The charm and charisma facade: predatory narcissism lurks behind the mask

Hello my friends on this journey. Today in my quest to heal childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse, I am looking at the charisma trap. More specifically how notoriously charismatic people are often predators in disguise. A heartbreaking incident in our community involving a school dean and parent, was caught in incestuous pedophilia made this hit home for me. 

The Communal Narcissist Predator

Let's just sit with that for a minute, educator, teacher, mentor of students. What a perfect cover those are for CSA. He was actually the one responsible for implementing FERPA and CSA protocol within the school. What better way to hide your own abuse than as the one children lean on for safety? 

The Closet Saboteur 

And here's the clincher, for me. Amid the outrage, people also expressed shock that's such a "charismatic" man could be capable of such things. Why, he was a father of eight children, loving wife and family? Pillar of the community, youth minister. How could this happen, was wondered at. So I was saddened, but shocked, no. It's dangerous to put anyone beyond reproach. This is how pedophiles go undetected. Because we shield them. But behind the "immunity of community" is the first place we should be looking. 

Dressed to Kill 

Many people labor under the misunderstanding that pedophiles have a stereotypical look. That they are grubby, fringe-dwelling ne're-do-wells. That because someone wears cool clothing, looks good, is a "good Christian" and upstanding member of the community, he cannot also be guilty of heinous crimes. The fact is that his reputation is exactly what makes him a prime candidate for abusive and exploitative behavior. We need to start looking past the costume to the character inside. 

The Ironclad Charismatic

And that character is arrogant and above all rules. He believes he is bulletproof behind the Kevlar of his public image. And I realize that I knew and have always known since I was a child that such people were dangerous. I have never trusted "large and in charge" smooth talkers, people with popularity cult followings. Like big personality celebrities, ministers and leaders who can "do no wrong" in the eyes of their devotees. 

"Charm is a sales tactic. It's the big toothy grin of the used car salesman who's pushing a lemon and making you feel privileged to have your pocket picked."

The Charm Trap

The paradox lies in the charisma trap, the "shiny charm" of the predatory narcissist, as Dr Ramani puts it. Charm and charisma are facades behind which lurk ruthless, Machiavellian egomaniac BSers. These charlatans are only charming to get their way. They are extortionist who use charisma to get you to give them something you shouldn't. It lures the unsuspecting into a false sense of security. And then BANG! Gotcha. He's fleeced them and they didn't even see it happen. 

The Narcissistic Injury Reveal

Don't believe me? Just try saying "no" to these so-friendly shysters. Just watch the charm turn to sneering, scornful, narcissistic rage. Or try outing him. But good luck. Suddenly, he's not such a nice guy. His pride is wounded.  He's vindictive, and venomous. Or, even worse, he's fake penitent, vulnerable, oh so sorry. He weaponizes his "humility" to regain trust and then strikes. Very often, the victims end up being treated worse than the offender ever is. Which is why so many keep quiet. My narcissistic parents were downright vicious if they felt threatened. It is a frightening vendetta that never gets satisfied. 

They can turn charm on like a switch. And terrifyingly, turn it off just as easily.  

The Flock Mentality

Unfortunately, these people often have a lot of flying monkeys. And being the only one saying that the Emperor has no clothes puts you in their sites. They DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender) in defense of their narcissist cult leader. They crybully and call you the bad guy. They never believe a word said against him. They gaslight that YOU caused the problem, brought his creepy behavior on yourself. You were too sensitive, imagining things, exaggerating, showing off for attention. All of which cannot simultaneously be true. But flying monkeys aren't known for common sense. 

The Hazing of FOG

And so you don't say anything. You feel FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) to these people. You know they say you're just jealous of their success. You're spreading spiteful gossip or starting smear campaigns. Even your own friends don't believe you. So you start gaslighting yourself that the Emperor's new clothes look fine. You preserve the shiny image. Who's going to believe you anyway? There is no winning, nor even breaking even against a charming narcissist. There is only losing. 

