Trauma recovery is the yellow brick road AWAY from home

 

Hello my friends, today in my childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm creating metaphors for the suffering that I'm trying to get out of me. All my life I've walked a yellow brick road that was supposed to lead to Kansas and safety but lead only to danger and pain.  

Along the way, I've experienced flying monkeys (blind guides) and Wicked Witches of Narcissism. I've been burned by toxic shaming fumes from her cauldron of abuse, neglect, invalidation, parentification, endangerment and abandonment. The Good Witch that was supposed to give me ruby slippers, only tripped me up, by DARVO and refusal to see my trauma. 

I've been lead astray by the Wizard of Gaslighting and trauma bonding. I've been blinded and blindsided in the dangerous woods of Betrayal Blindness. I've been trapped in the quicksand of parent enmeshment. I've had little rotten apples of self-doubt, toxic shaming and narcissistic abuse lobbed at me by the menacing trees of family chaos and scapegoating. 

I've been deceived by four narcissistic parents who posed as helpful companions but who led me into, not away from pitfalls of parentification. Everything that is supposed to be good, safe, sweet and light was flip-flopped to bad, fraught, sour and dark. So now, even the brightest days are haunted by ominous clouds of FOG (fear, obligation and guilt). It doesn't matter that none of this actually exists now. It lives in the reality of my memory. My then is now my now. 

Where I go from here is not a one-size, once and for all, answer. It's a daily rescue swim out of the rip tide. Some days the water is choppier and harder to navigate. Sometimes I just tread water. Sometimes I drown a little. I don't think to call out for help because not only was the life ring pulled away, my head was pushed under water. So I try to keep my head low so as not to attract attention. It is a double bind. 

I see threatening portents in the most innocuous of things. Everything seems to trigger trauma responses because fawning and people pleasing was the only thing I knew. It was as integral as cellular respiration. Childhood trauma responses WERE my life ring. Sort of. They were also the things that dragged me under and handicapped me. 

One thing that helps is asking AI to create metaphorical images to "show me" myself. You can see a gallery of them in past posts. Sorry I've nothing more helpful to say today. One day at a time. 

Situational spectrum narcissistic behavior vs. pervasive narcissism vs. NPD: does it matter?

Hello my friends. Today in my childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm exploring  difference between situational narcissistic behavior and pervasive narcissism. Situational narcissism is a term I coined to describe self-centered behavior patterns that occur in temporal situations and are not integral to the overall personality. I'll show how this differs from rigid, "hard-wired" narcissism and NPD (narcissistic personality disorder). I'll also explain why these difference do and don't matter. 

The "Two Faces" Metaphor
Situational narcissism reflects a temporal shift: warmth, compassion, and open arms when energy reserves are intact versus withdrawal, irritability, and self-preservation when chronically depleted, burned out, or navigating shift work sleep disorder (SWSD).

First a note on NPD: I'm not a clinician and never make any attempt to diagnose NPD. I only share observations and experiences with narcissistic behaviors, specifically as a child of narcissistic parents. However, there is a polemics trap that those hearing our stories will often set to undermine us. And we need to be aware of this so we don't get side-tracked in recovery. 

The uniquely bespoke victim-shaming of childhood trauma

Childhood trauma is usually a product of narcissistic (selfish, entitled, arrogant, remorseless) parent behavior. And childhood trauma responses (fawning, freezing, people pleasing) from narcissistic abuse, are generally not understood by people, not in family, society, religion, school, even psychology. And the common response of those who don't understand is to question and second-guess, unfortunately. I call these underminers, "blind guides" who enable abuse by victim-shaming. It's no exaggeration to say that the world gaslights us that it didn't happen, we're making it up or are too sensitive or critical of our parents. We carry this shame and keep silent until one day, maybe, we don't. And then they level up the gaslighting. 

The Diagnosis Trap & Blind Guides
You do not need a clinical diagnosis to validate your experience of harmful behavior. External critics ("blind guides") may attempt to shift focus onto credentials or definitions, but the impact of trauma remains real regardless of the label applied to the abuser.

The double blind guide blindside

When you call out the narcissistic parent abuse, neglect, exploitation, child endangerment, abandonment, invalidation, hypocrisy, parentification, humiliation, triangulation, scapegoating and cruelty for what it is, the blind guides set more traps. They pooh-pooh the abuse without even hearing us out. Or they completely overlook the fact that we just told them our parents left us in a strange city with strangers for a week. They make all kinds of excuses for what happened. And God forbid we call our parents narcissists. They jump down our throats with accusations of "diagnosing" saying we aren't qualified to identify our parents as such. And because we've been demeaned all our lives, we believe that we are wrong to call out the abuse and our parents as abusers. So we remain silent and that puts us in a double blind guide bind. It tightens the trauma bonded, betrayal blindness blindfold. 

