The naked truth about how messed up I am

 Hi friends. This post is going maybe as deep as I've ever gone. I'm going to share how messed up I am after living in six decades of abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation,  manipulation, triangulation, scapegoating, invalidation, enmeshment, parentification and gaslighting about it all from four narcissistic parents. 

It's not just my brain that's damaged by CPTSD. My abilities are crippled. I'm disabled by it. Every thought and feeling is colored by it. I don't understand my needs and wants. I only know what others want and need and how it's my responsibility to provide. And how inept I am at being able to do that. And how that engulfs me with shame. I don't know where they end and I begin or if I even do begin. My identity was stolen by enmeshed parents who saw me as an extension of themselves. 

I second (third, 26th) guess everything I think and do. I never make a decision for myself, without endless self-doubt. I never do anything without self recriminations. I never do anything good for me, without feeling immense guilt at the audacity of my own "selfishness." I'm terrified by countless faceless, formless fears. I walk amid shadows. I live in a parallel universe in which I don't fit. I'm as out of place as a turnip in daily life and have about as many coping skills. 

To most people it may not show. It does if you look close. I'm bent with trying to fit in, to accommodate and to survive in unsafe, healthy situations. My face wears a perpetual grimace which is part clenched teeth and part appeasing smile. I do not relax ever and wouldn't know what that felt like if I did. 

What was modeled for me by parents was bizarre, maladaptive, manipulative, histrionic behavior. Odd was normal and normal pretty much didn't exist. They went around in a delusional, center of the universe  fantasy in which I was a supporting character. They were constantly needy and attention-seeking. They  never sang in the choir. They were soloists. 

I saw other families who were more functional, less theatrical. And I remember secretly wishing sometimes that I was their kid. But being an empath, didn't want to hurt my own parents. And it wouldn't have been safe to anyway. So I developed some coping skills which if odd and unhealthy, at least helped me juxtapose this cognitive dissonance that was my life. 

But they didn't fit real well in society. Throughout my life, I've done and said weird, which earned me strange looks and avoidance. I'd fawn to the point of emotionally prostituting myself. I was told I was dirty flirty which as you can imagine, raised my shame to self-harming levels. In youth group, I was punished for letting an older guy kiss me. Why there were creepy 20 year-olds hitting on 13-year-olds at church was never addressed. 

I didn't realize how odd I was until it was until it was too late. I act like I'd been taught to act and people would give me funny looks and back away. I showed a lot of signs of CPTSD which I see now put a target on my back for the creeps. I'd been groomed to serve others needs and they could smell this a mile away. I couldn't even do over-nighter events without my nightmares, sleep talking and crying out terrifying others. 

I cringe when I recall how disturbing my behavior. But I also feel really sorry for young me. Why the fuck did no one step in and help? If I was that messed up, why did no one think to look into why? Why did they throw me at these icky pedophiles, turn a blind eye while they molested me and then shame me for feeling good that someone liked me? But no, they just smiled their happy, normal "Christian" smiles and tsk-tsked scapegoat me. Which I see now is just more narcissistic fantasy. Pin all our sins on the scapegoat and send her out of the village in shame so we can pretend we're actually functional. 

And I see where it might sound paranoid when I say it was just me they did this to. But it really was. Because the other kids had (wait for it) PARENTS WHO GAVE A SHIT! They taught their kids how to navigate and take care of themselves. It wasn't that they were so much holier than me as I always thought. It was because they had enough pride in themselves not to let this happen. And the creeps would never dare to take them on because they  had back up and support, not four totally self--absorbed parents who left their kids to the wolves. 

Interestingly, history would prove that this church was not as Godly as they'd have liked to believe. In all the groups I've been in, secular or religious, they had the highest rate of failed relationships,  multiple marriages and broken kids. Which gives me no pleasure to say. Maybe if the adults had worried less about their Christian image and more about actually behaving like Christians, we could have gotten the help we needed. 

So now I muddle through. 

How narcissistic parents flip the script to gaslight the scapegoat child

 Hello my friends. Today in my deep dive into narcissistic abuse, I'm looking at ways narcissistic parents and stepparents flip the script to gaslight the scapegoat child. These come from my six decades' experiences of abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, parentification, triangulation, toxic shaming, manipulation, invalidation, scapegoating and gaslighting about it all by four histrionic narcissistic parents. They literally rewrote the narrative. 