What living in a narcissistic family cult taught me

I know because I was indoctrinated into a narcissistic cult called "family." I was subjected to them, made to serve them as an acolyte. I was gaslighted and catfished by these predators in parents clothing. I believed and trusted them because I was a trauma bonded betrayal blind, innocent and vulnerable child that no one protected. Everyone just turned a blind eye their abuse, neglect, parentification, exploitation, endangerment, deprivation, invalidation, scapegoating, abandonment and dehumanizing of me. 

Once bitten, twice shy

But ironically this inability to see my parents traitorship and betrayal, somehow gave me an uncanny ability to see it in others. I can't always do much about it besides see it. I have never trusted a charismatic or charming person since. Did I miss out on genuine people along the way? Eh, maybe? But it also kept me from getting taken advantage of. 

• ✀Homework for Healing

  • Beware of charmers. If someone seems too good to be true, believe they are a fraud. 
  • Watch for masks slipping. See the narcissistic smirk behind the sanctimonious smile.
  • Beware of their flying monkeys. They bite and they shit everywhere. 
  • Trust your gut. Literally, recognize that sick, nervous feeling in your stomach when predators are around. It's there to warn you. 
  • Do the Angelou. When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. Don't gaslight yourself that you misunderstood. You heard them correctly. 
  • Get away from them. Go low or no contact. Don't get lured in. You don't owe them any loyalty. You don't owe them anything. 
  • Take care of yourself, please. Look for safe people. Your sanity is more important than their vanity. 

Obedience and subservience as fawning childhood trauma response

Hello my fellow travelers on the recovery journey. Today as I work to heal childhood trauma responses from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm look at the dilemma of obedience. I'm seeing how surrendering autonomy and subservience are fawning trauma response we did to survive. I'm going to explore how dangerous "over obedience" is, not only to children in dysfunctional family systems but also in adult life.

Obedience without agency or reciprocity

Children of narcissistic enmeshed parents learned to unquestioningly and immediately obey every command issued. We were drilled in endless expectations and demands we owed them. But we were never given basic tools with which to do the jobs. Our liberties were withheld. We had no authority or power even over ourselves. Parental enmeshment stole our personhood. And they gave us nothing but grief in return for all they took. 

Expected but never explained to

Using an arsenal of weapons like gaslighting, future faking, terrorizing, narcissistic rage fests, blame-shifting and DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender), our parents created a narcissistic fantasy world where we were their drudges. They placed all kinds of immoral, illegal, unethical and terrifying demands on us. And just expected us to know what they wanted and perform. My mom and dad (and their second spouses who were also my bosses) would say "you shouldn't have to be told what to do." This came after just hinting that I had somehow ruined everything. Their combined narcissistic rage was so explosive that I cried and begged to be told what I could do to fix it. I see now they didn't explain because they couldn't without outing themselves as the hypocritical, arrogant, unreasonable dictators they were. So I did my best but my best was never good enough for them. 

Rigidly plastic double standards

More rigid than any soldier in any military was the tyranny children of dark tetrad malignant narcissists lived under. And it was even worse because the rules we were held to were ironclad yet plastic double standards. Others in the family were not held to these rules. Our parents bent their own rules to suit t themselves. And then, just when we thought we'd gotten it right, they changed randomly and didn't inform us until it was too late and we'd "broken" these unspoken commands. We constantly fawn to keep them happy but they are always angry. 

One Way Street of Obedience

So I feel the need to make a disclaimer about obedience. Yes, it is a good thing when done properly, for the right reasons and by everyone equally in the family. Parents owe their children obedience. They owe it first and without strings attached. They don't do good for their children just to get in return. That's transactional in the wrong direction. Yes, there's give and take. Relationships are transactional. But narcissistic parents only take good and give bad. Healthy parents model what it looks like to serve by serving their children. They model obedience to authority they themselves are under. Narcissistic parents don't obey anyone. They see authority as something to be flouted. They don't apply standards consistently and they break their own rule constantly. 

