Crybully narcissists weaponize "low self-esteem" for emotional blackmail

Hello my friends! Today in my quest to heal childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm exploring the phenomena of the crybully as a narcissistic parent. I'm going to show how the crybully uses his self-professed "low self-esteem" as not a crutch but armor to make him bulletproof against any accusation of bad behavior. 

Crybully crutch

Crybullying is passive aggressively bullying another person by calling them out as the bully. It involves smear campaigns, blame-shifting, DARVO, projection and transference of responsibility off from the actual perpetrator and onto the victim. In my narcissistic parents' case (both mother and father), it included weaponizing "low self-esteem" to garner pity and exoneration from any culpability. They used it to cloak his very selfish, arrogant, entitled, manipulative and antagonistic behavior. 

Crybully = bullying vulnerable narcissist 

Because the crybully is a narcissist bully in disguise. They attack, then lie and say they are being attacked. The use the claim of being picked on to distract attention from the fact that they are the aggressor. And then claim no responsibility because, well, yanno, they feel so badly about themselves. But when you examine the "bullying" he claims to have experienced, you soon see the disconnect. It is revealed as self-pity and self-righteous indignation, not of real injury but narcissistic injury 

Narcissistic Injury vs. real threat

Defining narcissistic injury as the opposite of a "real" injury helps clarify why someone displaying narcissistic traits reacts so disproportionately to everyday disagreements or accountability. Narcissistic injury is not a wound to the actual, internal self, but a perceived attack to the false, projected, grandiose self-image. Because this image is brittle  and depends entirely on external validation (what others think or do), any challenge to it —even minor feedback—feels like an existential threat.

At its core, the difference lies in whether the injury is directed at a person's genuine self or their inflated, fragile false-self.

The Core Difference

Aspect	"Real" (Human) Injury	Narcissistic Injury
Source	A genuine harm, rejection, or failure.	A perceived threat to ego/grandiosity.
Response	Sadness, vulnerability, or desire to repair.	Narcissistic rage, denial, or retaliation.
Perspective	Acknowledges the reality of the situation.	Distortion of reality to protect the ego.
Goal	Processing the pain or resolving the issue.	Restoring power and defending the "false self."

Fake Fawning of Low Self-Esteem

What the vulnerable narcissist says when he talks about his low self-esteem and what he means are very different. And you can actually hear the arrogance, remorselessness and self-pity in it. He says things like "I don't think much of myself. Don't expect anything of me. I'm broken. I'm lost. I can't be held to normal rules because I am so sad. You can't judge me anymore harshly than I already judge myself. Oh woe is me, nobody understands me, how I've suffered, everyone is just so critical of me, you're all out to get me." He says it with heavy sigh, seemingly bowed down by the weight of his poor self-image. 

The real message, decoded

But the operative words are "me" "I" and "self." He is completely self-absorbed, blind to anyone else and selfish as they come. The translation is: I think very highly of myself and you'd better too! I am special and above it all. You've all failed me. I deserve loyalty and respect. I don't have to earn it! You have to earn my respect and you never will! And don't you dare think you're going hold me to accountability. This gaslighting nonsensical word salad designed to throw off any suspicion. 

The grandiose vulnerable narcissist

You can tell more about the real person by what they do, right? A person may say "I'm so quiet and shy." But if they act very vivacious and loud, then you suspect that "shy" as an act or facade. That's the hypocrisy of the grandiose vulnerable narcissist who proclaims to have low self-esteem while acting very arrogant. It's the behavior to watch for, not the words. Even the way they talked and said things revealed their larger than life nature. Their words have a smug, self-satisfied, holier-than-thou ring to them which does juxtapose well with their supposedly humble and self-effacing act. And that reveals a lot about the self-deluded nature, false sense of importance, of narcissism, 

The irony of coincidence

You can always tell, not just by what the crybully does and says but when he says it. The cries of bullying come out because someone has confronted or outed the crybully with her own bad behavior. She is embarrassed and doesn't like feeling small. So she comes out swinging. Sometimes it's anticipatory when she knows she's about to be exposed. This is reaction formation. Get your version of the story in first before anyone else, so that when they do, people will already have your version in their minds. It's a known thing the first version is usually the accepted one and any other version has to work extra hard to get credited. The crybully will DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender). She tells the story in such a way to paint herself the innocent victim and everyone else as the problem. She makes all these strange unsubstantiated accusations for pity and to shield herself from exposure. 

What overreacting reveals

You can see narcissistic injury in these three things:

• Disproportionate: When a person with healthy self-esteem is criticized, they may feel hurt or defensive, but they are generally capable of processing the information. When a person with narcissistic traits is "injured," they do not see feedback; they see an attack. Their internal architecture lacks a mechanism to absorb criticism without it feeling like they are being dismantled or erased.

• Aggressive: Instead of vulnerability, the narcissistic injury triggers a "fight" response. This is often called narcissistic rage. The goal is not to fix the relationship or improve, but to neutralize the threat and re-establish their superiority. This leads to common behaviors such as:

  • Blame-shifting and Projection: "I didn't fail; you sabotaged me."

  • Smear Campaigns: Tearing down the other person's reputation to maintain their own.

  • Playing the Victim: Transforming their aggression into a narrative where they are the ones being bullied.

• Hypocritical They play by two sets of rules, one for them and one for everyone else. They viciously attack others for the same things they exempt themselves from. When you do something  minor to them, it's intentional and horrific. When they do something insensitive, ugly, reactionary intentional and horrific it's fine. You're just oversensitive and overreacting. 

