Malignant Narcissist parents make kids anxious then shame us for being anxious

 Hello my friends. Today on my path to healing CPTSD from narcissist parent abuse, I'm exploring how malignant narcissist parents make kids anxious and then shame us for being anxious. Then they gaslight us that we have nothing be anxious about and that we are just overreacting. They make intimidate, frighten, confuse and distort reality so that we are always on edge. They fire a barrage of accusations to make us jump. Then they scold us and make us feel foolish for feeling nervous and Which now I see is another of their gaslighting hypocrisies. It outs them as the malignant narcissist parents they are. 

We're told that no one can make you feel anything. You CHOOSE to let them. Well, I beg to differ. Narcissist parents can and do absolutely coerce their children into feelings of insecurity, instability, fear, shame and guilt. By DOING irresponsible, unsettling, frightening, shaming and attacking things. With gaslighting, they create a false reality where life is dangerous, chaotic and and parents are unpredictable, vengeful, two-faced, backstabbing and must revered like gods or else there will be hell to pay. 

But then these dementors rile kids up some more by turning on and blaming them for feeling exactly how the malignant narcissist parents groomed them to feel. My mother and father would alternately rage at, mock and humiliate AND then dump all their issues on me. I was scapegoat, sounding board, surrogate parent, surrogate spouse, sponge, complaint department, confidante and counselor. But I never knew which hat I was expected to wear and they weaponized this by continually flipping roles. So I was always behind and struggling to catch up. 

I was exhausted and depleted from all the demands and FOG (fear, obligation, guilt) put on me. But I didn't dare say anything and just went along with it because it was only ever about mom or dad or stepmom or stepdad.  And this is exactly how malignant narcissist parents want you. Tenderized. Ferberized. Compliant. Biddable. Moldable. 

And then came round two of gaslighting. After making  life a living nightmare (seriously I trauma dream about this shit all the time) I was a pretty shell-shocked kid and probably showed it. I don't know. Pictures of me show a kid with jaws clamped biting my tongue. Anyway, they spun that as me being pouty, self-pitying, attention-seeking. Though I never once asked for or got help from anyone. 

Out of the blue,  my dad would bark at me to "stop being so heavy" to "lighten up." To stop "showing off." He'd shame and sneer at me for being jumpy and nervous. They'd call me ridiculous, foolish, immature, deceitful. 

He, the heaviest element on the planet, would scold me for "being depressed" as if that was his sole prerogative. He'd mope around and unload all his woes (mostly self-made) on me. He'd whine about how he felt so guilty and then side-eye me waiting to be reassured and soothed that he had nothing to feel guilty about. 

None of them ever made wise, responsible choices. They did whatever they felt like and then had the audacity to preach to everyone else about how God wanted them to live their lives. They had the gall to call out sin in other people as they were doing these things themselves. Oh they had plenty to feel guilty about. 

They dropped the ball on me so many times. Or should I say never picked it up. But of course, they just pushed the cigarette machine's buttons and she had to dispense what they wanted. I lied and said all was well and pasted a perma-grin on my face. But they were never satisfied. They'd start with the accusations of faking it, making it up, and insincerity. OF COURSE I WAS FAKING IT!!!! WHAT CHOICE DID I HAVE?? YOU MADE MY LIFE HELL AND EXPECTED ME TO THANK YOU FOR IT!! But of course there could be no authenticity because they had to placated all the time. It would have been unthinkably dangerous not to. Or at least that's how they all made me feel. This is the definition of shit and shoved in it. 

Then I'd go to my mother's house for another take on it. She did whatever she wanted at any moment no matter how irresponsible, immoral or illegal. She left me to shoulder the consequences, gave me no help and then joined her boyfriends in traumatizing me and mocking me for feeling traumatized. I was just one big joke to them. A big joke, I might add, who was doing all the work in her foster home. She'd claim they did everything for me. It was me who was ungrateful and she who was the victim (DARVO) Then they kicked me out of the house, for shits and giggles. 

But remember I said earlier that they out themselves with their hypocrisies? The very fact that they told to both lighten up (stop overreacting) and that I was making it up for attention, is the key. I couldn't be making it up and overreacting. Either shit did or didn't  happen. Which of course is even more bewildering. 

But narcissists know they caused your pain. They know you're neither making it up nor exaggerating. But they would cut their own tongues out before admitting it. So they just throw a  bunch of gaslighting word salad at you to see what stick. Unfortunately it all sticks in the traumatized child's brain. She feels it all: guilt, shame, fear, self-loathing, confusion. She feels stupid, foolish, humiliated, ridiculous. But it's not the child who owns these issues. She is just the repository in which they dump their stupidity. She is the sponge that absorbs it all so her entitled, arrogant, manipulative sadistic dark tetras parents don't  have to. 

This is their legacy. What they have indoctrinated her to be. It has taken me almost 62 years to start to sort out what is mine and what is theirs. It's why confessing my sins is difficult. I can't see clearly what I was responsible for and what I wasn't. So many failings and wrongs I've allowed them to gaslight me about now live rent-free in my head. 

 

Bizarre, cringy exhibitionist things narcissist parents do to scare, humiliate or destabilize

 Hello my friends. I've been working to sort out issues from CPTSD caused by four narcissist parents and their narcissistic new families. Today I'm exploring  bizarre cringy, attention-seeking things narcissist parents do and say to   humiliate, confuse and destabilize you. And boy, once you start dismantling the weird world narcissist parents created for you, the more disturbing things you unearth. I've written about some of these odd behaviors before but today I realized how attention-seeking and downright exhibitionist they are. Typically we think of exhibitionist as more sexual in nature and I certainly dealt with a lot of  that from my narcissist parents, but exhibitionism takes in more than just sexual. I'll explain. 