All the work, none of the perks

Probably the worst part of all this is that while dogged obedience and people pleasing was demanded of us, we were never given any authority with which to make all this happen. We carried the mental load and served them devotedly. But they gaslit us that we had no right to actually make decisions for ourselves. We had no power. I was made to parent their children but anytime I set a boundary with the kids, I was told I had no right to. I had to care for them but couldn't correct them. I had to be responsible for them, but wasn't allowed the tools to do the job. I was punished for anything they did. When the children were rude or disobedient to me, they laughed and encouraged them. I had to obey everyone including their children.  

"It is a profound betrayal for a child to be held to a moral code that no one else has to and even their own parents feel entitled to violate." 

 Enmeshed parents scapegoated, parentified and infantilized us. 

Religious gaslighting  

We were brainwashed to think all this over-obedience was God's will for us. And only for us. I never saw my parent graciously obey anyone, including God. I thought God made special exceptions for them. I was chastised with the rod of shame and FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) for infractions I never committed. I didn't understand this till a few years ago. The idea of me as a disobedient failure persists to this day. Because the more obedient you are to arrogant ruthless parents the more they treat you like a wayward brat. Disobedience is harshly punished but so is obedience. It's a lose-lose game. 

Obedience doesn't transition well

Fast forward to adulthood or what passes for that in narcissistically abused kids. We drag all this unconscious fawning, people pleasing, blind obedience with us. We obey everyone including adults who have no authority over us. We let them order us around and we comply. We follow through on dictums that they have issued but don't follow. We do all the work of fulfilling their commands while they just sit back and think up more commands for us. We let them tell us how it is and how it's going to be. We never open our mouths and say what we think. We abide by one-sided contracts we never signed. We still believe it's "talking back" or sassing to say no. We smooth over their bad actions and take the blame on ourselves. We communicate all their petulant demands to others in ways that are "nicer" and more palatable. We are go-betweens, liaisons and mediators. We do the heavy lifting of the mental load. 

My aha moment: 

I used to follow through silently on all the rules my husband handed down without even asking myself whether I agreed. After all, he was the "head of the household" and the father ( I was raised in a very patriarchal "father knows all" mindset. Then I woke up and realized I was doing all the following through on his rules I had never agreed to. I was the one making sure these lengthy groundings he'd set were abided by. And I thought it was a terrible idea. I tolerated spankings and even spanked myself though I didn't believe in it. And my husband was not an overtly bossy or controlling person. He sort of fell into the role I'd assigned him, that of Lord and Master. And me the ever obedient servant. 

Then one day I saw  how my dysfunctional family had set me up to be this groveling people pleaser. And I had enough. I started setting boundaries (not prettily, quite messy at first). I said I'd decide what commands I'd follow and plan on me not following anything that smacked of "command." Been there, done with that. I would be involved in all decisions in our family. I would be dictating some terms from now on.  

And funnily enough, he immediately understood and agreed this was long overdue "disobedience" on my part. He still throws his weight around occasionally (after all, I did kowtow to it for so many years). But then I just use my little word "no" as a complete sentence. I veto contracts I didn't agree to. I say my say. 

⚗️ Homework for Healing

We can't change the past, but we do have control over now. Healing means learning to sort fact from wrong-headed opinion.

Opinion: We owe obedience to all. No one owes us a thing.

Fact: Obedience is reciprocal and an option.

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Opinion: We must do all the work with no authority.

Fact: We have a voice and a choice.

Virtues narcissistic parents preach but don't practice: The "Beatitude Trap" of Childhood trauma

Hello my friends. Today in my childhood trauma recovery odyssey, I'm going to talk about  why we let narcissists, particularly narcissistic parents hurt us so much. Why do we care, invest, agonize over people who never cared for, invested in or worried about us? Why do we let them get away with their entitled, arrogant, hypocritical abusive behavior? Why don't we just go no contact and be done with it? It's because that we have practiced virtues and habits we were told were good, that are dangerous for children of narcissists. These "beatitudes" trap us into tolerating and even believing we deserve, their abuse. They are just more twisted, self-serving, gaslighting lies fed to us by our narcissistic parents, religion, society, even psychology. 