Red rags and red flags

If a child who's grown up with abuse isn't qualified to call it what it is, no one is. But don't expect society to affirm you. They're more likely to victim blame and shame. And using the word narcissism is like a red rag to a bull with a lot of folks. It just triggers all their most judgmental, least empathetic disrespectfulness. But let this very unkindness be the red flag you need. See that this was always how your parents manipulated you, with DARVO shame, blame and scorn. Be careful who you tell. Guard your dignity and sanity against this further "leveled up" abuse. 

Seeing through the gaslight

So who do we call out their abuse to? The calling it out is something I do within myself and with a very short list of trusted people. It's more of a quiet seeing, hearing and acknowledging. It's the recognition that all the smoke and mirrors they terrorized us with, were just illusions. It's radical acceptance of the fact that it happened and what they did was wrong, no matter how anyone tries to minimize it or gaslight us. All the excuses in the world can't reduce the impact of childhood trauma. 

Situational vs. Ingrained Narcissism
Situational self-absorption is temporary and driven by crisis, exhaustion, or overwhelm—not an intentional desire to exploit. Ingrained narcissism or NPD, by contrast, relies on a persistent pattern of entitlement, grandiosity, and seeking narcissistic supply regardless of circumstances.

NPD or not to be, isn't the question

But back to the question of NPD or not. It doesn't matter whether you are qualified to diagnose someone with NPD, because it doesn't matter whether they have the full-blown disorder or just act very narcissistically. The narcissistic abuse is the same. They get narcissistic supply from shaming you. Nothing changes with the diagnosis. Expect possibly that if they truly have NPD, you might be tempted to make even more excuses for them than you've already done. I've said it before, the last thing my self-centered mother, stepmother, stepfather and father needed is a doctor slip giving them permission to be so. 

Situational spectrum or ingrained narcissism matters (but also doesn't)

So situational narcissists are my way of referring to people who are not full-blown permanent narcissists. So we're all selfish sometimes. But these types are extra selfish but not to the point of fully self-serving.  Their "extra" only occurs occasionally, such as when they are in crisis or fully depleted (exhausted, hangry, very ill).  People with SWSD (shift work disorder) often show what looks like narcissism because they are chronically tired and always on an off schedule. Actually some of the situational narcissists I know are better in crisis mode. So are they actually narcissists? No. It's a spectrum, like autism. And the biggest difference is that they aren't intentionally cruel, just less careful than they should be. I think self-absorbed might be a better term. However...

It's not you, but it is about you

Regardless whether someone is situationally or always self-absorbed, regardless of why a person behaves is a consistently selfish, self-serving way, is not your fault. You're never the reason they act haughty, rude, spiteful, malicious, aggressive, antagonistic, thoughtless, disrespectful, malignant, petulant, cruel, self-righteous, hypocritical, entitled, self-centered, Machiavellian or any of the many nasty personality traits associated with narcissism. It doesn't matter if they ever get better. And research shows narcissists won't anyway. But healing IS about you. Setting boundaries on what you'll tolerate, grey rocking or going no contact, healing trauma responses, getting stronger are tasks you can do. 

Make it all about you. 

Focus on Your Healing
Regardless of why someone acts in a consistently self-serving way, their behavior is not your fault. Healing shifts the focus back to your own boundaries, protective measures (like grey rocking), and personal recovery.

Shameful ways society enables abuse perpetrators and fails child victims

Hello my friends! Today in my childhood trauma recovery, I'm writing about a topic I've discussed many times, but which needs another look. And that is how society, law enforcement, family, religion, psychology often enables domestic violence and child abuse by defending the perpetrator, not the victim. And how it turns a blind eye to and makes excuses for narcissistic parent abuse. This systematic invalidation and cultural gaslighting helps form the origin story of childhood trauma and CPTSD. It's why a lot of us didn't see the monsters for what they were till decades later. 

Shamefully bass-ackwards legal system

You'd think, the way the law deals with DV and child abuse that the victims were the perps and vice versa. Guy gets arrested for beating his wife, somehow finds the money to post bail (when they are broke) and the police let him out to go right back to the family he harmed, only now with a vengeance. Because these perpetrators are always arrogant, entitled dark tetrads who punish anyone who stands up to them. Seen it happen more times than I can count. I recall one acquaintance saying an officer had told her that he wasn't required to let her know when her abuser was released. Then the battered woman is left to protect herself, with no support. Same story with kids who are forced to spend time with abusive parents because their custody rights trump the child's right to stay away. 

The DV hotline is unmanned.