The Blame-Shame-Game

In the case of a narcissistic injury, the person feels narcissistic shame, which is not the same as constructive guilt. My dad dumped all the time about feeling so guilty. But he never changed his behavior. He weaponized it to make me feel FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) to him. I don't think he actually felt guilty as in wrong for his behavior. Because narcissists are never wrong or at fault. Someone else is always to blame, and they'll lie, twist, gaslight and throw anyone under the bus to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions. 

They don't acknowledge, they leverage shame

It's not just that narcissists can't stand feeling shame. It's worse. My malignant narcissist parents weaponized their supposed guilt feelings to punish me in sneaky insidious ways. They don't address the fact that what they did was shameful and that's why they're feeling that way. They don't even just attack clean. The crybully uses emotional black mail. He hide his passive-aggressive, underhanded nasty words and behaviors behind a smokescreen of low self-esteem. He defends his actions by claiming to feel so "terrible" about himself and can't help it.  No compassionate person is going to question the motives and actions of a person who already feels low about himself. At least I never did. I just absorbed and shielded him. 

Feeling guilty is not feeling remorse

My mom and dad were always bemoaning feeling so guilty. But they said it in petulant, resentful and self-pitying way. As if guilt was something they should never have to feel. They would blame me, in backhanded comments, saying "I know you think I'm wrong, bad, etc." I never said any of those things but should have. And they never said what they felt guilty for. So they weren't actually feeling guilty as in ashamed and sorrowful. Someone else was "making them feel guilty." They never once admitted to doing anything wrong and never once genuinely apologized. The scant few "sorrys" were sorry I got caught or "sorry you feel that way." Not real contrition. 

Feigned Weaponized low self-esteem 

A person with truly low self-esteem is too humble. We already believes the worst about ourselves. If you confront us, we go into the grovel fawn trauma response. We abase ourselves. We accept full responsibility and more. We blames ourselves for everything and feel intense guilt. We don't make excuses. In fact we take on everyone else's shame as well. This is nothing like a narcissist's faked low self-esteem which is manipulative and exploitative. 

The crux of it

The fact that the crybully narcissist reacts with affronted rage rather than remorse proves that he thinks very highly of himself. He feels self-righteous entitlement to lash out because his "rights" to whatever he imagines he has a right to, including what is rightfully yours,  have been "violated." His behavior is far more bullying and abusive than anything you supposedly did to him. He mows down your boundaries and spews venom everywhere. There is no low to which he won't stoop and feels completely justified. Suddenly his "low self-esteem" doesn't seem like a handicap for him, but a weapon to control you and the narrative, that he wields with deadly accuracy. 

Unmasking the charlatan: proceed with caution

When you confront a bully on his behavior, you show him up.  You tell him he's not special. Rules apply to her. And now that you are onto him, you don't provide the narcissistic supply he craves. You don't cover for him. You see his "low self-esteem" as just another pity party. You don't accept it as an excuse for his bad behavior. And then he reveals his true colors, in towering, unhinged narcissistic rage.   And he looks the fool he is. Now he proves with his exhibition, that he is an imposter. A fraud. His cover is blown and everyone sees. They start to treat him differently. 

People feel sorry for people with low self-esteem. So while she was the poor, pitiful one, they cut her slack. But people hate and fear bullies. So once her chicanery is revealed, watch out. She is even more dangerous. 

Read, mark and inwardly digest

So it's important to recognize the bully in the crybully. It's important to acknowledge that their behavior is egregiously, unwarranted cruelty, not just a response to provocation. It's essential to get order of operations straight--who is the bully and who is the bullied. It's crucial to admit to yourself how they have hurt you and to get help with that. You'll feel a lot better if you stop pumping them up and taking the fallout for their actions. BUT 99% if not all of this should be kept to yourself. We must hold them responsible only in our own minds. Once you show your hand, they will be out for blood. Confronting a raging narcissistic bully is as safe as putting your head in a shark's mouth. That's why many of us found going no contact to be the only workaround. But not everyone can do that. 

In situ workarounds

I had to go no contact because I'd been in narcissistic parent abuse too long and too deep for any recovery of those relationships. And I had to do it to help safeguard my own now nuclear family. But I'm not a kid anymore. Some kids don't have much choice, as I once had no choice. So in the now of narcissistic abuse, some thoughts that I would tell my younger self:

• It's not you. It's not your fault. It's theirs. 
• You aren't obligated to fix them, just you. 
• They owe you but they're probably never going to pay and if they do it will too late or just token payments with a lot expectation. 
• Radical acceptance is key. 
• Seek out support. Tell trusted people what is happening. If I'd told my grandparents, I'm pretty sure they'd have helped. 
• Admit your hurt to that safe person. My grandparents should have known and I think they did turn a blind eye to some extent. It was pretty blatant. But I think they'd have done what they could. 
• Do well in school so you can get self-sufficient ASAP. 
• Know that there are people out there who understand and care. 
• Surprise tip: I found a lot of solidarity in Reddit threads regarding narcissistic parents and AITA and Entitled People. These subreddits are excellent places to find others who have walked the same path and are currently navigating the complexities of narcissistic abuse and toxic family dynamics. Here are the links to the main hubs for those communities:

  • r/NarcissisticParents: This is a dedicated support community specifically for those who were raised by or are currently dealing with parents who display narcissistic traits. It is a highly validating space for sharing experiences, venting, and learning coping mechanisms.

  • r/AmItheAsshole (AITA): While this is a broader subreddit where people share conflicts to get a "judgment" on who is in the wrong, it frequently features stories about manipulative family members, "crybullies," and boundary-crossing behavior. It can be very useful for seeing how outside observers identify toxic patterns.

  • r/EntitledPeople: This community focuses on stories of people who exhibit extreme entitlement and lack of consideration for others. It is often where you will find the most relatable examples of the "crybully" behavior you described—those who act out and then play the victim when confronted.