Never giving up

We were told how important "stick-to-it-ivenss" was. How giving up is failure. So we toughed out endless cycles of parent cruelty. We never quit on them. Yet we never stopped to think how they had given up on us, let us down, failed and bailed on us. And yet we keep investing in these people. We keep on keeping on, in these one-sided relationships and our parents keep dropping the ball again and again. Because they have trauma bonded us into their service. 

Being a good girl

What this even means, no one said. So it meant different things to different people. And how that has been perverted and abused by our narcissistic parents. To some it meant us letting them get away with abuse, neglect, abandonment and never saying anything. It was exploited to include every weird, inappropriate demand imaginable. It meant people pleasing, kowtowing, tolerating intolerable things, keeping dirty secrets and staying small. All while my parents were badly behaved, arrogant, haughty, trouble-making bullies. But I kept trying to be perfect to compensate for their misdeeds. I didn't learn till recently that this just made them worse. As we keep taking the consequences for them and bowing lower, they keep adding demands and moving hoops we're expected to hop through.  And sadly we don't realize till it's too late, if ever, that we were never going to please them anyway. We could never be a good enough girl. 

Conscientiousness 

Every report card I ever got always praised me for being conscientious. I was called "mature." I followed through on promises, obligations and responsibilities. I paid debts. Turns out a lot of those weren't mine to do. My parents had parentified me with FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) into doing their jobs for them. With no payment or reciprocity.  But it was too late. I was already a mini adult by age 5 and serving immature, demanding, whiny brat parents who future faked, broke promises and let me down as a matter of course.  

Responsible

Another kudo I heard a lot which came back to bite. People said that being reliable, taking charge, doing the heavy lifting, was a good thing. And just another thing my narcissistic parents (all four of them) exploited to make me their forever servant, skivvy, scapegoat, surrogate spouse and parents, primary caregiver, live-in free nanny, provider. I was their Broken Vending Machine Child, dispensing treats right and left and never getting any coins put in. 

Helpful

Another virtue ruined by enmeshed boundary-crashing parents who expected us to fulfill every need, want, whim they had. Not only did my parents use me a slave, they enslaved me to their new partners and all their new kids. While being were very unhelpful to me. They didn't do bare minimum of caregiving, assisting, supporting me. They failed to  provide basic necessities like shelter, a home, a proper bed, food, clothing, medical care. All the while pampering themselves and demanding that I pamper them. 

Fortitude

This virtue of "strength" and endurance is praised in adults. In children of narcissists, it is exploited. Many of us had to be too strong, endure too much, awful things that would fell an adult. There's no soldier that has faced anything so traumatizing as the vile deeds of malignant narcissist parents. We can never leave the front line. Our war never ends. Our battle scars never heal. And society just turns a blind eye and calls it normal. And we go on enduring long past the point of no return. We keep reforming scars that they keep reopening. 

Courage

To continue the "warrior" metaphors, courage and bravery mean very different things when applied to abused kids. Being brave for us means keeping quiet about things we should be shouting from the rooftops. It means absorbing parent toxicity and shouldering burdens we  never should have had to. It means letting nasty people repeatedly hurt us and having nothing to protect ourselves with. Being told self-defense is disobedient and self-care is selfish. It means trauma responding and betrayal blindness. It means being coercively controlled, stolen from, taken advantage of and having to roll over for it all. 

Resilience

It makes me sick when people parrot this stupid axiomatic nonsense about how kids are so resilient. They're not. They are young, impressionable and easily manipulated. They don't just "bounce back" from chaos, abuse and trauma. The people who tout this just prove that they are abusing the child's innate trust. Narcissistic parents, who are self-pitying, grudge-holding, spiteful whiners who never get over anything, assure themselves of their child's resilience, so they can sleep at night. But it's bullshit. 