I'm serious. A good friend who was in a DV situation (and I have far too many of these) tried calling only to be told that there was no one available. This happened repeatedly. Maybe there are times when you can call someone but the purpose of a 24/7 hotline is to be there all day, every day. Because abuse is no respecter of normal work hours. So the one place for help is for all intents and purposes, gone probably by funding cuts. 

Damage people, misdemeanor, damage property, felony

It's no wonder so much violence goes on behind the home's closed doors. Because our society cares more about broken things than people. If these perps had beaten up a building or someone's car, the punishments would be much more severe. Kids who get caught entering abandoned buildings get stiffer sentences than  spouse or child abusers. Or pedophiles! The list of CSA offenders is nauseating and they are walking around free. And getting hired over non-felons. 

Felons get preferential hiring

It's true. Companies get federal and state tax credits for hiring felons regardless of charge. So a person without a felony has less chance of getting hired than one that does. 

• Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC): The federal government provides a tax credit of up to $2,400 per qualified new hire to companies that hire "ex-felons" within a year of their conviction or release from prison.

• Broad Eligibility: The tax credit applies broadly to individuals convicted of a felony. The IRS does not exclude individuals based on the specific nature of the felony (such as violent crimes or CSA offenses); any qualified ex-felon triggers the financial credit for the business.

2. The Federal Bonding Program

• Free Liability Insurance: The U.S. Department of Labor offers the Federal Bonding Program, which gives employers six months of free fidelity bond insurance (usually up to $5,000 to $25,000) to protect against theft or loss when hiring "at-risk" job seekers, including individuals with criminal records.

Bizarre Blame-Shame Shift Game

Children who report abuse or neglect more often experience even more abuse by those who are supposed to protect them. And that includes clergy, police, family, counselors, teachers. I reported being molested by a teen boy in my mom's foster care home. And she blamed me, saying I was lying. When her husband attacked me she said it was my fault. When a 19 y/o was stalking 13 y/o me at church (actually there were several because I had a target on my back), youth group leaders blamed me. I've heard too many stories of this kind of thing happening, most often to girls. 

No, you didn't ask for it

I know it's a tired trope, victim-shaming. It also happens to be true. Girls were so often told they were "asking for" sexual assault, rape and even CSA that we automatically thought we did. Apparently, how we dressed or acted caused boys and grown men to harass us. Caused! As if these men had no agency of their own. Dads, but especially mothers, never wanted to hear how their sons treated us. If we even told them which most didn't. Why bother when you just get more shame? As if we made them hurt us. We were called the sl-ts, whores, and worse when we were too young to even really understand sex. We were told to be modest and then when we did, their precious sons called us prudes and made it their mission to be the first. So gross. It doesn't matter what you wear or don't wear. Aggressive, arrogant A-holes will be a-holes. 

Gaslighting is abuse too

Oh and on top of being told we were responsible for everyone's behavior, we were also gaslit that it didn't happen.  Or we were overreacting to it or being too sensitive. Or that we were showing off for attention. Or that we just imagined they were after us because we were conceited. Because "no one would want you!" The gaslighting boggles the mind. These sainted sons would never do anything like that! They were good boys! And yet these saints had mouths and minds sailors could learn from. AND then they felt no qualms accusing innocent little girls of being dirty pigs. My MIL told my husband as a teen, that girls only want one thing. They're dirty minded. Girls!! Not women. Children. But then these same people flipped the script again. When boys treated us like prostitutes, we were told "boys will be boys." My own parents always took the other person's part over mine. They never believed or stood up for me. So infantilizing and pooh-poohing literally illegal adult behavior while adultifying girls. 

Psychology doesn't get childhood trauma 

And then they'd put all the burden on us kids because we were "the problem." Nobody got therapy back then unless you were very rich. And even if you're an adult kid in her 60s who can actually afford counseling now, you still get a lot of victim-shaming, minimizing and invalidating in what passes for therapy. That's why, after four tries, I quit. 

Playground bullies aren't just kids

Back then, most of us had to make due with teachers, principals or school counselors. Whom nobody wanted to see because it meant you were in trouble and that you also had another target on your back. Then you'd get treated even worse for "telling on" the bullies. And you might not even be believed. Adults had a bad habit of not caring "who started it" and just punishing both parties. And bullies are often crybullies too.  Adults ask stupid questions like "what did YOU do to cause it?" Which the crybully is more than happy to make up lies about. They tell you all kinds of nonsensical unhelpful things like "be the bigger person. Rise above. Ignore it." Which is a recipe to perpetuate abuse cycles. But context matters and this is just lazy shit adults do to make themselves feel better. And some of the teachers were predators themselves. I remember in 6th grade being creeped out by a very handsy teacher. Turns out he really was a pedophile. But who knew it wasn't just me? That's not stuff you tell anyone, at 11. Especially when your mom and dad had already shown they didn't care. 