"My house, my rules." As if they have the right (I  hate that word) to do anything they want to someone because it's "their house." This is a pecker-headed thing to say to begin with. Because usually it's said by narcissists who stampede others' boundaries when in their homes. And it's isn't' just your house. It's the family's home including the scapegoat child's home. In my case, it was NOT the house of the one saying it, my mother's husband. He was just the live-in sponger whom my mother ceded control over me, to. 

"My daughter lives with us." Do you hear how weird this sounds? No? I didn't either for most of my life. But let's take apart this gaslighting phrase. First, why would your daughter not live with you? Why would you say it like giving her a home is some kind of privilege and not just basic child care. And the use of pronouns is odd. "My daughter" (possessive) and "us" as if the daughter not part of the family, just a lodger. Which is was, an unpaid domestic servant. When my parents divorced and remarried, I never again called it my home. Because it wasn't presented to me as mine. I wasn't part of the family. It was their homes that I was being allowed, by their good graces, to live in. I always said I lived with my dad or mom. This phenomenon has a name. It's called hidden homelessness. 

"You owe us for all we've done for you." So much wrong with this. Again with the we and you. The scapegoat isn't family. She's a possession. A slave. A helper and fixer. But also expected to repay? Repay what? You never provided even basic care which YOU owe ME as your child. And wait, I thought we were family? At least that's what you say when enumerating your many expectations of me. "Family help each other." But when you do something for me, suddenly it's a business transaction. My mother lied and said she would pay a few months rent when I was in college. Then she gaslit me and said it was a load she expected to be paid back with interest. After using my savings bonds and child support to fund her new family. Supposedly this was to pay for my care when actually it was to buy shit for her chronically unemployed boyfriend.  

"Family loyalty." Whoa, does that phrase cover a multitude of sins! What it translated to in my situation was "never repeat what happens here." Never say what we've done to hurt you and how we neglect you. And I never did. Till now. It still feels disloyal. But if it's disloyal to tell the bad things someone did to you, then loyalty is misplaced. 

"God expects this of you." My, oh my how this was used against me. And funny how this God of which they spoke always applauded every cruel and hurtful thing they did to me. Every unsafe situation they put me in, every inappropriate expectation, every act of abuse and neglect, every lie told about me, every dangerous person they put me in the path of, was all explained as God's will. So it's no wonder that I have a broken understanding of God. 

These are just some of the countless mind-effing things they've made me believe over the years. 

How a histrionic narcissistic parent's threats of suicide destroy a child

Hello my loved ones.  If you're following my blog in its current iteration, heartfelt thanks and gratitude. It's been a log road of ride lately. I'm excavating six decades of narcissistic parent abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, triangulation, scapegoating, invalidation, enmeshment, parentification, infantilization and gaslighting about it all, from four "parents." And the impact it's had on me. Today I'm looking at what might be the most insidious and shattering form of narcissistic abuse and that is a parent's weaponized threats of suicide. That one thing almost destroyed me. Thank God for God and his beloved Son and Spirit. 

It is currently not the done thing to use the word "suicide." I hesitate even using it because censors will flag and ban my blog. Well try telling my dad it was wrong. He was threatening me with his self-harm since I was 5. I was probably the only kindergartener who know the meaning of the word. Where was anyone then, to worry about what impact this had on me? I just carried that shit in my broken little heart. 

And what did it matter what term was used? As if not using a certain word will change what actually happens? I wish that just changing the jargon could stop its impact. But the intent was the same. All I knew was that my daddy intended to top himself at any given moment and there wasn't a bloody thing his little girl could do about it. 

So as well-intentioned as this censorship might be, it's not helpful for those of us affected by it long before there was an internet. Or anyone to know or care how we worried ourselves sick. I need to talk about this or I will run mad. I need say the words that were said to me and which have been trapped in my child mind for 55 years. And anyone who has endured the death (or just threatened death) of a loved one from self-harm, needs to as well. 

Because it isn't just the person doing it or talking about it who is suffering. Especially not when it is a narcissistic, histrionic parent. For all his talk about it, my dad liked himself quite a lot. He fancied himself a minister (no training) and was quick to point out specks in others' eyes. Yet he never addressed the board in his, which were his continued threats of self-harm when he didn't get his way. 