Humility

Ugh, how I hate how this seemingly positive virtue gets twisted. We get told to be humble by arrogant Machiavellian hypocrites who ride herd over everyone. Who never submit with grace to any authority. Who demand subservience and never serve anyone. Traumatized kids humble themselves too much as our parents walk all over us. What we believed was humility was humiliation. They mocked us and  told us we're too sensitive. Our insensitive oversensitive parents do unspeakably things and tell us we're attention-seeking and overreacting if we react to it. Then they get their feelings hurt over the least little narcissistic injury. 

Trust

Good in general, bad in specific. Because trust shouldn't be given until earned. Yet we were expected to trust strangers who had proved to be dangerous, because our parents got mad if we didn't. We were expected to trust our parents and believe the best of them despite them breaking faith and showing us that they did not have our best intentions at heart. They used us for their own ends and abused our trust. 

Obedience

Funny how disobedient people tell everyone they should obey. Rule-breakers and those who feel themselves above the law, are very quick to "enforce" their own user-created rules on others. This is gaslighting 101. And we poor kids believed that obeying was a good thing. And it sure as hell was dangerous not to. Little did we know it would "break us" and make us into doormats. 

Selfless giving

My selfish parents loved to browbeat me with a lot of religious mumbo-jumbo about how God said I had to give and give and not count the cost. This applied only to me. They counted every cent they gave me, which wasn't much. They said I "owed them" for being given life. And then reminded me they owed me nothing, not even basic care. That parenting was some kind of choice they chose not to do. But I had to parent them. "Family does for family" meant I had to pay out with no thought of repayment but when I needed anything, suddenly "family" expected repayment in full, with interest, literally. 

Hard Work

Ever notice how some people brag, from their easy chairs, about how hard they work, and compare it to "others" who are so lazy. A traumatized kid like me could never see the irony in that. I never admitted that these same people were deadbeats who expected to be waited on by the same people they called lazy. And excuse me, raising my hand here, there's no hard worker like a child who is made to serve and parent her parents. The hours I logged mopping floors on hands and knees, vacuuming, ironing, dusting, washing dishes, laundry, cooking, co-sleeping and waking up with their kids so they could "get their rest." The list goes on. 

Devotion and Dedication

Sounds good in theory. But simple problem here is we were too dedicated to people who dedicated nothing to us. We were too devoted, devoted too much time and energy to, people who were faithless. 

Discipline

The paradox here is that we were too self-disciplined and then harshly and punitively punished by our undisciplined, erratic, chaotic, self-righteous parents. What they called "discipline" was beating, slapping, depriving, excluding, humiliating, shaming, goading, bullying, harassing, setting up, attacking, raging at, lying to and about, smear campaigns against us, scapegoating, emotionally blackmailing us. I still to this day, feel so ashamed of  myself for things they said I did that I can't recall ever imaging let alone doing. 

Respect

Again, it's the most disrespectful hypocrites who demand respect as their right, which they have not earned from others. Normal people never talk much about all this respect we're supposedly entitled to. We just go about the business being respectful. And then kids of narcissists take it too far. We do all kinds of self-harming things in the name of respecting others. We let them abuse us. We don't know that respect shouldn't hurt. And the self-respect is important too. 

Sacrifice

Another one-way street we drive on. We were never sacrificed for, by our parents whose job it really was to do. We were groomed on this crazy idea, that "family" meant making sacrifices. And so we did, never considering how few if any were made for us. Or that parents are the ones who sacrifice, not kids. But if you are the scapegoat, you're also the sacrificial lamb. 