The church is the worst offender

Churches are so fraught for me because some of the worst things happened under the guise of religion. CSA, harassment, being witness to a minister's infidelity. Being stalked by various older men including a minister. And religious abuse began at home (which wasn't a home but just 40 places I was plunked down in) very young with my irresponsible, immoral arrogant parents preaching two very different double standards. I was expected to behave like fully onboarded adult at 5 while they always acted like spoiled immature toddlers. No wait, that's not fair to toddlers. My parents acted like gods, dictating terms and expecting ultimate sacrifice and subservience from me. And the church backed them up and enabled their entitlement, so it seemed. I heard preaching from the pulpit every week and none of it applied to the chaos and abuse I was living with. The Bible doesn't do a very good job reaching out to child who live with exploitation, abandonment, severe neglect and deprivation, multiple forms of abuse, gaslighting, dehumanization by narcissistic parents. Parents who made you serve their new partners and let them abuse you too. All I ever got was more shaming about honoring these dishonorable people. 

Malignant narcissistic parent gaslighting lights the way for childhood trauma recovery, seriously!

 Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal from dark tetrad, enmeshed parent abuse, I'm exploring how malignant narcissistic parent gaslighting lights the path to childhood trauma recovery, seriously! I know that sounds contradictory. So I'll show how their gaslit narrative flipping, and twisted, self-serving versions of reality, actually disprove themselves. They prove their own abusiveness by the very gaslighting lies they tell. Abusive parents catch themselves in the traps they set for their children. 

The Parent Trap

As parents, they hold the power differential. Society, religion, family backs this up. Even the child affirms this. We wanted our parents to parent us--keep us safe, take responsibility for us, make decisions for us we were too young to make. But they did none of that. What no one called out but should have was that narcissistic parents are parents in name only and only when it suits them. They gobble up the perks while doing none of the work. Playing a sneaky game called Role Reversal and Reverse Again, they parentify and infantilize us. They assign us the heavy lifting and mental load. When it comes to benefits time, they switch back to the performative parent. They wield authority, crash boundaries, blame-shift, harangue, bully, attack, in the name of "discipline" which they call their God-given right.

Betrayal Blindness Blindman's Bluff

None of their parenting of us is appropriate in any iteration. It's all self-serving, entitled, manipulative chaos, designed to get them their narcissistic supply hit. Life for the child is a tangled net of abuse, neglect, coercive control, exploitation, abandonment, triangulation, invalidation, dehumanization, destabilization, backstabbing, endangerment and abandonment. But because they call themselves our parents, and because we are children, we trust them. They have trauma bonded us to them and this causes betrayal blindness. So they can play their sick games of blindman's bluff, using us as little pawns. 

Abusive parent charades

Narcissistic parents play weird games of "bait and switch" "hide and seek" and "shell game." They run off and make the child chase them. They future fake that they'll actually show up for her, then bail. Then laugh at her when she cries. Then blame her for being too sensitive or too demanding (!)  They make basic care conditional on her hopping through their impossible, ever-moving hoops. Using strategic bread crumbing, they trauma bond the child to them. 

Illogical logical fallacies

Malignant narcissist talk in a strange double speak. It's a combo of virtue-signaling, gaslighting, DARVO and enforced FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) they use to coercively control the child. They say odd things that are obviously illogical fallacies but make them sound logical. No normal person talks this way, so they don't expect it. And the narcissistic parent knows this and plays on other people's normalness, especially an empath's. But it's not accidental. It's intentional and bespoke abuse, custom-built to create a cognitive dissonance that keeps the child enslaved to them. 

• They "Straw Man" her, misrepresenting what she says to make her look unreliable.   
• They "Slippery Slope" blowing small things the child did into catastrophes. They make her think the slightest deviation is willful disobedience that will lead to disaster. My father (who was an adulterer and pedophile) actually told me that he hoped I hadn't had premarital sex because that was the "unforgivable sin." This increased my self-harm, 10x. 
• They rely on "Appeal to Ignorance" making false claims that can't be proved. They project blame for their bad behavior onto the child, to pre-emptively deflect attention from their actions. This way, any accusations she makes will just look retaliative. 
• They use "False Dilemma" masterfully. They make it appear that there are only two options, theirs is the right and anything else is wrong. 