Dehumanizing Parentification and Infantilization hypocrisy of Enmeshed Narcissistic parent abuse

 Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm unpacking some major hypocrisies I experienced from four enmeshed controlling, demanding parents. Yesterday I recalled with a shock one incident that put these double standards in perspective. An incident so disturbing that trauma bonding and betrayal blindness had made me see it completely wrong for over 40 years.  

Gaslighting of Parentification + Infantilization 

My parents not only parentified me (made me parent them and their children) they also dehumanized me with infantilization. And not the overprotective kind. I experienced infantilization as being stripped of basic rights and choices and being treated like I was too feeble minded to think for myself. I was ironically expected to act and think like an adult and their parent while being treated like an incompetent child. This created untold childhood trauma responses of fawning and self-harming people pleasing. 

"My trauma brain was too young to be this responsible. But then my narcissistic parents gaslit me that my 'failure' was due to irresponsibility... I was too 'foolish' and inept to be allowed to make my own choices."

Gaslighting tricked me on both counts

Being gaslit into thinking I must behave like an adult as a child caused endless anxious hypervigilance, even more intense that an adult parent for a child. They would shame and berate me, then tell me that this was why they had to treat me like a child. I was too "foolish" and inept to be allowed to make my own choices.  

Problem was, I was too "ept." As a child, I functioned too well as an adult. Like the broken vending machine child I was made to be, I kept paying out at my own expense. And they kept belittling, invalidating, chipping away at any self-esteem I had. So when they treated me like a child, my trauma brain so only my failure and thought I deserved it. But I was only "failing" at impossible expectations to be an adult before I was ready and a parent when I shouldn't  have been. 

The Contagious Catch-22

And that created even more problems. No good deed a child does goes unpunished by narcissistic parents. Had I been a little less successful at this parentification game, I might have been better off. If I had refused or told someone what they were doing. But I didn't understand because they had me so confused. And like the stoic parent, I just complied with my "children's" wishes. I humored and placated them. And they didn't thank me for it. There is this endless merry-go-round loop that obedience and catering to enmeshed narcissistic parents gets you. And that is even more petulance, demands and fault-finding. And they pass on this entitlement like a disease to anyone else who want a piece of you. 

The Broken Vending Machine Child gives not only with no reciprocity but also no tools. She's expected to act like an adult with no adult agency. She all the work with none of the perks. And this makes her very vulnerable to predators. 

 The Betrayal Blindness Duck Blind

Here's an illustrative situation that shows the bumpy road of trauma bonded betrayal blindness I lived on. My dad has acted very weirdly inappropriate with me. And my mom was no better. Then they divorced and married new arrogant, entitled abusive partners. They'd abandon, neglect, exploit, endanger and abuse me routinely. Then swoop in and drag me into yet another dangerous situation. I was surrogate spouse and parent, therapist, caregiver, prop and arm candy. One of the milder examples was when my dad, 36, started dating a 17-y/o "Karen" still in high school, when I was 9. He take me roller-skating, I now see, to lure young girls. Then her parents ended it and he married a woman who was only 14 years older than me. He gave carte blanche to use me as a servant, scapegoat and surrogate parent. She took full advantage of that. But I never saw what was wrong with all this.

Narcissistic parents invite others to exploit their children, if it gets the parent something. 

The Trauma Bond Trap

I was actually surrogate spouse and parent, servant and scapegoat to all four of my parents. Yet I depended on them for survival so I had to go along to get along. My poor trauma brain was exhausted from being their Broken Vending Machine Child, always giving out good and getting nothing but harm in return. So fast forward to age 19. I'm in college and I meet one of my stepmom's cousins "Ted" who is rich and about maybe 13 years older than me. I didn't think much of it. But come to find out, years later,  he had asked my dad if he thought I would be interested in dating him. My dad said no, he forbid it and never told me. Remember, I was 19, past the age of majority. When I heard the story, I thought oh, this must prove that my dad maybe does love me. Though his track record proved otherwise. 

I believed all these years that my dad had my best interests at heart when he was only, ever interested in me for narcissistic supply.

Gaslight clears when the lightbulb goes on

Just yesterday, out of the blue, I saw that situation which I hadn't thought of in years, in a new light. I saw that the control freak behind the "caring parent" who had never cared for me. My dad had turned a blind eye to countless dangerous situations I'd been in. HE  had made me vulnerable by teaching me that my self-care was selfish. I have been exploited and harmed by so many people over the years. And all because my dad didn't care. So why this sudden concern for me now?  

Narcissistic parents think only of themselves

I saw clearly for the first time, the layers of hypocrisy. He didn't care about me. He cared about control and keeping me under his thumb. This man who bailed on his parental duties time and again still felt entitled to a buy-in on who I dated as an adult. He thought he had the right to "forbid" me dating Ted. Yet, YET this same man who said the age difference was too big between us, DATED AND WANTED TO MARRY A GIRL YOUNG ENOUGH TO BE HIS DAUGHTER! 

Out-of-control narcissists over-control others. The more someone demands his rights the less he respects everyone else's. Those who scream loudest about loyalty, obligation, obedience and respect owed them, are the most disloyal, irresponsible, disobedient and disrespectful. 

The secret agenda shell game 

Now I know, the flying monkeys like my stepmommy dearest will say, oh your dad just wanted you not to make the same mistake he did. No. Wrong. Because he never admitted he was wrong to hit on a child. He was angry with her parents for denying him his "right" to date her. All he felt was wounded narcissistic injury. And the fact that he never told me about Ted's interest in me, just proves he wasn't interested in my welfare just throwing his weight around. He never liked Ted and was jealous of his wealth. My dad and his new wife also hated each other. Dad was just looking for an excuse to stick it to her and her  family. And thwarting my happiness, making me feel small, stupid and powerless, was just bonus added narcissistic supply.  

