38 Devastating D's of malignant narcissistic enmeshed parent abuse and CPTSD

Hello my friends. Today in my childhood trauma recovery I'm looking at the 25 devasting D's of malignant narcissistic parent abuse and how they create our CPTSD. There are more but these are the main ones. Sadly each time I revise this, I discover more. Each is in itself a unique bespoke form of child abuse. 

The 38 Ds of malignant narcissist parental abuse

• Deceit: The entire premise of narcissistic parent abuse (neglect, exploitation, manipulation, endangerment, scapegoating) rests on lies. It's a house of cards they construct that looks real but is just a hollow travesty. But this narcissistic cult is all you know. 

• Double standards. Double speak, hypocrisy, two sets of ever-shifting rules: everything is one-sided demand with no reciprocity. They take your good and give you bad. They future fake, renege on promises, then gaslight you, saying you made it up and are too demanding (!) and selfish.  

• Disingenuousness. These people are fakers, scammers and cheats. My narcissistic mother actually prefers a con to an honest day's work. She loves scoring off people. But she's the first to tell you she's a Christian. I call these Pyramid Scheme Christians. 

• Deviousness. My narcissistic mother once conned me and my husband into buying her piece of junk car for $900 AND selling her my very good car for $100. She flipped the title and offered no help when that car stranded me and my kids. She trashed my once-good car and let it go to pot. I think I knew I was being stung. But I still thought she loved me and that I must have missed something. Because whose mother would scam them? Mine.  

• Devaluation. They don't prioritize their children and value us only for our usefulness, not our individuality. They belittle, mock and humiliate us. They nit pick over non-issues while ignoring enormous wrongs they've done to us. 

• Demeaning. Narcissistic parents dress us in silly clothes. They cut our hair in ridiculous styles so they can outshine us. They are jealous of our childhood charm and competitive with us. They will do anything to make us look foolish. They do and say humiliating things to us and then lead the jeers. My mother threw a pie in my face and shoved my son's face in a pie at her company picnic. 

• Disregard not only for feelings but rules. Narcissist parents live by their own bizarre set of user-created rules that apply only to them. They believe they are beyond consequences. They use children as cat's paws and shields from accountability. They blame-shift. The immoral, illegal, unethical and outrageous things my parents subjected me to, boggles under the cold light of reality. 

• Defeat. You can't win for losing with malignant narcissists. They see you as a challenge to overcome. In fact the more you succeed, the more you rise above, the more they drag you down. When I graduated college was my narcissistic father proud? No. He sniffed his haughty nose and "humpf, college isn't for everyone." 

• Disdain. They don't just downgrade what you do but WHO you are. They say the most disgustingly uncalled-for insults. They let their kids walk on you and then laugh.  When I breastfed my babies he said sneeringly "not all women are cows." I don't remember he or my narcissistic stepmother or mother ever saying a kind thing to or about me, that didn't have a sting in the tail. 

• Discard + Demand. Narcissistic parents ditch responsibilities to you. BUT they also demand buy-in on you. It's ludicrous how they're able to con everyone including you into thinking you owe them, after they dumped you. 

• Discrediting. They take credit for our good actions. Then they find fault with innocent things to vilify us. They make up nonsense about us to make us look bad. They discount our good intentions, always looking for a way to make us appear as failures. 

• Denouncement. They arrogantly "call you out" feeling entitled to weigh in and run their mouths against you. They don't do it to teach or help. They're nowhere to be found when you need them. But if they can get narcissistic supply scoring off you, they'll jump in twist your words just to humiliate you. 

• Disparagement. You don't need to have done anything to earn their vicious scorn. They lie all the time and they will happily lie to character assassinate you. And they do it in such a backstabbing way you never see it coming. And these are your family who are supposed to love you. Why would you think they were out to destroy you? Very often, you don't see their gaslighting and catfishing because trauma bonding has given you betrayal blindness. 

• Diminishment. They are always looking to cut you down. Narcissistic parents get ahead by kicking you to the curb. They use people like ladders to make themselves taller. No one is every as smart, special or entitled as them. 

• Dismissal. They dismiss your feelings and invent tales about how you're too sensitive if you contradict them. They minimize you and brag themselves up. They act like totalitarian dictators who control you with the snap of their fingers. (this one really makes my blood boil.)

• Disrespect Trap. Narcissists are always squawking about respect they are "owed." They aren't. No one is. Respect is earned. But the child who deserves their respect just for being their child, is treated with abysmal lack of respect. They are crybullies. 

• Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Narcissistic parents manufacture endless dilemmas to trap you in. There's no winning, no low to which they'll stoop, no crazy enough hoop configuration they'll set for you to hop through. Narcissists want their scapegoat to fail.  

• Dream trauma. They stole our healthy dreams and aspirations and replaced them with CPTSD and trauma nightmares. They ruined our rest and made everything exhausting and frightening. But the dreams are never as bad as the reality. 

• Deception and illusion. Nothing is real except the harm and danger they put us in. Family is for us to serve not to be a loved part of. Home is a facade. It only poses as a shelter, like the witch's candy house. Inside it's scary and fraught. The monsters don't lurk outside. They live with us.  

• Denial. They denied us basic necessities and rights, then denied abusing us. It's just more of their lies. 

• Derailment. Their crazy-making behavior can drive us off the rails and into insanity. They do this intentionally to undermine us. They purposely break plans, sabotage events and keep everyone confused. 

• Discord. These people invent problems where none existed. They could set off a Quaker meeting with their pot-stirring machinations. 

• Dysregulation. Narcissists are the unstable ones but they use every underhanded trick to dysregulate the child who could no more survive their onslaught than she could hold back the ocean. 