1) Parading around naked or bragging about it. Both my parents did this when I was young and later in life. When I was 6 I asked why daddy had a tail. To this day, my mother talks freely to anyone who will listen about her genitalia. She prides herself on sleeping naked and will announce it at public gatherings. You might think she's just off her rocker, but those of us who know her, know there's more to it. She also fancies herself licensed minister (she isn't) and loudly decries seductive or immoral behavior. I have come to the conclusion after decades of embarrassment, that she does this with the specific attention-seeking intent of making everyone uncomfortable and luring men into lustful thoughts and then pitting her volatile, pathologically jealous husband against them by suggesting so and so "hit on her." She did this with her boyfriend's friends. She did this to my boyfriends. She did this to my husband. She did this with my paternal grandfather, accusing him of sexually molesting her. Her husband actually went to my grandparents' home (they were in their 80s) and verbally attacked them and threatened physical abuse. The only reason the police weren't called is that my grandfather was a placatory person, like me. There were so many times I could have alerted the authorities to my mother's and her husband's actions. 

2) Violent unprovoked outbursts of rage at family gatherings. Youtube psychologist and childhood trauma specialist Patrick Teahan did an excellent talk on this kind of narcissist parent behavior. It made me feel so sad for kids who witnessed that. And it took me until today, to realize that I'd experienced this from my mother and father and their new partners many times. One Christmas, my dad exploded on me in front of about 30 people, because I'd gone to the bathroom to try on my new sweater. Everyone was horrified. I almost threw up I was so upset. No one did a thing. No one checked or confronted him. So he felt entitled to do it again whenever he needed narcissistic supply. Which was a lot. 

3) Purposely doing shocking and even disgusting things for pity and attention. (this one is not for the faint-hearted) You've heard of people self-harming for attention My mother told me story of how she let her period blood "run down her legs" when she and my dad were at a friend's house. She says she was too shy to ask to use the bathroom and that my dad got "angry" with her. My is many things: shy is not one. She is loud, bombastic and even brags that she loves "shocking people." She got the attention she craves but everyone was entirely weirded out. And my dad (who is an angry person) most likely felt upset she didn't say something, vaguely guilty for somehow not knowing and utterly embarrassed that she'd made fools of them both. Which is what she wanted, I've come to see. 

4) Violent outbursts when the victim is vulnerable. My dad and stepdad didn't  have much in common except my mom, narcissism and a propensity ambush or attack me when I was most vulnerable. That's how coward bullies operate. My stepdad attacked and threatened me several times, once when I was holding a foster baby, one of four kids under 5 I was responsible to care for at night (at 11, way too young). Another time I was holding my newborn daughter. Before you ask (which you probably aren't', but yanno, voices in my head) no I didn't do anything to provoke him except perhaps accidentally wake him up. But either way, he was always ready to attack me. Another time my dad flew into a tantrum, ran across the room, grabbed me and started beating me. I was 13. Again, unprovoked. As if there is any provocation for attacks like that. It shocked everyone watching. Malignant attention-seeking narcissists always make sure there is an audience to witness your humiliation.  

5) Calling people by degrading nicknames, slurs, saying outrageously insulting things. My mom's husband loved to call me "Blisters" (in reference to my small breast size). My mother would smirk, preen herself (she loves talking about her breasts) and laugh along. The only one who didn't was my boyfriend now husband. He's the one who helped me see that this is sexual harassment. My dad would insult my clothing choices telling me loudly to "change your clothes you look ridiculous." I wore plaid pants like the Bay City Rollers. My dad wore plaid pants too, but I guess that was different. My mom's husband has an ethnic slur for everyone and she laughs it off. My grandparents to him were "ignorant dikes" (an old slur for people from Holland). Yet my mom made a big stink about "people" (no idea who, she generalizes a lot) calling Kentuckians "hillbillies." She made an exaggerated silly Facebook post about it. Then when we went to the doctor's office she loudly said of the PA "she's so SKINNY!" Yet if anyone called her fat, she'd be furious. 

6) Shouting at religious worship services, ceremonies or somber events including funerals. She will yell "HALLELUJAH or "PRAISE THE LORD! at the top of her lungs at a funeral. But she's not at one of her Assembly of God meetings where they do that. It's at our Catholic church where we don't. Or at my family of origin's Dutch Reformed churches where they don't. It. Is. Mortifying. I never had the guts to check her and it's one of the reasons I've gone no contact with them. Not the biggest one, but one. She doesn't do it to actually praise God (I think even He's embarrassed). She is attention-seeking and also trying to show up people who are quieter and more reverent. She says SHE's not ashamed of God (like we are, supposedly). I've heard other people say weird stuff like this about how they are LOUD and PROUD of God. No you're just an attention-seeking loudmouth trying to make others uncomfortable. 

7) Dressing provocatively or oddly. I'm not talking show cleavage. I don't care if someone wears a shirt cut to South America. I'm talking about wearing very occasion-inappropriate clothing like obviously scruffy clothes to a wedding, just to shame the bride and groom. Or to get pity. Or trying to outshine the bride by wearing a bridal type dress. My mother has done both. And if only she just did that. But no, she takes it nuclear wearing nightgowns that are obviously nightgowns. The kind with little bows. Cringe. It's not a matter of wearing something that could be taken for street clothing. She goes out of her way to find the nightgowniest nightgown and wear it to her great-granddaughter's baptism where everyone is nicely dressed. She has been doing this so long that back when the extended family got together at holidays they put out a dress code with the invite. Not that any of us needed it--just my exhibitionist  mother and her bunch. 

8) Shunning or obviously excluding people with strange remarks. My mother made a point that when she came to my house to see her grandchildren, she would always say "I have to get home to MY family." She always boasts in front of me how "her family" took her out to dinner for her birthday. Me and mine weren't invited. She did this at the doctor that last time I took her. Then told me that I could take her out separately. I was to know  in no uncertain terms that she had her shiny new family that did NOT include me. That I was her daughter only for her convenience. She was not my mother. She's been doing that since she divorced my dad when I was 6. No actually she has excluded me all my life. 

9) Doing outrageously bizarre things to humiliate. This is the cake-smearing, stupid pranking type mentality. My mom's coup de grace was throwing a pie in my face at her company work party that she had invited me and my children to attend. Then her daughter had to grab a pie and throw it at my son, to start a food fight. It was not that type of event. The pies were for a pie-eating contest that only she and her daughter were participating in. No one else was interested in making fools of themselves, including me. My kids and a few others wanted to but I was reluctant to let them. I think pie eating contests are gross and it seems others felt likewise. . I think she felt stupid because no one else wanted to. But instead of just quietly acceding to public opinion she had to punish me. Her jackass husband the only on laughing, then got mad at me for "not being able to take a joke." He had loudly announced if anyone threw one at him, he'd kick their ass. This was not that type of event. It was classy and nice until my buffoon mother, her daughter and husband decided to take the tone down. Strangers were rushing over to help me and the kids because they felt badly for us. 