Narcissists are tricky and sneaky script-flippers. 

It was my mistake to make

Interestingly, turns out, Ted was not a very good person. And I was dating someone else at the time. Which supposedly was a reason my dad never told me. But he had it in for that guy too. Not because Dad loved me so much. He just didn't want to lose control of me. And my free live-in maid and nannying services. And I probably wouldn't have dated Ted anyway. But all that is beside the point. It was my decision to make, not my dad's. He had no right to keep it from me. It's like diverting someone's mail ostensibly to "protect them." That is illegal. It is mail fraud. Regardless of any outcome, it is their letter to do with as they wish. 

I had proved, though I shouldn't have had to prove anything, my ability to succeed without their help. I deserved the right to fail on my own too. 

The inherent infantilization in it all

The fact that my dad didn't tell me, shows he thought I was too stupid to make good choices. It also shows how arrogant, entitled and manipulative he was hiding information. He really thought he owned me. I was 19, and finally really an adult, not just a child expected to act like an adult. I was a 4.0 college student. And I was older than poor Karen, whom he wanted to make my stepmom (!) A caring, supportive dad would have told me, explained his concerns and left me to make my choice. Even if it had all gone wrong, it was my choice, not his His was the responsibility to help me with the consequences. But then he was never there for me as a child. 

The audacious arrogant lies

Lies are not just told. We lie by what we hide as much as by what we say.

This is what galls me the most. On top of treating me like a foolish child expecting me to screw up, were the lies and coverups. My dad knew but told my stepmom not me. My stepmom knew. Yet never told me. I, who had raised their kids, apparently couldn't be trusted with knowledge that would affect only me. If they were so concerned, why tell me at all? I think it was to rub in my face how they could and did control me. She was certainly very smug about it. She knew my dad never told me and she knew why. Because they were both arrogant control freaks who thought they knew best on things that were none of their business. And they resented the fact that I would get nice things, I guess. 

And then I wonder, what else did they hide from me...?

Retrospective resentment as reclamation

I don't regret for a moment not having dated Ted. If I had even decided to which I doubt. I thought he was weird and gave off the same creepy pedophiliac vibes my dad did. I ended up marrying that other guy I was dating and I love my life now. But this has nothing to do with Ted or any of that. It's about the anger I feel at having been duped. Of being played and manipulated and controlled. It's about how I believed all these years that I was the problem. How I trusted faithless, untrustworthy people.  I begrudge him never having told me the truth. I resent his arrogant meddling. I'm not mad he never admitted or apologized. I'm angry that I never confronted him because I never saw his true colors. I'm sad that my inner child always defended these very offensive people. 

We're told resentment is bad. However children of narcissists don't resent enough. We WERE resented and we have absorbed this as something that was our fault. We resented and hated ourselves. It is a necessary to feel and express the frustration, to begin healing from childhood trauma.  

Childhood trauma recovery takeaway for today 

Traumatized children need to fume, for awhile. In fact, we need to do a lot of things we were told were wrong. Like hate, resent and rage at all the abuse we suffered. We need to hold the guilty responsible. We need to blame the perpetrators instead of ourselves. Only then can we get to a place of genuine self-respect. The pendulum swung too far in the wrong direction and now to balance it, we need to swing it in the other direction. 

At its core, resentment is an emotional alarm system. It is the bitter indignation felt at having been treated unfairly. It is a secondary emotion—a protective shell built over primary feelings like sadness, hurt, vulnerability, or anger.

When you are raised by narcissistic parents, your "alarm system" is frequently sabotaged. You are often told that your feelings of unfairness are "wrong," "ungrateful," or "dramatic," which leads to internalized resentment—the feeling that you are the problem, or that your existence itself is an inconvenience.

For a survivor of childhood trauma, moving into resentment is actually a developmental milestone. Here is why:

• It marks the end of "Betrayal Blindness": You cannot feel resentment toward someone you are still idealizing or making excuses for. When you finally allow yourself to feel resentful, it means you have stopped protecting your abuser.

• It validates your boundaries: Resentment is the internal "No!" that you were never allowed to say out loud. It is the ego re-asserting that your time, energy, and life belong to you, not to them.

• It is the "Heated" version of Truth: While anger is often a quick, fiery reaction, resentment is a slow-burning realization that a debt is owed. In your case, it is the recognition that your parents stole your childhood, your agency, and your autonomy.

A steady slow burn of tempered resentment must remain. This is what keeps it real. We must never forget what they did, lest we let down our guard and allow them back in to continue the hurt. We must keep them at arm's length and grow long arms. If you once let abusive narcissist parents back in after distancing, they will keep double down on the hurt as back payment for what they were thwarted of while you held them at bay. Keeping a grounded, clear-headed distance with very sturdy boundaries is the only way forward. 

Then, and only then, can we even start to think about forgiveness. But forgiveness only in radical acceptance that the past will never be any different than it was. For me, that's the only possible forgiveness. Because it's not, never was and never should have been about them, what they need, are owed, etc. It. Is. About. Me. And. You. 
 

The slippery slopes of unconditional love in narcissistic families

Hello my friends. In my quest to heal childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm looking at why unconditional agape love is a dangerous thing to preach to an abused kid.  Agape love is a chosen act of intentional goodwill toward all and unconditional positive regard (UPR) is a decision to love without any reward, expectation, reciprocity, even if the loved person is cruel. I'm using the metaphor of mountains which in my poems represent safety but in my trauma brain, danger.