So you may say, oh poor guy, he was really in pain. But as I look back, I'm not so sure. He was pretty glib about it. And the way he forced me to listen to his plans. He seemed to enjoy the power he had to make me miserable. I know we're not supposed to say this, but I believe, from firsthand experience that threats of self-harm can feel very much like bullying to the one being threatened. 

So we censor the word because we want to prevent further incidents of self-harm. God yes. I can't begin to describe how his threats devastated me. And warped my brain and shattered my heart. No one should suffer like that. Because say what you will about the person taking their own life being a victim, those left behind are even more so. Whether they actually do it or just terrorize people into thinking they will, they kill large parts of those who love them.  And they do it very casually, leaving us to bleed out. And to with all the dirty work: the guilt, shame, fixing.  

So on that note, I'm going to be the one to say what a lot of us victims feel, that suicide is incredibly selfish. And I say that completely empathizing with the massive emotional pain that drives them to it. I will give special dispensation to kids and teens. I don't think they have any idea of the hurt it will cause others. I'm not even sure if they understand that it is permanent. I think many believe that they will somehow be saved. Kids think they are invincible. 

But my dad? He knew. He saw how much I cared and he didn't care. I know, you'll say "he was the one hurting." "He was sending out cries for help" and "you should take it seriously." I know all the received wisdom about how family is supposed to understand, not dismiss it, etc. And I did. Every. Single. Time. He would "cry for help" and I'd jump to help and fix and bend and twist to keep dad happy. And it was never enough. He just got better at the mind games. But I didn't know that's what they were.  I gave up my life and self so he'd keep his. 

And he never did do what he promised. So that's good right? Sure. That's what I thought. At least dad is safe. Well, maybe so, but one of us did lose her life, her identity, her self-worth. I felt constant shame and guilt. No matter how hard I tried, he held that sword of Damocles over my head. He said dance, and I said name the tune. It became a lifelong dance marathon and it never did one fucking bit of good. 

I have very few good memories of childhood. But I recall the first time he told me that he was going to end it all, as if it was happening now. He didn't even commit to anything, just said vaguely and cooly, as if he was contemplating buying a new car, that he'd probably at some point eradicate himself. I cried, said I loved him and would miss him. And wouldn't he miss me? Uhh, no, he pondered, he didn't think so. So there wasn't anything I could do about it except suffer with the knowledge, live in fear and bend over backwards to keep him happy. I died a bit that day. I don't remember laughing much after that. 

I think now that he never intended to do anything. I think he just got narcissistic supply seeing me cry, beg and grovel. I think now that it was just a ploy to keep me dancing attendance on him, his new wife and their kids. You might say, oh you must never say that to a potential suicide. I didn't. I wish now that I'd have told him that if there was nothing I could do, then quit threatening me with it. But even thinking of doing that makes me feel guilty. 

And why must I not say that? I have a right to life too. A right to peace of mind and satisfaction of doing a good job. Why was it necessary that my life be destroyed over it? So what if I had told him to quit bullying me and just do what he needed to do. Would it have been my fault if he had? My gaslit brain says yes but my common sense says no. I can't control his actions and enabling him to keep jerking me around this way doesn't help either one of us. 

And the ironic thing is that the one who actually followed through, was me. Or I would have if it wasn't for fear of what it would do to my beloved husband and kids. Where he didn't care  how he hurt me, that was what stopped me. And I know, you may think, well if you knew how bad suicide was how could you contemplate it? That's the kicker. 

To end the pain? Nope. I figured I deserved all of it and more for failing my dad. I wanted to spare my loved ones having to suffer with such a piece of shit person. Which of course made me feel even more guilty. It's a cruel, vicious, self-perpetuating cycle. And trust me, you could never blame me as much as I blame myself. 

But what I've learned is that self-blame is a thing we use to try to make sense of it. If it's our fault, we can do something about it. We can prevent it. Like I did all those years placating my dad. But God doesn't see it that way. You know how He says that the sins of the fathers are passed to their kids? It doesn't mean we're destined to repeat our fathers' sins. We're not automatons. The last thing I wanted was to put my kids through what I'd lived with. 

The scripture means that their poison splashes onto us. We feel the repercussions more than they do. I got caught in the crosshairs of his selfishness. I got the fallout. Now I have to convince myself that I didn't fail him. He failed me. And that's going to be a tough job because the gaslighting is powerful and the voices are real. And I got a slow start. So I might not make it to the mountain. But I want to help you get there. 