10) Calling people out publicly, picking fights, haranguing, street preaching, "witnessing", solicitation and exhibitionist type acts done in the name of religion. I list this last because it's the most gaslighty-weird. They call it "saving souls." I call it intimidating people. Basically these narcissists will approach or even attack random passers-by with whatever agenda they are selling. If the person doesn't answer with whatever their little code phrase is, they will browbeat them. If you're my age, you might remember the Moonies who gave out (sold) flowers at airports. That's not what I mean (though it was disingenuous to offer them and then expect payment). This is heckling. You know, the kind who show up at community concert telling you you're all going to hell. These people are not protesting. They are not even spreading the word of God. They are antagonistic exhibitionists who love to be the center of attention. I've been with my mother when she got it in her head to "confront" people she deemed needed calling out. Out of the blue. It was none of her business and freakishly awkward. 

But the best offense against these people is a good defense. If you know someone like this, be prepared. When they go into their shenanigans ignore them. Walk don't run, away. Don't give them airspace. Not out of some gaslighted need to "rise above" or be the bigger person. Uh-uh. You already are the bigger person. Ignore them because that's what they hate when don't give them the attention they crave. Then just stand back and watch them gape for air. You can give them a little smirk and a head shake if you like. 

Now for children or with aggressive attacks this is different. Kids need and ally and if an adult is attacking BE THAT ALLY. Stick your neck out. If just one person had stood up for me, I'd be in a healthier place now. If you are being attacked, don't back down or cower. Stand your ground and tell them loud and clear that they are out of line. Don't curse or namecall. Just put them on notice. 

But be sure you are safe. If I had the situation to do over when I had my daughter, I'd have gone to the neighbor, asked to use the phone, called the police and my husband and told them that my mom's husband had attacked me. Then no matter what the police did, I'd have said, this is the last time you will ever do that again. And I would have gone no contact then and there. 

One way or another, there is about a 95% chance they will back down because bullies are craven cowards. But in situations as egregiously bad as that, it doesn't matter if they do or don't. Some things you can't and shouldn't come back from. One and done. 

Bizarre ways narcissist parents abuse their kids then gaslight them about it

 Hello my friends. I recently found a box of stuff my narcissist stepmother had saved and in it was a note my narcissist dad wrote me. Reading it brought back all the awful feelings of confusion, shame, guilt and betrayal he instilled in my. Funnily enough, it was supposed to be an apology but it was nothing of the kind. I see now it was a baffling word salad of DARVO and victim-shaming with an ulterior motive. I threw it out but here's the gist. Listen and see if you hear what's wrong with it. 

"Good morning, Mary. Your stepmother was very upset that you couldn't be more helpful to her. She doesn't ask much of you. We need you to pitch in more and with a cheerful face. I know you think you have too many chores and that you are angry about it. Sometimes we feel unappreciated but we should just know that we are. Being part of a family requires sacrifice. We should be glad to be of use. As the Bible says, "serve joyfully with not thought of reward or praise." Love Dad" 

For context, I was 14, and co-slept with the baby in a cramped, tiny room. There was no room for a desk or place to do homework. I had to get up with him in the night. While they had a huge bedroom large enough for two queen beds and a breakfast nook. They had an adult foster care home in which I worked, unpaid. I prepared, served and cleaned up after meals for them and the adult residents. I made their lunches and was still in the  kitchen long after everyone else was watching TV. 

I folded and put laundry away. I hung diapers on the line and took them in. I mopped floors on my hands and knees. I cleaned bathrooms, dusted, vacuumed and ironed. I had to babysit and couldn't have after school activities or a job. We lived way out of town and I was too busy caring for residents and their children. I had to stay up  late to finish homework and be up at 5:30 to catch the bus. I had to find and pay for rides to any outside thing I did. 

My dad worked nights and was completely disinterested in me outside what he could get out of me. He would mock and ridicule my hobbies and interests. My stepmother mostly sat and sulked. She didn't like being a mom let alone a stepmom. She didn't like me. So if my dad showed me any affection or tenderness, she got mad and sabotaged it with a pouting, passive-aggressive temper tantrum. Ergo the letter from my dad. 

So let's dissect that letter. First, angry stepmother. I didn't know then but do now that she was always upset and I, being biddable and subservient, made a convenient scapegoat. She knew she could goad my dad to anger as well, by pouting. He didn't like her and she didn't like him. What they agreed on was that I was the source of their problems. My dad would dump on me how difficult she was while still writing me letters like that. It wasn't just one. 

So as far as not doing enough for her, there really wasn't much else I could do. I have no idea in what way I'd "let her down." He wasn't very good with details, just vague accusations. She was upset, he was annoyed with her but too cowardly to confront her so he bullied me. As for my lack of "cheerful face" I was too cheerful, too obedient, too conscientious in the face of their exploitation. I don't remember ever complaining. And bear in mind, these were the least cheerful people you could imagine. The seething resentment, hostility and tension in the air was sliceable with a knife. 

Which oddly, is how these selfish, arrogant narcissists were able to manipulate and gaslight me. Narcissists ignore their consciences while I was plagued by guilt.  I felt responsible for everyone while they were irresponsible. They lied and twisted things to play on my overactive conscience. Did I let them down, Oh God, how?? Was I sullen, oh no, must fix that. Wouldn't want to displease anyone. 

And I see now how my arrogant, judgmental, fault-finding dad had made himself a god to me. And how he indoctrinated me to think he knew my mind better than I did. How he could ferret out my sin that I was hiding. Notice how he tells me how I feel (angry) and what I think (that I have too many chores and was unappreciated). But it was all smoke and mirrors. I did have too many and they were ungrateful but I never felt or thought it but I should have. 