Gaslighting lights the way

But all these gaslighting logical fallacies are where it breaks down. They implode on themselves. Once you unpick one lie, you begin looking for more. And you start to see the pattern of deceit. And that shows you that the diversions and deceptions are just smoke and mirrors, not reality. But gaslighting is also insidiously brain damaging. My mother had to actually admit to lying to me before I began to start seeing clearly. I believed all her trickery, every bizarre story she told.  I trusted her version even over the evidence of my own experience. Until I didn't. Now I see that very little if anything was actually real. And that helped me see the light.  

Power differential double bind

I'm going to be 62 tomorrow and it took me that long to realize that the twisted tales my parents told TO me and ABOUT me, couldn't be true. I was always told that and treated like I was their possession whom they owed no responsibility to AND that I was also responsible to them. I was both their child and their parent. I had no power but all the accountability. They were mutually exclusive and impossible. Not even a logical fallacy. This is as ridiculous as it gets. If they had all the power and control, they also have all the responsibility. If I had no autonomy nor choice, I bear no culpability.

Be careful what you wish for

Their own lies came back to bite them. They also trapped themselves in snares they set for me. Once I began to hear, I couldn't unhear that all the terrible things they accused me of, were true of them. And maybe only of them, not me. And the FOG began to lift.  Unfortunately it took till my senior years to understand. By now two of my four narcissistic parents have passed. And you might think that their abuse dies with them. Nope, alas not. If anything their hurtful voices in my head have gotten louder. But so has my own voice. I'm talking back to them. I'm refusing to allow them free rent anymore. I'm evicting them. I'm realizing I'm not obligated to anyone that I didn't actually birth, least of all to parents who were never obligated to me. 

Next generation

What's next? Well, sadly childhood trauma is the legacy that keeps on giving, through the generations. We carry it with us in our cells. So now I have the task of not just digging myself out but all the people I've hurt or allowed to be hurt by, my malignant parents. I've got a lot of truth to tell. A lot of stories to set straight. So this is my legacy, the posts in this blog, to my progeny. And to you, it if helps. 

Love mar. 

Thrival skills for managing childhood trauma responses to narcissistic parent abuse

Hello my friends! Today in my childhood trauma recovery, I'm looking at not just survival skills but thrival skills for healing childhood trauma responses caused by narcissistic parent abuse. Some of these may surprise you. And ironically we're going to heal trauma responses by responding vs. reacting. 

Trauma response versus trauma reaction 

I believe that the term trauma response is wrongly used when applied to the self-defeating behaviors of fight, flight, freeze, fawn and one I have added called fix. Fixing problems is what the narcissistic enmeshed parents expect the child to do in situations the parent created. And like the others, these are knee-jerk reactions abused kids are conditioned to do by their antagonistic parents. These coping reactions are automatic, irrational and dangerous. But they are all we knew as kids. They were hardwired in us and they are intensely dysfunctional. I think they should be called trauma reactions. We were the narcissistic supply giving puppets, dancing attendance because abusive parents pulled our strings, not because we had any autonomy or agency. We were broken vending machine children, part scapegoat, part enabler, part glass child. Plus we had to do the work of the golden child without the perks. 

🚩 Being a broken vending machine child meant they pushed our buttons and we gave out whatever was demanded of us at our own expense. 🚩 We were the ones putting in the coins AND giving out the goodies. 🚩 While our parents took all our good without reciprocity.

Proactive responses vs. reactive panic

None of that was our fault. We didn't choose to be bullied, exploited, abused, neglected, parentified and invalidated. We didn't choose the stress of carrying the family mental load as children. Or the chaos of living with dysfunctional, selfish, erratic, entitled, Machiavellian parents. However we still carry the scars in those very trauma reactions they conditioned in us. We still fawn and freeze, people please, placate and kowtow to everyone in our lives. We have learned that it is dangerous not to. Our sympathetic nervous system is wired to panicked, hypervigilant overreaction, appeasing, anticipating needs and rushing to serve. But now we need to work on rational, healthy, proactive trauma responses. 

Thrival skills childhood trauma survivors need

• Pause. Trauma responses are like cruise control in a car. They allow us to seemingly function without the cognitive dissonance of having to stop and think, wait, why am I doing this? This can't be good, can it?  They're also a way to juxtapose the irrational gaslighting by narcissistic parents with the real world we have to interact in. But trauma responses don't transition well in adulthood. So we need to turn off auto-pilot fawning, freezing, fixing. We need see the red flags that betrayal blindness prevented us from seeing. So we don't keep crashing into walls.  To do this, we need to hit pause a lot. Something we were never allowed to do. 

• Don't just do something, sit there. Everything was always so urgent, drama fueled and frenetic with narcissistic parents. We went through our days with sirens on our heads, putting out fires our parents started, just for fun. There was no crisis except of their inept mismanagement. We set ourselves on fire to keep them warm when they didn't need it. This was no accident. Malignant parents do this strategically to destabilize, terrorize and confuse us. 