Both of these are tricky for abused kids. UPR says love the sinner, not the sin. But that's a hair-splitting dichotomy that regularly abused kids don't have the luxury of separating out. We already unconditionally love our parents. And our narcissistic parents demand love which they don't give. But betrayal blindness and trauma bonding make us unable to acknowledge. To navigate this treacherous cognitive dissonance, we compartmentalize and dissociate. We stay silent about abuse and end up condoning their sin. They coerce compliance and then exploit it to abuse us further. 

💡 Cognitive Dissonance & Condoning Abuse 

A child does not have the cognitive or emotional development to separate a parent's identity from their abusive behavior, especially when that behavior determines the child's daily safety. When a child is told to unconditionally accept a cruel parent under the guise of "loving the sinner," the child is forced to resolve the intolerable friction of cognitive dissonance by minimizing the abuse. If the parent cannot be bad, then the child must be bad, or the abuse must not be that bad. This forces the child into the tragic position of silently approving the very behavior that is destroying them.

The Slippery Slopes of Agape Love

This mountain range of problems with unconditional agape love are multitudinous.  Even the Bible can confused me because it read as slanted in the my narcissistic parents' favor and weaponized by them against me. They bound me to burdens they didn't carry. And micro-inspected the speck in my eye through eyes blinded by boards.  

• Hypocrisy Hills: The Love Chapter 1 Corinthians 13 has a lot to say about love. It is the antithesis of narcissism. But narcissists read it as what they are OWED. And they taught me it was what I OWE. And boy, is this recipe for gaslighting the Broken Vending Machine child. I was expected to be all these things without being given a one of them. 

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (NIV) 

⚠️ The Polar Opposite Inversion

"As I loved them with all my heard, my impatient, unkind, jealous, arrogant, boastful, dishonoring, disrespectful, self-serving, rageful, grudge-holding, score-keeping parents loved wickedness. They endangered, distrusted, broke my trust, set me up and let me down. And this is the definition of narcissism."

• Foothills of FOG: Narcissistic parents begin as they mean to continue. From birth, they indoctrinate the child into their narcissistic cult. She is born into indentured servitude to them. They drill her in fear, obligation and guilt. I had to be hypervigilant and prepared to jump through their constantly moving hoop field. I had to anticipate their demands. And I was continually shamed and humiliated over "failure" to please them. 

  Role Reversal & The "Broken Vending Machine"

  I coined (wow just saw that irony) the term "Broken Vending Machine child" to show the broken transaction between a narcissistic parent and child. The child drops endless coins in but nothing drops down. Then she is treated like the reverse broken vending machine being kicked and shaken to dispense endless love, obedience, hypervigilance, care and goodies with no coins put in. 

• Pointless Point: There's no need to tell a child to love. We are born loving our parents. It's how the species survives. Where it breaks down for kids of enmeshed narcissist parents is that they don't love us. They use and abuse us. Because narcissists believe we are obligated to them, and they are obligated to no one. Even their own parents.  

• Preachin' to the Choir Peak: I sat through endless church sermons on how love is patient, kind, merciful, yada yada. I got it. I never didn't try to live that. But the preacher was pointing his finger in the wrong direction. It's my parents who needed Sunday school lesson on 1 Corinthians 13. Although trauma bonding, betrayal blindness and gaslighting made me unable to see how they were failing Love 101. 

• Asymmetrical Ascent. So our journey up this mountain was unequally two-sided. On my side were all treacherous rocky, stumbling block "thou shalls and shall nots."  While on the other side of the mountain my parents got a free pass on the ski lift to the top. 

• Muddled Mountain: The problem with unconditional love is that love by nature is conditional. Even the Bible says so as per 1 Cor. 13. Love behaves a certain way. And by ignoring the unloving behavior we give it license. If God has conditions, so must we. This doesn't mean we hate people who hurt us. But must acknowledge abuse and protect ourselves. Because hurtful people only exploit forgiveness as that free lift ticket to keep on hurting us. So all our grand notions of love and mercy, effectively throw out the baby and leave us in the dirty bathwater. 

• Slippery Slopes of Sin: We're told the sins of the fathers are visited on the children. And I think we've misunderstood when it comes to parent abuse. We say it means the kids imitate the sin. But in my experience the, child takes the consequences of their sins. And all that burden makes climbing already slippery slopes impossible. 

• Pitfall Pass: This way looks safe but narcissistic parents have hidden booby trapped the trail.  Everything is fraught with danger. They weaponize and manipulate simple things. Basic care is denied, just to make the child vulnerable and weak. Everything is is an unwritten transaction that they never pay up on. They bind the child to contracts she never even got to read let alone sign. Then they break them. 

• Camo Cliff. Nothing is genuine and everything is deceptive in narcissistic families. No good deed goes unpunished.  A kind word comes back to bite. Gifts have strings attached. Comments are loaded. Snide, passive-aggressive jibes are cloaked as compliments. Vicious, spiteful, punitive, malicious punishment is dressed as gentle Biblical reproof. Random things are exaggerated into federal crimes. Narcissistic rage blasts come without warning. Jeering is passed off as "just a joke." Insensitive cruelty is spun as the child being too sensitive. Blame shifting obscures the real perpetrator and wrongly accuses the innocent child. 

• Bandit Gulch: Enmeshed parents blatantly steal from the child and gaslight her that it never happened. She imagined it. Everything from identity theft, to boyfriends, to security to privacy. My mother took my entire Canadian money collection (about $50 in 1972) and blamed my best friend. My dad "gave me" a little boy's race car set for my 15th birthday. So I'd be forced to play with it with his sons. Then he took it back when I left. These are two of many their highway robberies. 