He was speaking to himself in this letter and putting his issues on me. He knew he was responsible for  his  new wife, whom I never asked for nor had a  say in her being shoved on me. And he was responsible to and for me. But flipped that around on me. And I believed him (though confused)  because he knew everything. He was god. And notice too how he never admits they were ungrateful and demanding. He says I THOUGHT they were. So here's me, doing my best but again, scrambling to not do all these things he said I did and to do better. 

And he was excusing and soothing himself while shaming me. They weren't grateful for my work and had no intention of doing anything but expecting more. Yet I was supposed to, with no evidence of it, just feel appreciated. This is how narcissists steal their kids' souls. They rewrite history, reality and basic human rules for their own ends. 

The gaslighting is boggling. The bit about family being about sacrifice. Parents sacrifice in families. While I as the surrogate parent was doing all the sacrificing as they just did as they pleased. And they weren't my family, when it came to being there for me. I was their possession while also being an unwelcome nuisance. And then factor in the religious gaslighting, with all the thou shalts and shalt nots. God isn't speaking to children, about being servants. He's speaking to adults and parents. 

Yet my dad made me feel solely responsible for the burdens he lay on me but did not carry. And funny my stepmom would choose that letter to save. 

 

Toxic BS about "poor, helpless victim" narcissist parents

Hello my friends. In my quest to heal CPTSD from narcissist parent abuse, I've heard the gamut of advice. Most of it, unsolicited, toxically positive, preachy, judgemental, victim shaming nonsense. I wish I was exaggerating but I'm not. And it's time we, who are their victims, stop buying into this BS about the poor helpless narcissist as victim. This is fuel they use to burn their victims further. Here is some of the toxic BS being bandied about as helpful and therapeutic. 

"She's a victim, too." MMMgrrr, biting tongue here so I don't explode. She may have been abused as a child, MAY have been. I never saw or heard of it with either my narcissist mother or father. And they would have made sure to weaponize it for pity if it had. They always played the DARVO card against any suggestion that they were abusive. They always expected and got exoneration for bad behavior. They always kept the focus on themselves as saintly martyrs, never their actions. This is just another free pass to keep up the abuse, unchecked. 

Abused abuser crap. I personally don't think cruelly abusive people mistreat because they were mistreated. I think they are malignant and nasty and like hurting people. But even if I'm wrong and they were abused by their parents, so what? That doesn't give them license to hurt others. They should know, as I do, how it feels and NOT perpetuate it. If that were the case, all of us abused kids would be hurting others and I don't. And few that I know do. The order of operations is wrong. Malignant narcissists don't hurt because they were hurt. They don't retaliate, they draw first blood. They hurt because it's what they do. 

"They can't help it." This one may be the most insidiously dangerous one of all, to tell people they have no control over meanness. What, so someone held a gun to her head saying, "mistreat your daughter"?? God doesn't design people to be cruel. They choose to be. Often, they go out of their way to hurt when being nice would be so much easier. My parents never took responsibility for their actions. They always made me take the brunt. They were cruelly controlling of me yet now you want me to believe these master manipulators have no control over their behavior? Pull the other one. 

They mean well. Do they?? If that's well meant give me ill meant any day. At least it's honest. Did you even hear what I said that they did?  Abandoned me on a remote island 3,000 miles from home to go God knows where. Let me to play alone on a wharf.  Forced me to do endless backbreaking house work they never helped with. Made me parent their kids. Moved her sexually abusive violent boyfriend in and left me to manage her foster care home. Kicked me out of the house at 16 for no good reason. (there is no good reason and it's illegal). But it's okay because they meant well. No, they maliciously endangered and abused me. Would you be saying that if it was you or one of your kids? If you really believe that's in my best interests, then be off with your gaslighting hypocrisy. 

They "lack" remorse or empathy. This one is tricky because even trained psychologists will use this, what I call gaslighting lite, to confuse the victims of narcissistic abuse. They make it sound as if narcissists were born without remorse or empathy, like a leg or arm. Which implies that we should somehow exempt them from normal expectations of remorse or empathy. Whelp, news flash, that's exactly the kind of thing narcissists weaponize to gain 1) sympathy (ironically) for themselves as the victim and 2) permission to keep on doing nasty things. Because, yanno, they "can't" feel regret because they "don't have" compassion, so we can't expect them to. Nope. They've got as much as anyone else. They just choose not to use it. And so like the proverbial unused muscle, it atrophies. And we give them carte blanche to carry on remorselessly, pitilessly hurting by making it some kind of thing beyond their control. 

She deserves your pity not censure. Oh dear me, this crazy double standard comes right from the narcissist playbook. Her heinous sins are no big deal and never her fault. Someone else is always to blame. We're always supposed to feel sorry for her and extend endless mercy. While anyone else's minor infractions are capital crimes she shouts from the rooftop and which deserve no mercy. While in the actual act of perpetrating a crime, she's the victim in need of sympathy. Black is white, up is down, right is wrong. It's however she choose to spin it that moment. And since when have I ever been allowed to censure her? 

Narcissists have a disease, disorder, disability or handicap. Oh my God, why don't you just give them SSI and a handicapped parking sticker for being incurable pri-cks. My mother already thinks the world owes her everything on a silver platter and that she's above rules. The last thing we need is for her to have diagnosis encouraging her.. And while it's true that NPD is listed as a disorder, it's not one over which narcissists have no control (another myth). No disease is. Though they would use it that way. I remember reading a post by a mom excusing her 8 y/o son calling his teacher a filthy c-nt because the kid had Asperger's. Mother blaming the teacher for not realizing he was "special." Hmm, translation: exempt from rules. Special needs teacher here, Asperger's doesn't make kids act like that. Arrogant, entitled narc parents do. Narcissists aren't special. They can help it. And yes, I know and you know diseases, disorders, whatever, aren't excuses for bad behavior. But the narcissist doesn't and will leverage anything that seems to exonerate them. 

They did their best with what they had. This inane comment has been used to shield perpetrators for too long now. For one thing, you have no idea what they had and they had plenty. It was me that did without so they could have whatever they wanted. English riding lessons, when I didn't  have toys or a bedroom. Expensive jewelry, decorations, breed dog, the nicest new furniture, a water bed, a private suite, while I co-slept with their babies. The people this comment is meant to explain are those who made do and did without so their kids could have better. That is the antithesis of me and parents. 