Loyalty

I hate this word. It means nothing. It's a non-sequitur that gets misused all the time to create a false sense of obligation. Try to define loyalty. It's difficult to do without implying that it's something we owe. And narcissistic parents used it to gaslight us into believing we had to line up and sign up for every scam they tried to sell us. While being very disloyal to us. Narcissistic parents "cheat on" their kids at every turn.  They use this blanket loyalty we're said to owe them, to justify very immoral, unethical, illegal, dangerous abuse. 

Their mantra is: No matter what I'm doing, no matter how bad, you have to approve and stand by it. 

Forgiveness

This is more observed in the breach with narcissists. They demand forgiveness without apologizing, being sorry or changing their behavior. They tell us it's carte blanche we have to give them. And they use forgiveness as a license to continue abusing us. And they never forgive us. They bring up every little mistake every chance they get. They have amnesia about their elephantine wrongs, and the memory of an elephant for anyone else's slightest error. 

Narcissistic Parents "catfish" their kids with trauma bonded enmeshment

Hello my friends. Today on the path to childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse I'm exploring how narcissist parents "catfish" their kids. Using trauma bonding, DARVO, gaslighting, blame-shifting, enmeshment and other Machiavellian tactics, the parent creates not only false persona, but a false reality for the child. 

Narcissist + Catfishing

Catfishing describes deceptive online, predatory behavior through the use of faked profiles and misinformation. It's done to "lure victims" (that's an operative phrase we'll come back to) into financial scams or set-up relationships designed to get something from the victim.  It involves creating a fake identity to attract, manipulate, and control a victim, often by exploiting their vulnerabilities and emotional needs. All of these types of behaviors also define dark tetrad malignant narcissists who are arrogant, manipulative, remorseless, deceitful, entitled and cruel. 

Narcissistic Parent Catfishing

An actual catfishing scheme is usually temporary,  targeted and purpose built. It has a beginning and and end. Narcissistic parent enmeshment is a "long-con" version of catfishing. It is a bespoke, systemic, lifelong pervasive deception where the child victim’s core identity is slowly but surely replaced by the demands of the predator parent. Gaslighting substitutes the "real world" with the parent's narcissistic fantasy land. Trauma bonded betrayal blindness makes it impossible for the child be himself or even know that he is a separate person. When you apply this to a narcissistic parent, the "fake identity" isn't just a fake social media profile; it is a false parental reality.

Element of Catfishing	The Narcissistic Parent Parallel
Creating a False Persona	The parent constructs a false self—the "perfect," "selfless," or "misunderstood" parent—while hiding their true abusive or self-serving motives. She creates a false world where serving her is all that matters. She employs role reversal tactics to present herself as the needy child and the child as her responsible caregiver.
Luring the Victim	Using "love bombing," affection, or gifts to create a strong, dependent emotional bond early on. Future faking then breaking promises. And the parent just having that role, the child naturally is dependent upon her.
Exploiting Vulnerability	Identifying the child’s need for love/approval and making that love conditional upon the child meeting the parent's needs. Empath kids are especially vulnerable to
Trauma Bonding	Cycles of abuse and "kindness" (or intermittent reinforcement) that keep the victim addicted to the parent, despite the pain. And again, just because mom and dad wear the parent hat, the child naturally relies on them to be parents.
Isolation & Control	Just as online catfishers isolate victims from friends, enmeshed narcissistic parents often isolate children from their own autonomy, reality, or other family members. They pit people against the child (triangulation). They exclude and cut them out. They endanger and abandon the child till she's so frightened she clings to whatever breadcrumbing they throw.

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The Long Con Trajectory

Let's explore the intersections of narcissism, gaslighting, catfishing, trauma bonding and enmeshment. These dualities weave together like a rope to trap and hold the child in emotional bondage to the parent. This "rope" chokes off any agency or outside influence. It holds the child's mind hostage so that even if she sees how other kids are treated or hears that her parents are abusive, she can't comprehend that they are wrong. They have destroyed any self-care or protection. This cognitive dissonance forces her into a dissociative state in which she defends the parents and blames herself for not being good enough or making her parents hurt her. 