I want to let you know, what I didn't know because I was too young. It is not your fault. It's not your job to fix. No one has the right to terrorize you with their problems. Even your kids. It  hurts like hell to know that they are suffering. I'm not saying be callous, God no. But you can't take their suffering on yourself. There's one and only one that did. Our Lord Jesus. I'm of the belief that it wasn't so much our sins but our pain that he took to the cross. You can give all you have, and it may help them. Or it may not. But it doesn't mean that you didn't give good. You are good. And it is enough. You deserve joy. 

Love, mar

. 

Oddly helpful things I'm doing to heal CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse

 Hi friends. Happy belated Thanksgiving. This year, I'm grateful for being able to finally recognize narcissistic parental abuse. And now that I see, I can begin to address and hopefully heal my CPTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder). Here are some oddly helpful tools to do that. Odd because we might not think of them as typically helpful (some might even seem counterintuitive) but then, my life with narcissistic parents was anything but typical. 

1) Pay attention to the voice in my head. There's a lot of shame, fear, insecurity, hypervigilance, grief, bewilderment, anxiety and stress in my mind from decades of having to dance attendance on four selfish, self-centered, demanding parent dictators. I rarely to never feel confident about anything thanks to the nagging self-doubt. So now, when I feel shame niggling, I listen closely to what it's saying. 

2) Dissect shame. For the longest time, I felt constant, pervasive shame without really even being conscious of it. Shame was as much a part of me as my leg. I was indoctrinated in shame by parental abuse,  neglect, invalidation, exploitation, endangerment, abandonment and gaslighting. So now that I know this, I'm taking apart this endless self-disgust to get to the root of it. And what I'm finding is that most of the time, it's not about what I've done but what was done to me by narcissistic parents. Or it's from coping skills I've had to adopt to placate them. Or their neglect of my basic care and lack of self-care skills. Often it's from my parents' purposeful self-serving sabotaging of my sense of self.  

3) Quit the coping mechanisms. I've learned a lot of unhealthy defensive moves from years of oppressive parents. Funny thing though, they didn't actually defend me. They just humored, enabled and even armed the oppressors. My empathy was used against me. My people pleasing was weaponized to the point that I was everyone's servant. My love, devotion and support was exploited. And my self was absorbed into their ginormous, greedy egos. So now, I'm needing to learn to please others less and me more. To love, support and be devoted to me. To empathize with myself. To meet my needs. And if this goes contrary to what others expect of me, so be it. It should. Anyone who would expect me to care for them at my own expense doesn't care for me. 

4) Disable instead of enable. So clearly, parental abuse, neglect, exploitation, scapegoating, parentification, abandonment, endangerment, invalidation, shaming and gaslighting didn't happen by accident. Or all at once. It started early and gained momentum. And that happened because people enabled my parents. I enabled them. Growing up in this, I learned to excuse cruelty, defend their right to hurt me, ignore pain, expect nothing of them and fulfill their incredibly inappropriate expectations. I learned that it was wrong to care for myself, that I was the one with the problem because I was "too sensitive." So now, I'm disabling their power over me. I'm cutting contact and holding them accountable for what they did instead of enabling further hurt. 

5) Grow thicker skin. I was always told, when they were shaming, mocking, humiliating me that I was too "thin-skinned. " I was told not to take personally, their very direct attacks on my person. They could offend but I wasn't to take offense. As if doing so was yet another of my failings. I was to feel the hurt, to know that I was being shamed, but not say so. Growing thicker skin wasn't to protect me but to give them a better target. 

But me getting tougher is coming back to bite them. Because now I'm not the pushover, ever willing to "help out" and get kicked for it. The doormat has picked herself up and now they have no one to wipe their feet on. My sympathetic ear is turned deaf and my soft heart has grown colder. My supply of Fs to give has dried up and I refuse to be a human crutch any longer. 

6) Serve God by serving myself. Okay don't hear what I'm not saying here. All my life I was force-fed this notion that waiting on four self-centered people was serving God. But it wasn't. It was pandering to their massive egos. It was worshipping them and putting them as other gods before God. And it was killing me. So now, I'm taking better care of me by not caring too much for them. I still care, but only for people who deserve it. Not people who exploit it and me. Yes I get to make that call. I decide who that is and how I will manifest that care.  