• Reflect: As painful and scary as it is, we need to take off the blinders and see how reckless and dangerous our abusive parents are. We need to allow healing memory let us recall and acknowledge how they damaged us, time and again. We need to sit with that and put responsibility on them, where it belongs. We need to defog FOG (fear, obligation and guilt). 

• Take care of yourself. Narcissistic parents don't just frown on a child's self-care, they punish it. they call her selfish, disobedient, ungrateful, disloyal, demanding just for having needs. And wants, goals, hopes oh heck no. The enmeshed parents see the child as a tool or extension of themselves, not a person in her own right. She is expected to care for "family first" meaning them only. So we need to learn to give ourselves permission to do the opposite and care for us. Whatever that may look like. 

• Do hard work. And this isn't what you think. I don't mean the heavy lifting alone or carrying the mental load. That we've done all our lives at our expense. That comes as natural as breathing to us. I mean we need to start doing the unfamiliar and NOT cater to narcissistic parents, or anyone. We need to do the unthinkable and begin putting ourselves first, not always last or never like we usually do. 

• Affirm and encourage yourself. We heard a lot of gaslighting nonsense about how worthless we were, how we failed and let people down. That was because we were expected to carry adult burdens as children. We were expected to do impossible tasks like buffer our parents from consequences, shield, serve, be surrogate spouses and parents. Of course you couldn't do that. YOU WERE NEVER MEANT TO!! So now, we need to do what seems best and right for us. We need to ignore their nasty voices in our head, and talk back to them. You are worthwhile and loveable. 

Love always, mar. 

Note AI made the picture at the top, based on past conversations. It's a mash-up of others it has made.  It looks very chaotic because AI's "memory brain" often gets overwhelmed, overstimulated and muddled. AI spells things wrong, confuses ideas and jumbles up concepts. 

And THAT is a perfect reflection of the inner chaos a traumatized child feels. 

Surprising tips to deal with perpetually irritated, irritating people without getting triggered

Hello my friends. Today in the childhood trauma recovery path, I'm exploring some surprise ways to to deal with irritated, irritating people without getting triggered into childhood trauma responses. These are surprising because they go against preconceived notions and social conventions. 

Don't tell them how you feel.

People who are perpetually p-o'd don't care about your feelings. They care about their "right" to be p-o'd. These are usually also arrogant, narcissistic people who don't care about your right to peace of mind. They minimize what they do, tell you you're overreacting, then overreact to anything you may do in response with, wait for it, irritation. There's no winning, only tolerating it or not. They don't care how you feel or if it triggers you. In fact, they'll make fun of you for using words like "trigger" calling it "pop psychology." Which is ironic because she's always triggered and flying off the handle. She just dishes it out without taking it. She'll weaponize your childhood trauma to traumatize you further. It's like the Limu Emu--you can ask him to stop but he's not going to. 

No, you aren't failing to "communicate." 

I just shake my head at the times when, even psychologists will ask you, "have you tried communicating your feelings?" Really, Sherlock? I've been communicating with them since before you were born. And they aren't listening because, again, they don't care about me, only themselves! The more I say, the more pissy they get. As I said before, there's no winning. They only stop when THEY get sick of it. Or when they've gotten their hit of narcissistic supply or adrenaline rush of venting on you. The only way I  know of to avoid the toxic spray is to get out of its path. Read the signs and when they look ready to blow, find another place to be. 

No, they don't have a doctor's slip

It's also crazy the amount of excuse-making enablers and flying monkeys will do to defend the problem. Especially those who don't have to deal with it daily. Maybe he is stressed? Yep so am I, with my own stressors plus having to deal with his uncontrolled behavior. Maybe she has some kind of medical condition that makes her act that way. Maybe. But she also has choices. She doesn't have to lash out. She chooses to. He doesn't have to pout or rant or sulk. He could try being kind and decent, like I do when I'm stressed or struggling with the multitude of health issues that his anger has caused me. 

Beware of medicine or psychology. 

I don't have good experiences with either of these. All psychologists want to talk about is what I'm doing about it. Which makes sense except when it doesn't. If you've tried every way possible and it's not improving, it's not a you thing it's an angry person thing. And, if you try to diagnose, you'll be told even by professionals that you can't diagnose a medical problem because you aren't qualified. Well, if living with it for 62 years isn't qualified I don't know what is. 

