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. 

How I lost 100 pounds of trauma weight gain by grey-rocking and ignoring narcissist parents

Hello my friends. I've been working on healing both from childhood trauma from narcissist parents' abuse and weight gain caused by that. Here's how I lost 100 pounds of trauma weight gain by going no contact, grey-rocking and ceasing to appease narcissist parents. 

Listening to a Youtube vlog by psychologist Dr. Ramani, an essential piece of the healing puzzle fell into place. It's the idea that grey-rocking (keeping small and not attracting the attention of the narcissist) means more than just that. It means stopping the endless placating we children of narcissist parents do. We smooth and soothe their egos. While they never soothed our very normal childhood anxieties as they should have. In fact, my malignant narcissist parents (all 4) created, antagonized and weaponized my fears. 

They set up situations to traumatize me, backstabbed and pitted people against me with smear campaigns and lied to and about me. My life with them has been a ceaseless merry-go-round of confusing undermining, insults and name-calling, family ambushing, deprivation and destabilization. All of which was gratuitous and blatantly uncalled for. No child deserves to live in such chaos nor does she have the wherewithal to survive it. 

They wore down my resilience with barrage after barrage of humiliation, shock tactics, cutting me off from resources and basic necessities (food, sleep, safety, security, a consistent home). I never knew what was coming next. As far back as 5, I was always tired, worn down and exhausted. I was sick all the time with low-grade sinus infections, strep throat, skin problems, I had constant pain from untreated scoliosis and spina bifida. I think I would have been diagnosed with JIA (juvenile idiopathic arthritis) had someone actually bothered to care and not shame me for chronic pain. Healthcare was negligent at best. My self-care skills were non-existent both because I hadn't been taught them and that I was taught that self-care was selfish. 

Looking back at pictures, I can see how worn down I was. And I can see that my childhood "chubbiness" was more than just baby fat. It was my body's way of preserving what resources I did get and protecting me against further "leveraged famine." My damaged spine meant I walked funny and stumbled a lot. It put more weight on my back.  But losing weight in adolescence didn't help. I've always had back pain since I can remember. 

And instead of nurturing me, my parents and their partners made it worse by demanding that I perform inappropriately dangerous and heavy housework: mopping floors on hands and knees, lugging a heavy vacuum, copious amounts of ironing and laundry. I slept in the worst possible conditions, often on floors, unheated porches and flimsy cots. I co-slept with and got up at night with their foster kids, babies and children. Which shot my sleep to hell and I still trauma nightmare every night. 

Consequently I'm worn down and the very thought of structured exercise exhausts me. Because my whole life was too much work exercise. I had off the charts PMDD. Being hungry all the time is a struggle too. I sometimes overeat because I didn't get enough living at home. My physical conditions caused me to lose two babies at birth. And the non-stop depression and trauma anxiety didn't help. I've fought off suicidal thoughts all my life. 

And through it all, I continued to carry everyone, all their burdens,  the weight of their misdeeds and the consequences of their terrible, irresponsible choices. Part of how I lost 100 pounds was by metaphorically losing about 1,000 pounds of combined weight of four demanding, entitled, arrogant, malicious narcissist parents. I have set down the responsibility to and for them, that they groomed me to be. 

I did that by grey-rocking AND also as Dr. Ramani says, no longer humoring them. Because grey-rocking alone is actually more harmful than reacting + catering to them. We the victims do all the work. We keep small, don't react, stay calm and bite our tongue but still rush to soothe the narcissist when they demand it. They get all the perks from us forgiveness, tolerance, silencing our needs and wants WHILE still getting their egos stroked by us.  What I found I had to do was to stay quiet in all situations not just the ones they said to. When they pout, whine to me, sulk or demand help or just reach out, I stay silent too. I don't reach back. I don't dance attendance on the narcissist parents. I treat all contact with the same nonchalant lack of attention. 

And that I could only accomplish by going no contact. Completely. Not just when it suits them. Not making exceptions for Christmas or Mother's Day or whenever someone wants to borrow money, needs a ride, etc. I don't respond to texts or "fishing." I don't give information about myself, good or bad. I don't share or reach out. And when they try to, I just let the ball drop. Part of  how I lost 100 pounds is to lose the feelings of FOG (fear of, obligation to, guilt over the narcissists). They wanted me silent, well, I am now radio silent. I'm working to develop an IDK-IDC attitude (I don't know and I don't care). 

As for forgiveness, the best I've got for them is that I won't pursue revenge. Which to me is probably the best definition of forgiveness. Anything else, such as exoneration, would just enable and entitle them to hurt me more. Even if they were sorry which they'll never be. Me not punishing is as good as they'll get from me. No more "it's all good" or "you're fine." It's not and they aren't. They are the cause of most of my problems. No more taking on myself the results of their actions. No more body blocking. 