Emotional incest and covert child sexual abuse are the ickiest type of narcissistic parental abuse (warning, raw)

 Hello, dear and lovely people whom I hope I may call friends. I just want to take a sec to thank you for reading this blog. So as you know, it's morphed into a journey of exploration into CPTSD I developed from a life of narcissistic parental abuse. This takes the form of physical, emotional, mental, sexual, spiritual, medical and financial abuse. My four histrionic and narcissistic parents enmeshed with me and took turns endangering, abandoning, exploiting, scapegoating, parentifying, manipulating, triangulating, shaming, invalidating and gaslighting me. 

Today I'm looking at the ickiest, nastiest narcissistic abuse and that's covert sexual abuse and emotional incest. Yeah, I know, we do have to go there and I hate it as much as you do. It makes me physically ill and livid with rage. It's going to be a bitch to write about. 

So overt CSA (child sexual abuse) and incest are horrific. But there are two forms that are possibly even more dangerous emotionally. And they are creepy insidious. And those are emotional molesting and covert incest. One of the worst aspects of covert incest is that you don't even realize it's happening. Because it's "touchless" and undercover, you just accept it as normal if albeit yucky. You assume all kids go through this. Because you've been gaslit into thinking it's normal and grossest of all, that God expects you to provide this service for your parents. 

So what exactly is emotional incest? Well, actually all forms of narcissistic abuse are emotional incest in that the parent parasitically enmeshes with the child, feeds off from them and lives through them. The child lives only for the parent (or in my case, four parents). The parents behave like children and expect their kids to parent and also partner them. They confide in and expect the kid to fix their problems. Blech. 

Covert sexual abuse takes it to another level. The parent confides intimate and personal sexual details with the child. She exposes the child to predators, almost dare I say, like a pimp. It's contactless sexual assault. And it worms its way into your very soul. In my case, my parents had divorced and I was forced to listen to not only my mother's experiences with my father, but with her multiple other partners, beginning around six. 

She got away with this by gaslighting me into believing it was for my own good. That she was just doing her job as a mother to "protect me" from abuse. But it was abusive in itself. These were not just the "facts of life." These were her personal experiences. I did NOT want to hear it and would cover my ears and beg her to stop. But (this is so disgusting) she seemed to take lurid pleasure both in telling me and in my objection to it. 

Being very histrionic she was overtly sexual, seductive and flirty. She dressed like a "hooker" for her singles group Halloween party and had me help with the costume. I was probably the only 8-year-old who knew what a "hooker" was. She would make out with various boyfriends in our kitchen as I got ready for school. She had at least  one affair with a married man twice her age. And she loved to flaunt her body in front of me. I didn't know till I was an adult that very few kids had seen their parents naked on a regular basis. 

And it turned out not to even be protecting but actually weaponizing it against me. She traumatized me to the point of nightmares describing how different men had "molested" her. Yet when the neighbor kid sent me dirty letters telling me he'd like to molest me, she told me to laugh it off and then started dating his father. She left early from "A Clockwork Orange" because supposedly it was so dirty. But then came home and told 9-year-old me the plot in graphic detail.  

She did not defend me when her next boyfriend openly mocked 11-y/o me about the size of my breasts. She laughed along. When they had a foster home, she brought in a teenage boy with a history of predatory behavior who promptly assaulted me his first day there. When I finally got up the gumption to tell her, she was annoyed, not on my behalf but on his because now he'd have to go back to Child Haven. I have never really recovered from that experience. I still feel like a dirty you-know-what a lot of the time. I cry after having intercourse. 

And to extend the prostituting metaphor, she essentially turned our home into a brothel when I was 11. On top of having a foster care home, she moved her boyfriend in and made an "apartment" for them in the basement. I was moved out of my room so my uncle and his girlfriend could play house. One teen in her foster care was given the living room to sleep with her boyfriend. I was left to (illegally) share a room with four special needs kids under 5. I was responsible for all areas of their care, her being two floors down. 

Now,  juxtapose this with her very weirdly strict "Christian" preaching. Yes. She fancied herself a minister through all this. She took us all to church and played the organ. All while living in what her church flatly called bigamy, adultery, immorality and sin. What she herself deemed wickedness in others, was just daily life for me. And all of it interwoven with a steady diet of dangerous people and situations. 