Don't "rise above" 

When you talk about coping skills for others' anger, you'll hear how important it is to "rise above" whatever that means, I don't know and neither does the person saying it. Anger begets anger. What goes around, comes around, at some point. No matter how calm you stay, sooner or later, you'll crack if you have to be around toxic anger or chronic irritation. Fact. There's no place you could rise to escape it. What you can do is "float." Imagine yourself riding a calm river past the shitshow the perpetually p-o'd one is creating. You can "observe, but not absorb." If you haven't caused the anger, it's not your problem. Even if you have said something that set them off, how they react is their choice. They aren't above consequences. They where they get to unload on others with bounce back on them. Don't be the bubble wrap they think they're entitled to.  

Don't "be the bigger person." 

That's toxic victim-shaming horse manure. You already are the bigger person just by not doing those things. You couldn't be mature, broad-shouldered or thick-skinned enough to weather another person's constant anger. And your being the bigger person just incenses them and drags them even deeper into the shame cycle. Plus it's kind of self-righteous, condescending energy. What you can do is grey rock. Stay small and quiet. Don't say anything. Don't engage. Don't JADE (justify, answer, defend or explain) yourself. But I do warn you, this isn't sustainable over the long haul. It's for emergencies only. If you have to do this on a regular basis, you're going to resent it after awhile, as well you should. 

If God had wanted us to be silent rocks he wouldn't have made us of flesh with voices. 

Don't take the BAITTTTT

BAIT stands for Bullying, Antagonizing, Isolating and Targeting/Trapping/ Threatening/Terrorizing/Triggering. It's what abusively angry people do to corner you and provoke you into a fight. They're a hot mess dysregulating all over the place and they know it. So they set traps to snare you into their user-generated mess. They goad, antagonize, attack, bully and frighten you.  Don't fall for it. You're not the problem nor do you  have to be the solution. Sitting alone, feeling their own discomfort, is the only way for them to maybe get down off this arrogant high horse they go around on and get their shit together. 

Respect goes both ways. 

We're told, wrongly as it happens, that we must always respect the other person. But respect is not an entitlement. It's earned. I was hounded as a child to "honor your parents" when all I ever did was to honor them while they did NOT honor me. I obeyed disobedient people. I respected disrespectful people. And then we're not told what respect is supposed to look like. So those of us with the fawning childhood trauma response, think it means tolerating abuse. Be careful of people who demand respect without earning it. They are usually arrogant narcissists. Normal don't demand respect, they show it. 

Don't fall for euphemisms 

I find myself doing this all the time, calling anger, rage, fury and verbal assault, "irritation." Or annoyance. That's one mind trick angry people use. And calling them anger issues (like a medical problem), can be a minimizing tactic. Angry people have no issue with their problem. They feel loudly and proudly entitled to venom-spray. They're only "sorry" when their spleen is spent. Then they wave the "forgiveness" card in your face, like it's something they are owed. They talk a lot about changing but most of it is future faking (false promises) and bread crumbing (stringing you along you keep engaging with them.) They make excuses like that exonerates them. But it doesn't heal they harm they've done to their victims. It makes the pain worse. 

Stand your ground. 

Don't let them rewrite the narrative or DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender). Be rubber, not glue. Let their anger bounce off you and back to them. Or better yet, don't be in the way of the ball. Please, use me as an example of what not to do. All my life, I've been the Vel-Cro for everyone else's anger. I let them angrily accuse me of being the angry one. I felt so much shame and guilt for things I didn't do. But that's how gaslighting works--by confusing memory, conflicting stories, undermining confidence and destabilizing you. 

Shun and banish shame

My own childhood trauma at the hands of abusive, malignant narcissistic parents put a target on my back for more abuse. Being an empath and very conscientious, I took criticism very seriously, too seriously in fact. When my mom said I should be ashamed of myself (for what she didn't say) I was. All the time. When my dad shamed me for being too sensitive and a show off attention seeker, I made sure to not show any emotion or self-confidence. I let a bullying passive-aggressive stepmom browbeat me into abject servitude with my dad looking on approvingly. I let an aggressive, bullying stepfather terrorize me with my mom looking on approvingly. Now all that their malignancy lives rent-free as shame in my memory. So I am working to evict that shame for good. 

Keep your own counsel. 

I also made the mistake of sharing too much of this with emotionally unstable people. And it was weaponized against me. I did too much JADE. I let them tell me how it was. I let them define and limit me. I'm learning now to just quietly know what I know. And be who I am. And own my feelings, thoughts, needs and wants. And reach a hand back to be for my inner child what nobody was for me, a loving hand to hold. 

Defogging gaslighting of narcissistic abuse by thinking out loud

Hello my friends. Today in childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm defogging gaslighting by thinking out loud. I'm owning and validating my feelings, thoughts, anger and frustration.  I'm boosting self-confidence and banishing parent-induced shame and confusion. 