• Broken Bend: Whatever they can't steal, they break. They destroy family, her sense of self, relationships with God and other people. They flip everything topsy-turvy from normal. They erode her foundations by break trust and destabilizing her. 

• The Range of Role Reversal: Narcissistic parents parentify the child making her responsible to and for them and anyone else they decide to enslave her to. 

🔄 Parentification, infantilization and the Emotional Debt Narcissists believe they are permanently owed, but never owe anything in return. By forcing the child into role reversal, the parent abdicates their responsibility to provide safety and instead demands that the child regulate the parent's shifting emotional states. The child becomes an emotional caretaker for a debt they never signed up to pay. But then the parents switch around and infantilize the child when it suits them. They expect her to act like an adult as a child while they act like spoiled brats. Then they play the parent when someone is watching. But it's performative. 

• Gaslighting Gorge: Narcissistic parents don't just lie. They twist, distort, deceive and DARVO (deny responsibility, attack, reverse victim offender roles). The way is choked with gas fumes that kill off healthy self-care and leave only trauma responses.  
  💔 The Interrupted Cycle

  "Love is supposed to go out from parents to encircle children. In narcissistic broken circle families, love goes out from a child but never comes back around to her."

• Bizarre Butte: This is a narrow flat top traumatized children are forced onto with no resources and no place to go except over the edge. They're expected to work miracles on this tiny surface. And being put on a pedestal is not a good thing. There's no room to move. There's no winning only falling off. Nothing is normal and straight-forward for the child of narcissists. Everything is chaotic, needlessly stressful shaky, insubstantial and insecure. 

• Cloudy Calamity Cliff. Trauma bonding, parent enmeshment and gaslighting have clouded out judgement and reason. We don't see the edge until we've stepped over it and plummeting. But it was no accident. 

• Blind Man's Bluff: The problem is we kids don't see the edge that we're about to fall over. We were blindfolded, with a millstone placed around our neck and then led astray.
  

  
  📌 Betrayal Blindness & The Survival Split To survive a hostile environment, a child must remain blind to the parent's betrayal. The brain handles this by compartmentalizing: it splits off the terrifying reality of the abuse (the Emotional Part) so that the child can continue to love, attach to, and depend on the caregiver (the Apparently Normal Part). Preaching unconditional love to a child in this state essentially demands that they deepen their own dissociation to keep the peace.

• "Can't see the Trees" Forest: The child is deprived of basic needs. She's neglected, abandoned and endangered. She's moved far from loving family where they can hide the abuse. It's not glaringly but it's visible if you look. And most people don't. They accept on face value that those who call themselves parents, actually parent. And it hides in plain sight because where do you hide a tree? In a forest. Where do you hide abuse? Inside a house that looks like every other house on the block. Except it isn't. My back story is pretty weird and someone should have seen but they didn't because my abusers called themselves parents and people believed them because what parent harms their child?  

• Coercive Control Freak Canyon This is vast empty space with way too much room for abuse. Dysfunctional, dysregulated, enmeshed parents are control freaks who use no self-control. They trample boundaries, ride herd over privacy and hog all the oxygen. They will do anything to get what they want. 

⚠️ The Coerced Compliance Loop

In a narcissistic family system, religious or moral texts are often used inverted. The child is gaslit into believing that being "patient, kind, and keeping no record of wrongs" means they must have no boundaries, no anger, and no memory of how they are being mistreated. This transforms a passage about love into a blueprint for enduring subjugation.

• Summit of Smug, Superior Self-Righteousness: Above it all is the parents' firm conviction of being above it all. They believe they are beyond reproach. Untouchable. They have been gifted a cloak of immunity that protects them and enables them to pass judgement while bypassing consequences. They have dispensation to dictate rules and mores they don't abide by. 

• Valley of the Shadow of Death. But they can't escape those wages of sin forever. Because at the bottom of all these mountains is a death valley running through. No matter how the bandy about their "Christianity" or some other religiosity, narcissists will lose. They may scale the peaks of pride by as they say, it comes with a fall. All their entitlement leads to immorality, debauchery and moral bankruptcy. And those have price tag and it is damnation. That's not me, that's God. 

I think it's time to write new commandments on love for traumatized kids. I'll write more on those tomorrow. I'm exhausted and maybe you are too. Just for today, I'm sitting with it and holding space. 

Unconditional Agape love is dangerous religious gaslighting for kids of narcissistic parents

Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm exploring how Agape or unconditional love is dangerous religious gaslighting for kids of narcissistic parents to practice. Psychologist and narcissism expert Dr. Ramani discussed how unconditional love, also called unconditional positive regard (UPR), is self-harm on YouTube recently. And it got me recalling all damage I've experienced from being force-fed on it. 

Definitions reveal dangers

I'll begin by breaking down what UPR and agape love entail. And I think you'll be able to see how harmful it is, when expected from children of narcissists by not reciprocated by parents. The operative word being "expected." We had no choice to participate in this double standard hypocrisy. As the Broken Vending Machine child, I had to give all good while receiving only hurt in return. The directional nature of the unconditional love was flip-flopped. 

Unconditional Love: The Relational Application of UPR

In the context of UPR, unconditional love is the choice to extend complete acceptance to a specific person, separating who they are from what they do. It is based on the UPR theory advanced by psychoanalyst Dr. Carl Rogers. 

• The Core Definition: It is love given freely without strings, caveats, or expectations of return. It's non-judgmental tolerance and goodwill.  

• The UPR Connection: Rogers argued that a person needs UPR to achieve "self-actualization." Unconditional love provides this exact environment. It says, "I accept you exactly as you are, with all your flaws, mistakes, and defenses. My love for you is not contingent upon your performance, your utility to me, or your compliance with my wishes."