That's just how they are. And? So? What? It's okay because they're "just like that?" Poisonous and deadly is how a cobra is, but we don't invite him into our child's bedroom. And since when did "being that way" justify or excuse them being as awful as they can? Why would we not expect them to do better, to be accountable for their actions? Malignant narcissists aren't that way through some accident of birth. They choose to act badly. On purpose with an intentional agenda. They are arrogant, entitled, exploitative and cruel, by choice. It's their children, who by accident of birth get stuck with them. And anyone who gives a free pass with the old "that's just how they are" has not suffered from the reality of how bad they really are. 

Here's my rebuttal to all this nonsense. A narcissist parent isn't the victim. She is the perpetrator victimizing her child. She is the abuser regardless of whether or not she was abused. She can help it she just doesn't want to. He didn't mean well for me, but himself. He got what he wanted no matter the cost to me. He doesn't lack remorse, he just doesn't feel obliged to it. Remorse and empathy are for others, not him. Narcissists don't have disorders, but their victims do from living with them. They did their best for themselves, not me. 

And so that's just how they are? Well, then, here's how I "just am." Sick of it up to my eyebrows. Cutting ties and going no contact with it. If that makes me vindictive and selfish and unforgiving, pfft, so be it. At least I'm not a doormat anymore. 

 

Setting boundaries with my narcissist parents means building grey rock firewalls

Hello my friends. I'm working to heal from complex childhood post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) caused by four narcissist parents. Today I'll explore how for me, setting boundaries with my narcissist parents means building grey rock firewalls. That's not just me using as many keywords as possible. I realized that the only way to create workable boundaries with them was to erect durable walls of solid rock. Walls that are gaslighting impermeable. So terms like grey rock and firewalling are not just metaphors. They are actual processes I must initiate to keep myself safe. 

And having said that, let me just warn that this won't be popular. I won't win any People's Choice awards for best daughter. Conventional "wisdom" says we must embrace our parents, give multiple chances, forgive endlessly, hold the door open, pray for them, take care of parents when they are old, be tolerant and accepting, yada yada. Well, my life with them was anything but conventional and they were not only unwise, but also irresponsible, abusive and dangerous. Further, I've done all those things for over 60 years and it's why I'm in the mess I'm in. I've been taking care of them since I was a child while they neglected and abandoned me. It's why I have to build walls between mine and them. 

Because the usual rules of engagement with family don't apply to children of narcissist parents. We don't have the luxury of interacting safely with them because they are exploitative, malignant and manipulative. They never supported nor built us up. They tore us down and cut our legs out from under us. They humiliated, invalidated and betrayed us. They cheated on us and threw us at scary abusive people to whom they gaslit us into thinking we owed all we owed our parents. I'm beginning to see that I never owed them anything, let alone their shiny new family, especially what they hadn't earned or first given me. Like respect, care, support. 

My relationship with them was based on gaslighting, lies, distortions, deceptions, pretense and DARVO (deny reality, attack, reverse victim and offender). Family was nothing but a manufactured mirage to keep me thinking I had a place. An illusion based on their weaponized narcissistic fantasy. I existed only to serve, to be useful, to prop up, to soothe and placate. So now, any notion that I owe them a place at my table or in my life, is ludicrous. These aren't loving family members I'm shutting out but soul-destroying werewolves. 

And so, normal boundaries won't work either. Because they aren't mutually respected. While I overly respected their boundaries, even including in my own home. My mom and dad moved their new partners in and suddenly the jobless, lay-about partners was in charge. My home was no "their home, their rules." I've never really had much of a house let alone a home. It was always "theirs" and I was the unpaid live-in nanny and house elf.  And their expectations were double standard that no one but me had to live by. There's no reciprocity, no give to me only, take from me. 

And, then, they continued as they began when I got married. They have never respected me, my family, my home, nothing. They invaded, trashed, tromped on and shat all over us. Our cat died as a result of their boundary crashing. My father maliciously brought his dog in without asking, let him lunge and terrorize my cat. He thought it was funny to see Oliver terrified witless. Poor little Oliver passed away shortly afterwards, his early demise brought on by shock. I'm ashamed to say I did nothing because standing up to dad was unthinkably dangerous. 

My mother stole from us, used our place as a crash pad, booted my kids out of their room (my fault, brought on by decades of giving in to her against my better judgement). She paraded around naked in front of my sons, for some sick exhibitionist narcissist supply. My stepmother helped herself to our computer without permission and installed a chat site for luring pedophiles by posing as a child. She got angry with me for shutting it down, saying it was vital government work (!) Thank God I saw it before my kids did. Not that step-mommy dearest cared. That program infected my computer and it crashed. 

Not only did they not take me seriously as a human being, not only did they take me for granted, not only did they take advantage of me, they malignantly hurt us all, to shame me for daring to have a family of my own, outside them. They encouraged their other kids to take audacious liberties with me because "it's Mary, that's what she's there for is to use and abuse." I'm chagrined about how much I let them get away with. My only defense was that I was groomed to do this. And anything else would have been "disloyal." I wish I'd been a lot more disloyal. I wished I'd policed harsher restrictions around them. Might have saved us all years of trauma. 

Well, never too late, I guess. And I know there are misnomers about setting boundaries. We set them for ourselves, to protect ourselves. We don't tell others what to do around them, we say what we will do if our boundaries are not respected. "I won't answer my phone after 7 pm." Not "don't call me after 7."  Now, this works great in theory and with reasonable people. But narcissist parents are not reasonable. They are arrogant, entitled, Machiavellian and sometimes sadistic (note example with my cat). 

Malignant narcissist parents do exactly what they want when they want. And bonus added for them if it was something that will destabilize you. They do just what they know will hurt you. They refuse to do what you asked, just because you asked. They would never do this to anyone else whom they feared or respected. They wouldn't have thought to do it had you not in some way let them know you had a problem with it. Even if you said nothing and let them get away with it repeatedly (raising hand here). They do things for the sole purpose of hurting you. End of. 

Normal boundaries with normal people can have some wiggle room. I might answer the phone after 7 because I know the person calling isn't taking advantage and has a good reason for calling. Not so with narcissist family members. They're just testing to make me give in or so that they can find fault later that I was so "inflexible" and "selfish." They didn't want anything except to see me jump to their demands. 