Unmask the betrayal

Narcissistic and enmeshed parents aren't just "difficult" or "demanding." They betray us, particularly the scapegoat or "broken vending machine child."  We give good and get bad and they take good and give bad. Our trauma bonding causes betrayal blindness. We never saw how they've been stabbing us in the back and pulling the rug out from under us. This is intentional, not accidental. They do it to destabilize us so we are vulnerable and desperate for any bread crumbing they throw at us. They use DARVO, gaslighting, catfishing and devious confusing double standards. So our job is to see the Decepticon behind the innocent parent mask. And to do this we need to...

Fumigate

So what powers gaslighting? It's gas--lethal, toxic hot air that has no boundaries and seeps into every crack. Gas is a good metaphor for boundary crashing parents who use coercive control to terrorize into complying with their sick, twisted demands. And gassing is a good metaphor for how narcissistic and enmeshed parents poison their child's mind. These hypocrites preach but don't practice all kinds of convoluted rules and commands. They engage in nasty, immoral, unethical, illegal behavior. They gas on and on with their self-serving word salad two sets of rules. So to heal our childhood trauma responses of fawning, people pleasing, appeasing and groveling, we need to air out our brains and breath fresh air of reality.  

Defog FOG

A primary tool arrogant, malignant narcissists use is FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) that we owe them things we don't. They confuse us that we are responsible to and for them ((parentification). Then they who really are our parents, groom us to think they owe us nothing. That anything they do for us comes with unaffordable price tags. They frighten us into betrayal blind obedience. Yet they are disobedient to everyone. They demand respect they don't earn and don't give to others. Defogging means seeing past all the evasions, lies and spun narratives to clear, cold hard facts. These people are imposters. They do not have the power they wield. They just spin a good web of deceit. 

Lean on my own understanding

My dad used to preach-bully this Bible verse at me about how wrong I was by "leaning on my own understanding." I would feel so ashamed and awful, though  he  never said how I was. He just accused. The implication was that I wasn't relying on God. But what he was really saying was that it was him, not God I should be listening to. That he, not God, was the omniscient, omnipotent one. And for me as a bullied child, he and my other three parents were all powerful. They called the shots and dictated my reality even into adulthood. Because early training sticks, good or bad. It directs the way your brain grows. Now I'm starting to correct some of those falsehoods. But good Lord, it's back-breaking all uphill work. 

Talk back to the voices in my head

I hear shaming voices of my toxic parents in every breath I take. I can't take a step without their shaming harassment dogging it. And not hearing them is about as easy as holding back the tide. So now, I'm trying a different approach. I'm talking back to them. This was another thing that was punished: "sassing" "lipping off" back-talking. And everything I said that wasn't "yes ma'am" constituted backtalk. Any answer I gave was me just "defending myself" or making excuses. I never stopped to ask why I would need to defend myself against the people who were supposed to defend me. I never wondered why I had do speak up for myself in the first place. But now I am. And you can bet I'm backtalking their nonsense. And the more I "sass" them, the wronger I realize they were and are. 

Hold their feel to the fire

For all the nasty things they said to and about me, I'm holding them accountable for, instead of myself. For every time I (in my own head) confront them with something they accused me of doing, I find it was them doing it. They weren't just blaming me for their bad choices. They were lying and saying I made them. I was their problem. But as a wise child of whom I'm very proud, just said "he ruined my life." I didn't ruin theirs. This wise child sees, what it took me six decades to, who was the victim and who was the offender. He didn't fall for the DARVO bullshit. He got the order of operations correct. He assigned blame where it belonged. The sad thing is that any child has to do this. 

Think out loud

There's are two contrasting Alanon sayings that help me. 

"Act your way into right thinking, vs. think your way into right acting." 

"Don't just do something, sit there." 

The first, is a a call to affirmative, proactive action as opposed to simply ruminating about childhood trauma. The second is a call to pause and reflect before leaping into reactive trauma responses. This is doing something just to be doing something, rather than constructive action. Which I think should be called "trauma reactions" to show that they are knee-jerk not thought out responses. 

And rumination is just as destructive. As opposed to carefully considering alternative actions and responses, it's endlessly "chewing on" what happened without any end game in mind. It's asking the answerless "why?" instead of productive questions like "what can I do about this now?" 

I'm doing a two-prong plan. I'm thinking out loud and clearly to reorient myself after baffling parent abuse. I'm telling myself the real versions of their weaponized false narratives. I'm explaining to younger self that what happened, happened. I'm not wrong, crazy, or an attention seeking show off. My parents were. And I'm also concurrently, making better choices for myself. Choices like self-care, self-affirmation and trusting myself, that I've known all along were right but which I let them derail me from doing.