• The Human Element: Because it is usually relational (e.g., a parent for a child, or a spouse), human unconditional love can still feel deeply personal, intimate, and emotional. The order of operations matters. 
  

  
  
  
  

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2. Agape Love: The Universal Extension of UPR

While unconditional love is typically directed at a specific loved one, Agape love (traditionally a philosophical and theological term) is the universal, transcendent extension of Unconditional Positive Regard to all of humanity. (NB: sounds great in theory, but almost impossible to practice.)

• The Core Definition: Agape is a deliberate, volitional choice to desire the absolute highest good for another person, regardless of whether you know them, like them, or agree with them. It is entirely selfless and altruistic.

• The UPR Connection: Agape is UPR operating at scale. It requires the ultimate separation of a person’s behavior from their inherent worth. To practice agape love through a UPR lens means looking at an enemy, a stranger, or someone causing harm, and recognizing their fundamental humanity. It doesn't condone their actions, but it refuses to strip them of their human value.

• The Philosophical Element: Agape is less about an emotional "feeling" and entirely about a spiritual or ethical stance of goodwill. 

DANGERS: Agape love seems more doable and reasonable but that in itself creates more slippery slopes for narcissistically abused children. We were made to condone the actions of our parents with no reciprocity given to us. We had to practice what they preached. And this gaslighting taught us no self-care skills. We extend limitless clemency and approval to all, heedless of the harm it does us. And predators and perpetrators exploit this to hurt us because our parents set the example and gave them carte blanche by neglecting to protect us. 

But love IS conditional, says God

Over and over again, God says what love is and isn't. Love is conditional in the sense that there are certain requirements we must meet to call what we do, love. 

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (NIV)

So you might say, those are definitions not conditions. That is what narcissists do. They split hairs. They polarize and set up odd hypocritical double standards. Because these are both definitions and conditions. They are the biosphere that love lives in. Without them, love can't exist. But I'll make it plainer. Lord's Prayer, said by Jesus, "forgive us our sins AS WE forgive others." It's transactional. We love because he loved us. We forgive as He forgives us.  

Later he says, you say you love me but you don't do what I tell you to. Love one another. And he breaks it down further. Whatever you do to the least (youngest) of my brothers, you do to me. So if you love a child, you love God. If you hurt a child, you hurt God. Love is transactional. It must be given and returned. Both parties must pay it out. 

Love is an action verb. 

Love is a two-way street not a one-sided expectation

And here's a big gaslighting disconnect that narcissistic parents love to exploit. They flip the love light switch back and forth to suit their selfish ends. On the child, off them. They shine the spotlight on the child putting endless demands on her to show them love. And they turn it away from their own shady unloving abuse. They expect the child to overlook, excuse and defend all their bad actions. While denying her her basic rights to parental love. They put all kinds of impossible stipulations around it as if love is something she must earn. While taking full advantage of all God's promises they feel they are owed. They do not show mercy in return. They swallow the camel of their own sin and strain at the gnat of the child's. They're speck inspectors, blinded by the board in their own eyes. 

WARNING Light Out AHead

So we need to be really careful how we preach to trauma bonded children of narcissists about unconditional love. Us kiddos get the message, we give it, but we never got it in return.

Love is betrayal blind

Nobody needs to tell a child to love her parents. It's hardwired in. But a traumatized child doesn't get loved BY the parents she loves and who are supposed to love her. It's all kinds of broken. Betrayal blindness kept some us in the dark for decades of our lives. While we still kept paying out all the crazy demands put on us, with not thought of reciprocity from parents. This train runs only one way for children of narcissists. 

How Narcissistic Parent Abuse Creates a Broken Vending Machine Child

Hello my friends of this blog. First, before we delve into today's discussion on childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse, I want to thank you all. I appreciate your readership, and for "silently" walking with me on this very difficult path. And I want to invite you to leave a message telling me about yourself, your story, if you feel comfortable. So, back to the topic. Today I'm going to show how my narcissist parents created a Broken Vending Machine Child in me. 

What is a Broken Vending Machine Child? 

It's not a term you'll find in any search because I just coined it a few months ago. Broken Vending Machine is the term I use explain the kind of person I am as a result of being raised in a very dysfunctional family by four narcissistic parents (two bio and two stepparents). I came up with it because although my "family" very clearly assigned dysfunctional family roles, there wasn't one that fit the rather unique situation I grew up in. I was made to serve a variety of these roles depending the individual demands of these four selfish, manipulative people called parents. So first, I'll give a rundown of the usual dysfunctional or systemic family roles. 

Dysfunctional Family Roles

The theory behind these roles was popularized largely by family therapists like Virginia Satir and Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse. These are not actual roles but "parts" assigned by the dysfunctional family. The parents are narcissists, addicts, abusive, neglectful, inconsistent, chaotic or in some way very damaging to their children. Instead of loving and nurturing, the family unit acts as an unstable ecosystem. To maintain a sense of balance (homeostasis) and to preserve their image of normal, the parents force the children into these unnatural, unhealthy, unsafe archetypal roles. And to cope with the chronic stress, children unconsciously play the parts assigned to them. Here is a breakdown of the classic family roles often discussed in psychological literature:

1. The Scapegoat (The Problem Child)

• The Role: This child is blamed for the family’s problems. They are often targets of emotional abuse, projection, and hostility.

• The Function: They serve as a distraction. By focusing all the family's negative energy and blame onto the scapegoat, the parents can avoid addressing the actual core issues (like addiction, marital strife, or parental narcissism). Failing on anyone else's part is blamed on the scapegoat. 