Setting normal flexible boundaries with narcissists is like putting up a paper house in a Cat 5 hurricane. My new boundaries have to have the tensile strength of graphene. I have to grey rock my castle walls and fill the moat with crocodiles. I have to firewall my heart and mind against their intentional breaches. I have to make my boundaries impervious to their gaslighting about what I "owe" them, all my obligations, how I'm insensitive and callous to their needs. Yet also oversensitive about the hurt they caused. How I'm selfish, greedy, hoarding, just lucky, blah blah blah. Talk to the hand, folks cuz the ears aren't listening to your nonsense anymore. 

So I build my walls with grey rocking but even more than that.  I don't respond to her phishing texts. I don't let them trigger my over deep empathy with piteous pleas of hardship. They stole my college money and child support to fund their lifestyle. So I don't feel sorry for her anymore. I don't dole out money because she plays the self pity card. All my narcissist parents scammed and cheated their way through life. They blew through everything I gave them and still had their hands out for more. Now the Yankee milch cow has dried up. 

I don't answer questions. I don't respond to passive-aggressive hints. I don't respond to moaning about  her physical ailments. I learned long ago that she's a malingering Munchausen's syndrome (factitious disorder) case. And if she does have a legit illness, oh well, too late. Cry wolf long enough and pretty soon you deal with it alone. The most I'll say is a grey rock "sorry to hear that." Which is more compassion than she ever gave me. Is that stooping to her level? Should I be the bigger person? No, I could never stoop that low and I am the bigger person just by surviving the abuse. 

I have to guard my privacy like the national vault. No more sharing sensitive data. No more telling good news or bad. Not that they ever cared unless they could leverage it to their advantage at my expense. When I finally bought a new car for the first time in my life, at 55, my mother's only thought was "did you get a credit for your sister?" When my dad died she was only concerned with getting his social security. From a man she divorced 50 years previously. Shit like that is why I need firewalling. 

Setting boundaries is not about changing their behavior. I laugh to even think about that. AS IF! Setting boundaries is about removing myself from their gun sites, ceasing to care anymore what they do, think, want or need. It's about evicting them from living rent-free in my life. It's about protecting myself and my family. And hopefully setting up a better emotional trust fund for the next generations. 

Deadly impacts on children of cognitive dissonance and Dissociative Identity Disorder from parental abuse

 Hello my friends. I did a piece recently on the terrible impacts on children forced by narcissist parent abuse, into dissociative splits and ultimately dissociative identity disorder. I didn't cover them all, because I'm writing this in stream of conscience, as I'm discovering them. So this entire blog represents my work in progress: healing myself from complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Today I want to explore more negative impacts from cognitive dissonance that parental abuse and neglect causes. And not just abuse but specifically malignant narcissist parent abuse. 

First what is cognitive dissonance? Well, think music--dissonance is the jarring, off-key notes that don't fit with the rest of the composition. In life, they are the experiences that don't fit with reality, our lives or with society at large. They are the hypocrisies, the conundrums, contradictions, inconsistencies and incompatibilities that we cannot integrate into our understanding. They cause us to go into dissociative splits in which we fragment into different personas to balance these imbalances. 

Every child experiences some inconsistencies from their parents. Malignant narcissist parents are one endless revolving door of chaos and confusion. They change things like rule or expectations or circumstances or who we answer to, on a whim with no warning. They uproot us, they tear apart relationships, cut us off from loved ones, abandon us, endanger us and then gaslight us about it all. They leave us to suffer the consequences of their foolish, irresponsible and traumatic actions. I have been plagued by trauma nightmares all my life. My mother and dad, who caused them, sleep blissfully and even made fun of me for my trauma responses. Or they scolded me for being oversensitive and/or showing off. That's a huge mind eff (another term for cognitive dissonance). 

So the biggest and most fundamental form of cognitive dissonance an abused child faces is the fact that parents who are supposed to protect and care for her, endanger her regularly. AND they also expect the child parent them, to always make good choices, to forgive and cover for them, to take on herself the hurt of their behavior so they can continue to live irresponsibly. And that doesn't fit with anyone's idea of parents. Not social, religious, psychological or moral. It defies all cultures, traditions, place and time. 

This behavior is not due to parent ignorance or mistakes. It's purposeful demolition of the child's infrastructure, foundation, framework and support system. And the fact that it's so counterintuitive to any kind of family structure the child sees around her, she cracks. She feels utterly alone in all of this because she is. There was no one to validate me, to defend, to assure me that my narcissist parents were the problem not me. And so even now, I question, was it me? Did I imagine, invent or exaggerate? Were my parents right the fault was entirely mine? That I was too sensitive, a show off, arrogant, lazy, disobedient, a disappointment? That is what  my inner child has always believed. 

So let me segue a moment to point something out to little me. How could you be exaggerating, making it up for attention and at fault at the same time? Either it didn't happen or it did and you were to blame BUT NOT BOTH.  And that is just one flaw in their gaslighting nonsense. They overplayed their hand. And beyond that, how can anyone always be at fault and in the wrong? It's not possible. And how can a child cause adults' actions unless that adult is placing inappropriate burdens (FOG-fear, obligation, guilt) on her or failing their own obligations with DARVO (deny reality, attack the innocent and reverse victim and offender) or gaslighting (denying reality) or parentification (forcing adult expectations on a child). Or all of the above. 

However, a still-forming child doesn't know any of this. She only knows parents. They are her lifeline (a fact which they exploit to frighten and coerce her into compliance with their abusive actions). Which is one way the fubar her by twisting normal relationship dynamics to suit their evil intentions. They intentionally destabilize her to keep her off guard. To keep her dancing for scraps which they feed her just enough to survive their torment, no more.  It is that bad. 

In order that her head doesn't explode with all these contradictions, the abused child splits herself into parts, to accommodate all the fantasies and fake realities the parents have forced on her. An abused child's life is not simple. It's complicated and dangerous AF. She doesn't have the basics and every day is a battle just to scrape by. She absorbs all these lies and distortions about herself. She somehow fits them into her self-perception. But the shit they taught her doesn't coexist with any real or healthy version of reality. And since they are the grownups, their versions take precedent in her mind. Talk about your out of tune cacophony of cognitive dissonance. 