And that's to say nothing of the chaos from my dad. At one point, he, 35 was dating a 17-year-old. I was nine. We'd go to her house and hang out in her bedroom. She had stuffed animals on her bed. Her parents doted on me like I was her sister. It was both heartbreaking and nauseating. And if you  think that wasn't weird in 1973...Let me just say, I didn't even know anyone with divorced parents, let alone a mother with a live-in boyfriend and a dad dating a high schooler. 

So consequently, I lived in constant cognitive dissonance. I have huge gaps in my memory, and especially in the ages of 8 to 12.  But these things I can't forget. I wish I could. I wish I were making these stories up. I wish now that I could have had loving parents. Or at least someone to tell this to. But no one knew. And at the time all I felt was incredible shame. And fear, because to protect these delusions required a lot of gaslighting and a ready scapegoat. And that gaslit scapegoat was me. 

Even now, I feel ashamed of myself as if I was the one behaving so badly.  I dream almost every night that I'm failing under a mountain of crazy expectations and everyone is mad at me. I feel guilty for telling what they did as if the fault lies in my saying it and not in them doing it. I spent one summer trying to talk myself down from suicide, at 11. I shudder when I think how close I came to becoming a statistic. I've kept a lot of people's secrets. 

Which is so ironic because my mother made no secret then of her, for the time, deviant and immoral behavior. I just found out that my mother had even dumped on my friend too, when we were 11.  She must have felt some  kind of judgement because, unprompted, she told my friend that she acted so promiscuous because her parents had been too strict. So basically blaming us all for her behavior. My father not only made no secret of his bizarre behavior, he flaunted it. And then blamed me for being too sensitive and too critical. 

It's taken me six decades just to start coming to terms with all this. It felt gross but I interpreted it that I was gross. I had a lot of nightmares about it (CPTSD), but I was used to ignoring and dismissing how I felt. I tripped over red flags. Yet it never occurred to me that any of this was even inappropriate, let alone disgustingly wrong. They don't call it "covert" incest for nothing. It hides in plain sight. And being perpetrated on gaslit, shamed, blamed child scapegoats, who are afraid of their own shadow, helps keep it hidden. 

Uncovering it has been helped a lot having a husband who is not afraid to call it what it is. Thank God for him. 

Odd parasitic ways narcissist parents enmesh with and pirate their kids' lives

 Hello my friends. Thanksgiving approaches and one thing I'm thankful for this year is that I finally see what happened to me for what it was: narcissistic parental abuse and neglect. I'm grateful to have words to put the pain, fear and shame into perspective. As unpleasant as it is, I'm glad I'm no longer ignoring the CPTSD effects of parental abuse (particularly sexual, religious, financial and medical) exploitation, abandonment, endangerment, parentification, scapegoating, invalidation, shaming and gaslighting. 

Probably the most disturbing weapon of narcissistic abuse is one I've not addressed much. However it is integral in bringing off this weird coup that narcissistic parents launch against their kids. And that's enmeshment, which is the destruction of a child's natural boundaries, a hostile takeover of their lives and an exploitation of  their selves for the parent's selfish ends. 

Enmeshed kids don't express wants, needs, feelings and thoughts of our own. Because we didn't know we had them. Because we were indoctrinated into the cult of mom and dad (and in my case their new spouses). We were nothing more than acolytes, temple slaves, vestal virgins, there to serve, to be neither seen nor heard. We don't know where parents stop and we begin. If all this sounds like scary psy-fi, just wait. There's more. And I wish to God it was fiction. Here are bizarre parasitic ways narcissist parents enmesh with their kids and pirate their lives. 

Medea syndrome. Narcissistic parents don't just live through their kids, they devour our selves. At birth. Because the narcissist only sees others as extensions of their larger than life selves. People aren't just servants. Servants have lives of their own, if stifled ones. We aren't just owned by them, we are them, just like their arms and legs. We don't exist outside of the narcissist. 

Parallel universe. We appear from the outside to be separate and extant selves. But the narcissists have killed off any independence in use. They've terrified us into submission. They've laid siege to our identity or personhood. They've shamed any efforts at self-care. They've taken away all means of support. Yet society doesn't see this and expects us to behave like fully functioning individuals, like normal kids. But we aren't normal kids. Narcissist pirates are at the helm, controlling us remotely with fear, shame and deprivation, even as we go about our days. We are robots programmed to live for  narcissist parents. 

Yes, it's terrifying. No, it makes no sense to anyone who has never experienced this. Yes we look like oddballs. And act like performing circus freaks. And it doesn't get better. It gets worse as the narcissists get better at manipulation and gaslighting. Is there a way out? Yes. But we have to first recognize what we are, or  have become. 