• Dismantlement. The child is born an extant individual but the enmeshed parent begins early on to dismantle natural boundaries. She invades the child's space and takes over. She violates modesty and privacy. She pirates the child's brain to serve her own selfish ends. 

• Disruption. Abusive parents do everything in their power to keep their child anxious, nervous and hypervigilant. They flood the child's life with gratuitous chaos, moving her around, switching schools randomly, making and breaking promises. Dragging all kinds of dangerous, unhinged people into her life and making her subservient to them. If she says anything, they claims she's the problem or she remembered it wrong. 

• Deprivation. We were not just neglected. We were systematically deprived of sleep, comfort, peace of  mind, nourishment and care, to make us weak, tired, vulnerable and pliable. 

• Debauchery. They were debauched, dirty-minded dark tetrads. We were just kids caught up in the crosshairs of their sick narcissistic fantasy cult. But they drilled their shame into us by doing things normal kids and even adults had no framework for. How could we tell them? Why would I as an empath, put that on them? So all their ick made a home in our hearts. 

• Degraded. We were physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually molested. They made us do bizarre, disturbing things that poisoned our minds and destroyed our childhood and selves. We were innocent but being forced into it made us feel ashamed by association. Guilt by proxy. 

• Debasement.  This shit made us feel dirty. Shit we couldn't tell anyone because they'd think we were the freaks. Their shit we were blamed for. We weren't allowed to set healthy boundaries. We were punished for defending ourselves. Who'd believe us, they said. But it seeped into our relationships like carbon monoxide. I let people hurt me because I didn't know that I should protect myself. Sometimes I acted inappropriately because I was taught to. It made me look weird and there was no one to support or comfort. Shame loves company. 

• Deformation. Dark Tetrad parents deformed us with abuse, neglect and chaos. I have several disabilities that are directly attributable to autoimmune deficiencies and child abuse. 

• Defamation. They lie to and about us to damage our understanding of self. They twist and destroy our character. They spin false narratives and launch smear campaigns. 

• Destruction. These malignant narcissists don't construct they destruct everything they touch. They tear down your boundaries, reserves, strength till you're just a fragile, broken egg shell. They thwart success and joy. They feed off your good. They make Zombies look like Girl Scouts. 

• DARVO. They deny, attack, reverse victim offender. They're like human twist ties, twisting round and round, flipping scripts to make themselves look like victims and their victims, persecutors. I just shake my head and the number of times I fell for this and felt so much FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) that it almost suffocated me. 

• Destabilization. All this rotted the foundations our selves were built on. Nothing was secure. Every moment was a terrifying game Stay Alive with each step threatening a fall into a bottomless pit. 

• Disabling. I'm trying to put these in order of severity but they're all just terrible. Our abilities were stripped from us. We were infantilized and parentified. Our capabilities were not only not fostered they were crippled, by ruthless demands, bullying, coercive control and violence. 

• Debilitation. We became helpless and hopeless because help was denied and hope was stolen. The only thing we could do was robotically trauma respond with fawning, groveling, people pleasing and self-abasement. 

• Dehumanization. At the core of it was a complete obliteration of our own humanity. We were told self-care and being ourselves was selfish. So we became selfless little shadow ghosts hovering in the fringes, awaiting the next command. No life, thoughts, wants, feelings, needs, boundaries. We were possessions not people. 

Prescription for healing 

I won't patronize you with a cutesy little wrap-up promising quick fixes for this sufferings. It's real and deep and visceral and historic. They do these things over a few weeks. It was lifelong devastation. But I can offer you one little Hope Candle and that is that knowledge is power. Once you begin to see the past for what it was, you're on the radical acceptance path. 

They may or may not change (chances are they won't.) But you have been changed forever by your new understanding what love is and isn't. You may choose to stay or go no contact. You may stumble or get side-tracked.  But whatever you choose, once seen never forgotten. You know that you know what you know. And you can never unknow it again. 

Trauma recovery is the yellow brick road AWAY from home

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The uniquely bespoke victim-shaming of childhood trauma

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

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

The double blind guide blindside

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

Red rags and red flags

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

Seeing through the gaslight

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

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

NPD or not to be, isn't the question

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

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

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

It's not you, but it is about you

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

Make it all about you. 

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

Shameful ways society enables abuse perpetrators and fails child victims

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

Shamefully bass-ackwards legal system

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

The DV hotline is unmanned.

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

Damage people, misdemeanor, damage property, felony

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

Felons get preferential hiring

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

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

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

2. The Federal Bonding Program

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

Bizarre Blame-Shame Shift Game

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

No, you didn't ask for it

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

Gaslighting is abuse too

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

Psychology doesn't get childhood trauma 

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

Playground bullies aren't just kids

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

The church is the worst offender

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

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

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

The Parent Trap

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

Betrayal Blindness Blindman's Bluff

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

Abusive parent charades

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

Illogical logical fallacies

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

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

Gaslighting lights the way

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

Power differential double bind

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

Be careful what you wish for

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

Next generation

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

Love mar. 

Thrival skills for managing childhood trauma responses to narcissistic parent abuse

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

Trauma response versus trauma reaction 

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

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

Proactive responses vs. reactive panic

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

Thrival skills childhood trauma survivors need

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love always, mar. 

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

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

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

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

Don't tell them how you feel.

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

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

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

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

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

Beware of medicine or psychology. 

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

Don't "rise above" 

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

Don't "be the bigger person." 

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

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

Don't take the BAITTTTT

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

Respect goes both ways. 

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

Don't fall for euphemisms 

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

Stand your ground. 

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

Shun and banish shame

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

Keep your own counsel. 

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