Now all this hell, repeated at high volume on autoloop creates a permanent fracturing of reality into what we call dissociative identity disorder (DID). The abused child identifies as broken, at fault, to blame, lucky to allowed to serve them. And other narcissistic horseshit. Like Major Tom, she is cut off and drifting out into space. The fracture goes so deep it becomes a fissure, like the San Andreas Fault. Trouble is, though it hides in plain sight, no one sees the child's shattered little self,  unless they look. And very few people bother to do that.  Easier to just walk by on the others side and pretend everything is fine. Because it is fine for them. They aren't the ones having to live with these demons.

And there is no return from dissociative identity disorder.  You can only go so far down a dissociative split black hole before you can't come back. Sad thing is, the child did this to herself or let it be done to her, to appease selfish, arrogant, mind-effy, inhumane, sadistic parents. We tried to please unpleasable people because we didn't know they weren't mommy and daddy, but fraudulent, soul sucking dementors. 

And we end up looking like the frauds. We don't know how to be our genuine, authentic selves because we don't know who we are because we weren't allowed to be whoever it is we are. And my tormentor parents played on that, calling me (ME) the fake one. The liar, the attention-seeking poser show off. If you met my parents you'd see what laughable hypocrisy that is! Pot meet kettle. But again, a child knows none this. A child brings light and flowers and kindness and sweetness to their dark, wicked, hateful Battle of Ypres. 

And so to wrap her mind around it, she compartmentalizes. She splits herself into many fractal pieces. Like a broken prism. She lets herself be treated in ways she doesn't deserve just because they say she does. She believes malicious lies about  herself to humor mommy and daddy, stepmum and stepdad. She dispenses endless free passes, turns a blind eye, rolls over for abuse and carries the shit can, for others at her own expense. "You know you got it if it makes you feel good." She is everything for everyone and nothing for herself. 

No child asks for this. No child is born with it. Dissociative identity disorder is created from the necessity of having to juxtapose horrific parental abuse with everything that's good and normal and clean. It's born of the child having to go around with Perma-grin, to cover up what she's enduring and to shield her parents from consequences. To protect everyone's Pollyanna delusions. Oh what a sad little child. 

Is there any hope for her? I'm not going to gaslight you or myself or hold out toxically positive false promises. It's pretty grim. The one little fairy in this Pandora's Box is that somehow, some kind genius loci, some avenging angel, call it God or what, helped me to, as much as possible, not pass this on to my own children. I didn't do it well. I made many more mistakes and wrong choices than I wish. I didn't get my toxic parents evil until very late. But as my dear daughter once shared, 

"my  mom wasn't able to overwrite all our generational trauma but she did erase a hell of a lot." So I guess there's that.  I don't expect to get to the promised land with them. I just hope to have helped them get there or at least not stood in their way too much. 

What can we for children now? Ask the awkward questions and listen to their answers. Hold space for them but don't just sit there. Hold them. Reach out and take their hand.. Say for them what they still don't know the words to. Acknowledge without judgement. Please, let's quit the toxic positivity. Don't scold, pooh-pooh, patronize or say "oh your parents really love you." Don't invalidate their feelings. Right now it feels to the child that they don't. And who knows, maybe, like mine, the parents really aren't loving and you're just playing flying monkeys. Give space to feel feelings. Articulate their pain until they can articulate it for themselves. 

Too many children are living with trauma we've only read about. They're having to make unenviably choices the likes of which most adults will never know. Let's prevent further outbreaks of dissociative identity disorder. 

How I dealt with narcissist parent abuse: terrifying dissociative split impacts

Hello my followers.  My dear friend recently asked my how I felt and thought about the abuse and neglect by my four narcissist parents. And her question left me absolutely dumbfounded. I realized that for all I've written about narcissist parent abuse, I have no idea what I think now, let alone what I thought or felt then. Looking back, I see in living color that what I experienced was a frightening series of dissociative splits from reality. I see too, that I developed DID (dissociative identity disorder). It's undiagnosed but that's part of the neglect and abuse and I'll explain why later. Here are disturbing ways I felt and thought about parental abuse along with a description of the frightening dissociative personality impacts. 

First, some definitions. Cognitive dissonance is like a record played backwards. Nothing makes sense. The mind can't process what the eye is seeing or the ear hearing. It's out of sync. And in a child's developing brain, constant cognitive dissonance is corrosive. She has no skills or framework to integrate the dissonant elements. Too much dissonance leads to dissociative splits which unconscious defensive mental breaks from a reality that is too incongruous, too bizarre too dangerous to process. They are self-protective trauma responses to a world made impossible to navigate by abusive parents, without fragmenting the self. So I did just that: dissociate from reality by shattering myself into tiny pieces with jagged edges. 

Google AI explains my life to a T. "Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is a process that creates "alters" (altered realities) or distinct self-states that hold incompatible emotional realities or memories. It is a response to childhood abuse, neglect, or extreme stress, where the personality divides because it cannot integrate traumatic experiences, resulting in "apparently normal parts" (ANP) managing daily life while "emotional parts" (EP) hold the trauma." I got really good at the ANP while the EP filled to overflowing. I managed to look normal in a world that was hellishly abnormal. And I used dissociation to achieve that. 

Dissociative Identity Disorder is not something a traumatized child is born with. She's forced into it. DID is curated by abusive parents who strategically weaponize manufactured chaos, hypocritical double standards, religion, shame, cruelty and stress. They routinely intimidate, shock, terrorize, ambush, backstab, lie to and about, humiliate, invalidate, triangulate, manipulate and exploit her. They abandon, neglect, endanger as a matter of course. Then they demand and expect unreasonable things of her. They gaslight about it all to destabilize their child and keep her in a state of confused fear, obligation and guilt. 

An operative word in the Google description is "incompatible." First incompatibility: My life was so very different from everything around me: other family, friends, kids at school. No one else's looked remotely like mine. Second incompatibility: notion of family. My parents and later their new partners and kids in no way resembled or acted like families around me. I was the surrogate parent and spouse, unpaid nanny and caregiver to them all, yet infantilized like a wayward child. They took the parts of parenting they liked (being able to boss me around, having a child possession, being able to demand respect and act like know-it-alls) while ignoring all the real work of parenting. 