Demonic and deceitful ways Christian narcissist parents destroy their kids

 Hi friends! I'm working to heal from CPTSD caused by abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, manipulation, exploitation, parentification, triangulation, enmeshment, invalidation, toxic shaming, scapegoating and gaslighting about it all by four narcissistic parents. Today I'm looking at demonic and deceitful ways Christian narcissist parents destroy their kids. 

First, why do I specify Christian narcissist parents? Because Christianity gives them an arsenal of weapons, tailor-made to gaslight kids. Now I understand that sounds very wrong. And it is but not it the way you may think. It's not Jesus, God, the Bible or faith in those things that are wrong.  It's the way Satan twists the narcissist's  understanding of God into what the narcissist already wants to believe, that they aren't subject to God's laws and that they are god-like themselves. Satan then teaches his disciples to weaponize this against their children. 

Did I just call narcissistic parents disciples of the devil? Yes, and very intentionally. And so does God. Because they've made themselves his disciples by putting themselves above God. This is exactly why Lucifer was evicted from heaven. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Including yourself. 

Further, in his word, Our Lord identifies Pharisees who bind others up to expectations they don't help carry as evil-DOERS and hypocrites. They love the sound of their own voices. They are white-washed sepulchers full of death and destruction. He says that not all who call him Lord are actually his followers. Because they say one thing and do another. And because they serve two masters. Sounds pretty much like devil worship to me. 

And the way narcissistic parents do this is super sneaky, just like their master, whom we know is the father of deceit. They use words to paint a false picture of themselves. They do things that APPEAR (operative word) to be following God (read the Bible, preach, go to church). But it's an act. They don't follow up on it. It's all show and no go. It's a lot of word salad designed to baffle, deceive, gaslight and confuse. 

You'll remind me now that no one is perfect and everyone fails occasionally and I will agree. This isn't accidental however. Nor is it occasional. Narcissist parents consistently and blatantly flout God's commands. My parent did the very things they preached against and which God's word says is sin. 

The very fact that my narcissistic parents were so obsessed with "preaching" God's word shows how bass-ackwards it was. They wanted to TELL others how to live their lives not show them. Scripture warns us to be very careful about calling ourselves preachers and teachers. Because, obviously, people are watching our actions and if they don't measure up, it would be better to just keep our mouths shut. 

And if you do it out of pride, because you consider yourself beyond God's reach, above it all, or to hear yourself preach, you're destined for a fall. If you lure, tempt and seduce others to sin, woe to you, God says. All of these things I was forced to watch happening. They weren't shy or embarrassed by their behavior. They never apologized and later lied about ever doing it. 

Narcissist parents are the very worst type of hypocrite. They don't love God or other people. They love themselves. They are arrogance on crack. They treat their children like extensions of themselves. I was servant, surrogate parent, surrogate spouse and scapegoat to my parents and their new spouses. I was not allowed to have thoughts and feelings. Needs and wants didn't get met. I was supposed meet their needs (which were mostly wants). Scripture didn't apply to them, only  me. They went out of their way to do the very things they preached against. They made me feel guilty and responsible. And they gaslit me into thinking this was all God's will. 

The reason Christian narcissist parents are so successful at deceiving their kids, the reason children swallow this bullshit hook, line and sinker, is the unique place parents hold in their lives. They are, in a sense, God to their children. They are the first image of Him that little ones see. That's why the Bible is so adamant about not leading a child astray. 

And if the first God voice we hear is lying, tricking, undermining, mocking, conniving, shaming we believe it the same as if it were loving, caring and nurturing. In fact, it goes even deeper than belief which is on some level choice. I have, as an adult, chosen to believe that God loves me. Even though as a child, I didn't feel loved and was not cared for at all. 

This thing that kids develop when raised by narcissists is a core autonomic response, an instinct or kneejerk reaction. It's fear, shame, misery, self-loathing, hurt plus other terrible things all rolled into one. It's a sick knowledge that God loves everyone but us. That we are so far gone he's given up. Even though I know with my frontal lobe it's not true, it's somehow ingrained in my deep root brain. I have to fight it constantly. I don't think there is actually a word for this devilish evil that narcissist parents embed in us. But they certainly do a great job training us up in it and departing from it next to impossible to do.