• Internal Experience: Deep rejection, self-loathing, frustration, grief, anger, and loneliness.

2. The Golden Child (The Hero)

• The Role: This child can do no wrong. All resources are channeled to them. Any failing on their part is blamed on the scapegoat. The parents always  take their part and divert consequences onto the scapegoat. This makes the Golden child look more successful than they really are. 

• The Function: They provide the family with a positive public image and validation, proving to the outside world that the family is "successful" and healthy. In families with narcissistic parents, the golden child's success is often an illusion of the parents' while the rest of world sees them as average or even underachieving. 

• Internal Experience: May feel intense pressure to perform, anxiety, and a belief that they are only loved for what they do, not who they are. Or they may be lazy because the parents have made everything too  easy for them. They may also become arrogant and superior because they've been groomed to believe they are above reproach. 

3. The Mascot (The Clown)

• The Role: The mascot uses humor, silliness, or hyperactive behavior to lighten the mood.

• The Function: They act as a pressure valve, interrupting high-stress situations or conflicts with comedy or distraction to diffuse tension before it boils over.

• Internal Experience: Fear, anxiety, and hiding pain behind a smiling mask.

4. The Lost or "Glass" Child (The Invisible Child)

• The Role: This child flies completely under the radar. They are quiet, solitary, demand very little attention, and disappear into the background.

• The Function: They give the overwhelmed parents one less thing to worry about by having zero needs or demands.

• Internal Experience: Extreme isolation, neglect, and a feeling that they do not matter.

5. The Caretaker (The Enabler / Fixer)

• The Role: This child takes on the emotional or physical responsibilities of the adults. They manage the parents' emotions, clean the house, cook, or parent their siblings. This dynamic is formally known as parentification.

• The Function: They actively keep the household from collapsing by filling the gaps left by dysfunctional or absent adults.

• Internal Experience: Chronic burnout, hyper-responsibility, and a lack of a true childhood.

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A Note on Family Systems: In a healthy family, roles are flexible—a child can be the high achiever one day and need extra comfort or make mistakes the next. In a dysfunctional family, these roles become rigid survival strategies that children carry into adulthood, often impacting their future relationships until they begin the process of unlearning them.

The Broken Vending Machine Child

This role is a combination of all the roles plus inappropriate roles, that a child of narcissistic parents must play.  Like the fixer, the Broken Vending Machine child is forced to be whatever is demanded of her at any given moment. Yet she is given nothing in return. She must keep "paying out" with nothing being paid in. She does the giving, caring, providing but gets only abuse and belittling for her trouble. She has all the work of the Golden Child with none of the perks. Like the scapegoat, all blame and expectation is heaped on her. Like the clown, she's expected to play the fool so everyone can mock her so they feel better about themselves. Like the glass child, she must stay silent but also be available at all times for duty. 

If the eldest child is a girl, she is more often expected to play this role. At least back when I was young. I think the gender divide is less common now. And it gets worse when narcissistic parents divorce, remarry and then have new families. I was raised by two narcissists who then married other very manipulative, arrogant, entitled, bossy, cruel people. I became everyone's broken vending machine child, dispensing whatever they wanted without ever getting anything in return. 

 This role is characterized by (including but not limited to)

• parentification and role reversal. She must parent her parents and her siblings. 
• low self-esteem and zero self-care skills
• constant hoop hopping through a maze of moving hoops
• hypocrisy and double standards. There's on set of rules for her and another for everyone else.
• separate and unequal vocabulary. Words mean different things for her. People are shoved on her as responsibilities and superiors. She is family when it comes to all her duty and responsibilities and excluded from any of the good things. "Helping out" means doing everyone's work for them. 
• deprived and neglected. I was told "we" were poor but it was only me that went without while everyone else in the family had all they wanted including my share.
• gaslighting. History is rewritten by the parents. Narratives shift to suit their purpose. Stories change to cover up and redirect fault. 
• chaotic, traumatic, stressful, oppressive home life
• FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) She is expected to perform duties that not only are not hers, are impossible. 
• disproportionate one-sided transactional. Everything is an obligation and duty for her. But it's made clear that her parents owe her nothing. 
• many duties no one helps with or is held accountable for
• forced to grow up too soon.
• constant shame and humiliation 
• randomly abandoned by parents with no explanation
• frequent target of parent rage
• major life upheavals with no concern for well-being (needlessly moving without preparing child, school changes, divorce, new people moving in, being evicted from bedroom, being made to sleep with their babies and tend to them) I lived in 41 places before age 21. 
• frequently endangered and not cared for
• theft by parents of identity, self, toys, money, sense of accomplishment
• child is told her needs are selfish
• lied to and about, blackballed 
• child becomes hypervigilant, people pleasing with fawn trauma responses
• concussion-like confusion from constantly shifting demands
• intrusive and enmeshed parents
• physical, emotional, religious, medical and financial abuse by parents
• frequently taken advantage of by others as well
• exhausted and burned out 
• poor memory, disoriented
• destabilized
• frequent dissociative splits to survive
• bad dreams
• ill health
• constant feeling of being not enough of this or too much of that
• made fun of, humiliated, jeered at by family
• mobbed, belittled, set up 
• attacked at will
• bullied and then blamed for it
• betrayed 

Transition into adulthood

Being the Broken Vending Machine child doesn't transition well at all. It makes you vulnerable to  predators, takers and other narcissists. It puts a "kick me" sign on your back. You don't know how to do basic things for yourself because all you had time for was serving others. You don't even know what it is you need. 

Prescription for healing

I don't frankly know yet, all this is going to involve. But one thing I do know is that talking about it, telling my story to loving, caring people and writing about it here, helps.