1. The "Bait and Switch" of Conditional Love

Just as a catfish baits a victim with a fake profile, narcissistic parents "bait" their children with the promise of deep, secure love which is just a natural part of parenting. The child trusts the parent because they are parents. Once the child is bonded and dependent, the parent switches to conditional love, where approval is only granted when the child performs to the parent's standards or serves the parent's emotional needs.

2. The Illusion of "Specialness"

Enmeshment often feels "special" to a child. They may be treated like a confidant, an emotional partner, or a caregiver. Parentification makes the child feel responsible to and for the parent. It confuses the child's natural loving nature. This lulls the child into a false sense of safety which is in fact unsafe. The child is safeguarding the parent's ego by providing narcissistic supply, while the careless, irresponsible parent is keeping the child in a very destabilized situation. Ergo the child become very hypervigilant to keep this fragile homeostasis in place. The child feels necessary and importance. But it is an unnatural parent reliance on her, not her being able to rely on them. The "catfish" element here is that this closeness is not about the child’s well-being; it is a tool to ensure the child remains an extension of the parent. I remember feeling proud that my parents trusted me so much sharing intimate details with me. It took me till 58 years old to realize it wasn't trust it was exploitation. 

3. Rewriting Reality (Gaslighting)

A catfisher relies on the victim not knowing the truth. Similarly, a narcissistic parent relies on the child being too young to understand. And too betrayal blinded to see what's happening for what it is. And too confused to trust their own perceptions. When a child begins to sense something is wrong, the parent may use gaslighting ("You're too sensitive," "That never happened") to maintain the false reality, just as a catfisher uses excuses to keep the truth hidden. The more entangled the enmeshed parent gets, the more of the child they pirate. My parents succeeded in virtually wiping out any sense of self I had and replacing it with themselves. 

4. The "Trauma Bond" as the Trap

The reason victims find it so hard to leave a catfish—and why children find it hard to leave an enmeshed narcissistic parent—is the trauma bond. The emotional intensity of the relationship (the highs of approval and the lows of rejection) creates a powerful a strong, unhealthy attachment to the parent. The deprivation of love and care, increases the child's vulnerability. The constant exhausting parent demands deplete the child's resources. The child becomes a "pawn" in the parent's game, not because they want to be, but because they have been conditioned to believe the parent is their only source of validation. 

5. They steal and destroy everything.  

⚠What narcissistic parents can't take they break. 

They steal the child's childhood, individuality, autonomy, confidence, peace of mind, security. My parents were guilty of identity theft long before there was a word for it.  They resented every good thing I got. They sabotage success with smear campaigns, jealousy and backstabbing. They ruin a child's common sense by gaslighting her that that is stupid or wrong or unchristian. They twist innocent things she does or says to make her feel foolish, deceitful or wicked. They write two sets of rules, one for them, one for her. When she gets it right, they backpedal and move the hoops. They lie about everything. There is breaking even, let alone winning. And is so very exhausting. 

6. Narcissistic parents pervert all the child's natural inclinations

Children are by nature bonded to their parents. They trust them over themselves. We naturally believe our parents can do no wrong. In healthy relationships that trust, love and affirmation is reciprocal. It actually originates with the parent and the child develops by modeling. However that works in reverse with in hypocritical narcissist parents. The parent models disdain, rejection, haughty superiority, blame and shame of the child. And what the child learns, by their treatment of her, is that she is worthless. Narcissistic parents use our innate trust and love against us. They exploit it. 

A Note on Healing

So this is overwhelming, I know. If you've experienced parent "catfishing" you know too. But the good news is that we are now onto them. We see their M.O. Even if the picture is still a little unclear, trust it will get clearer as you learn to overcome betrayal blindness.

I can promise you that this is what is happening with me. Just for today, we will do one nice thing for ourselves. Two would be better! Mine was sitting in the sun, sipping some lemon water and chatting with my grandkids!

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.