I faulted for doing, saying, even thinking things I don't recall doing, saying or thinking. I was called willful, spoiled, disobedient, disloyal, too sensitive, too critical, in the way, a stumbling block, the problem. And I have no memory of being anything but loving and too obedient. I was subjugated to strangers whom my parents said were parents. It was incredibly baffling. I was blamed for everyone's faults. No one ever took my part. Not one. They all just pitted me against each other and played me like a cue ball. 

Yet no one outside this illusory "family" treated me this way. No one said bad things about me. They seemed to like and love me. They never expected odd things of me. BUT none of them said anything to the contrary about this disparate way I was being treated, either. No one spoke up for me, either for or against. Every single person outside just accepted it so I thought I was the problem. I was the reason nothing matched or fit. I somehow caused some bizarre paradigm shift and that was why my experiences and how I was treated were so completely incompatible with external reality. 

And so the only thing for me was to splinter my reality to suit whomever I was with at the time. I played the happy normal role with grandparents, at school, at church and with friends. Within what passed for family, I wore many more hats: scapegoat, problem child, fixer, appeaser, human doing, performing fool, slave, whipping girl.  Dissociation was my survival tool to navigate this personal hell. I had to compartmentalize all these contradictory and bewildering experiences into tiny little drawers. I had to shut off large portions of myself which inevitably, as oxygen-deprived things do, suffocated and died. Feelings, thoughts, opinions, fear, anger, needs, creativity, self all subverted under the oppressive weight of narcissist parents' insane demands. 

So now, despite some awareness, I'm still riding the waves of dissociative splits. I've never known who I am because I existed only to please them. To be what they wanted me to be, to play whatever role they cast me in. And it changed from person to person at any given time. That's another incompatibility: I had to be diametrically opposed things for each of them at the same time. And boy did my dad weaponize the scripture about being all things to all people to his advantage. My life gave that passage a whole new meaning. I had to be dancing monkey, lion tamer, tightrope walker, high wire acrobat, clown and shit scooper all at one time, in their three-ring circus of a "family." And here's a snapshot of what that did to me. 

1) Imposter syndrome. Despite fielding all they threw at me fairly well, I feel like a fraud. Both because they told me I was and because they made me play so many conflicting roles, simultaneously. I never have and possible never will feel any genuine success. 

2) No understanding of self outside others. No boundaries. I don't know where others end and I begin. And since narcissist parents forced me to cave under and rode herd ruthlessly over any boundaries, I'm not likely to feel comfortable erecting any now. So I just dissociate, again. 

3) No independent wants, needs, opinions, thoughts besides those I was told to have. And wants and needs were never allowed. So to answer my friend's question, I don't know how I feel about their abuse. There's no framework or precedent for it. I just have to pretend it wasn't happening, to play monkey "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil." I smiled through tears and cried on the inside. I faked it was all good because doing anything else was too dangerous. And now my feel and think abilities are broken. 

4) Living in constant confusion.  My memories are patchy at best and always shrouded in a confusing mist of pain with a few less painful spots. Gaslighting fog has gassed my brain and left it shell shocked and damaged. Most happy memories got buried under painful ones. And I got desensitized to painful ones by their malignant, malicious strangeness and frequency. I have emotional leprosy and can't feel the pain I should be able to because of all the scarring. It's just a constant dull ache. I have a scary high pain tolerance as one counselor said. 

5) Crippling neurotic shame. I said early on that I'd explain why my dissociative identity disorder was undiagnosed. I never took the obvious symptoms seriously because no one else did. Instead of seeking help for me, they just shamed and blamed me, calling me an attention-seeking show off FOR EXHIBITING ANY SYMPTOMS. And extended family just ignored and pretended it was all fine. And so I didn't get help. I shut it all down, to placate, humor and soothe my narcissist parents. And to shield my extended family from any responsibility for or to me. And I got VERY good at hiding in plain sight. 

6) Endless, terrifying nightmares. I'm exhausted and wake more tired than when I went to bed. I can't find relief. That's the hidden result of too much dissociation from reality. Memories don't go away, they don't stay in their drawers. They escape, in dreams, making new frightening memories. I have more dream memories than memories. 

7) Sick and tired. I have so many trauma-related illnesses and injuries. Everything hurts. 

8) Trauma behaviors. I cringe, keep small, stay silent, trauma grimace. I wear my constant appeasing, humoring face. I'm hypervigilant to anger, disapproval and censure. I'm a sitting target for shame. I'd like not to be. I'd like to not care, to blow it off, pfft, it's nothing. I'd like to speak up more. But I'm afraid to. Upsetting people who were easily upset with me, has kept me small. My pursed lips in the photo aren't me disapproving. They're a knee-jerk trauma response from biting my tongue and clamping my jaws shut so as not to upset anyone. 

9) Angry outbursts that seem to come from nowhere. Keep a lid on an actively boiling kettle, doesn't work for long. It boils over. Pressurized things explode if pressurized too long. And often, it's a small thing that does.  All that poison they dumped on me and I absorbed into myself. There was nowhere to go with it. And what happens to an oversaturated sponge? It leaks out. I hate that it does. I try so hard to smash that lid down and it only makes it boil harder. 

10) Inability to move forward. Not for lack of trying or wanting to. They always enmeshed in me like a net and shackled me to them. Now I'm having a bitch of a time getting unstuck from their traps.  It's not that I can't let it go. It won't let me go. 

And my ability to compartmentalize and dissociate was complete. I was able to present a picture of my parents as loving, to my children and husband. For them. I was able to hide the incredibly shitty things they did to me so that my kids could have some grandparent normalcy. Now, mind, my parents were not good parents and so also were not good grandparents. But because my children had good parents, it good enough for them. They get it now as adults. And happily don't blame me for the cover up. I think they get it. I'll blog more on that later. 

So that's pretty depressing. I wish I had a nice, neat plan to share about how I got free of all this. I don't. Maybe it will get better, maybe it won't. I do think that radical acceptance of what happened and that it really was that bad, is a start.