, shaming, setting me up to fail, pulling the supports out, raging, beating, blaming, manipulating, guilting, belittling my feelings, mocking, leaving me behind, leaving me out, weaponizing God against me and a host of other shitty narcissistic bullying tactics, they had me terrorized. 

I obeyed because I believed their gaslighting that it was my duty but also because I was afraid not to. Which is never a good reason to do anything. Fear is a great motivator but poor mentor. I never had the luxury of making mistakes, of being obstinate or recalcitrant or just plain lazy. That was for others. Interestingly, the very people who were so angry at me, were also failing me as parents in colossal ways. 

My every error was not only rubbed in my face but made to seem catastrophic,  till I was sick with self-hatred and sense of failure. I see now that every wrong I was accused of was either a mistake, blown out of proportion or flat out lied about to protect the real guilty party. Which usually was the parent or stepparent who was doing the blaming. They expected me to just pick up the ball when they dropped it but were savagely unmerciful if I dropped it. 

It wasn't that I was so good. It was that it was unforgivable not to be. If I'd grown up in a more realistic and loving home, I'd have been your average mostly nice, occasionally naughty kid. But I didn't. So I never learned how to be good, just obedient in the extreme. I was reliable because it was dangerous not to be. 

How they must have laughed behind my back at what an idiot I was, working so hard to get what they were never going to give. And how badly frightened and cowed I always was. It's sick to say, but even sicker to realize, that they knew how traumatized I was and didn't give a fat rat's ass. I dream every night about these terrible memories. So being too reliable, too dependable, too helpful and obedient has had a disastrous effect on me. 

I've  never dared to be anything but. It makes me nauseous to contemplate not doing what people say, giving them what they want, disagreeing, challenging, dropping balls or in any way failing them. I'm still obeying. And I hate it. Don't get me wrong. I like that I'm reliable. What I hate is why I'm reliable. I wish I could relax and fail occasionally, like all humans do, without feeling such hideous toxic shame, guilt and fear. 

And lest anyone chime in with "faith over fear" let me stop you right there. That's the worst thing you can say to anyone who struggles with fear from parental abuse. You'll get an earful on that from me in my next post, I promise.