Now, not only do I not respond to baiting, I don't respond to anything. No texts, FB messages, calls, etc. Because on some level all communication is and always has been baiting. My responding even in the most innocuous way, provides her with a chink in my wall. Which as my husband just pointed out, is what the notion of grey-rocking is about, putting up a wall. Other similar terms are firewalling, protective measures which prevent sensitive data from being damaged. It's mental boundaries the victim erects to guard against the bullying narcissist triggering harmful trauma responses. Which a big one is letting down the guard and allowing the narcissist back in to  harm. Extending forgiveness can do that. Narcissists see it as dismantling of boundaries which allows them to breach the victim and perpetuate the hurt. 

And now that I've built solid walls, I can proceed freely. This freedom enables me to move ahead with my life, without any obligation to and expectation from them. I am ignoring them, basically. And one thing a narcissist cannot stand is to be ignored. 

How I lost 100 pounds by disobeying narcissist parents and taking care of myself.

Hi folks. I'm getting this blog back to it's original intent of sharing how I lost 100 pounds without diet drugs or weight loss surgery.  I took a few years to process my childhood trauma from abuse by four narcissist parents. And I'm finding the two subjects are not mutually exclusive. Today, I'm exploring how I lost 100 pounds and kept it off by disobeying my narcissist parents and taking care of myself instead of them. The photo is me in 1975 after a particularly nasty experience being sexually assaulted and receiving no help nor support from my mother with it. My dad was never much interested in me apart from how useful I was. 

I was as near as I'd ever come (and I was close many times), to ending it. I was clinically depressed before I knew there was a word for it. I wouldn't wash and wore the least attractive clothes I could. I wanted to make myself ugly so I'd never have to experience that again. Sadly it happened just about the time I started my first period. I got little help with that either. That I was smiling a little was only because my friend's sister took the picture. But you can see  how awkward I felt. And not just your average adolescent awkward. Shame. Disgust. Loneliness. So much self-loathing for one person. Why did no one see and try to help me? Well, that's life with a narcissist parents. They don't care about your pain unless they can weaponize it to shame you or exploit it for their purposes. It made me not just unable but unwilling to care for myself. Which led to weight problems veering from anorexic, self-harm and trauma weight gain. If I could expand this photo, you could see scars from the bite marks I'd self-inflicted then covered up. 

We know that narcissist parents are dichotomy of opposites: oversensitive and insensitive, entitled while depriving their kids, selfish while shaming others for prioritizing themselves over the narcissist, exploitative and punitive towards others. Endless excuse making for their behavior and vindictive towards innocent children. Demanding special exception while merciless to their child. Whining to and dumping their self-created problems on the child (who is already suffering the consequences of parents' poor choices then coldly turning a deaf ear to the child's struggles or stabbing her in the back taking everyone else's part over their child. 

Narcissist parents love to tell their kids off, in smug, shaming humiliating ways but do not like anything questioning them. And they are endlessly, exhaustingly demanding of care while being unsupportive, uncaring and neglectful of those they're supposed to care for. It's all about them and shame on you if you don't uphold that narc fantasy. Everyone owes them everything, especially their children while they owe no one anything. They DARVO (deny reality, attack, reverse victim offender) and then flip back to offender when the coast is clear.  

Growing up with these malignant double standards, debilitated me. It thwarted my healthy development of self-care skills. As I've said before, I learned that letting everyone walk all over me was what was expected of me. (An insanely dangerous thing to teach a vulnerable child and which makes her a walking sitting target for abuse). Standing up for myself was arrogant. Speaking up for myself was "disobedience." Defending myself was called cowardly and irresponsible. 

If they attacked and they did all the time, I was supposed to know that I caused it. That I "had it coming." That I "brought it on myself. Without being told how or what I did. I was never told why I was being punished. There never was any lesson to be learned expect to just keep jumping through moving  hoops, humoring them and hoping to get it right. So now, I always believe and trauma dream, that someone is angry with me but won't say why and that I've always done something wrong. But I never find out what it is. And I always believe that I've failed if someone says so, no matter how wrong or agenda-based it is. Interesting but not ironically, Youtube psychologist Patrick Teahan just discussed that very experience on his channel. Not ironic because these are universal experiences for traumatized kids. It's just that now, we're beginning to talk about it. 

So back to how I lost 100 pounds. But first how I gained so much weight. Self-care is something I know nothing about. I know people pleasing and that's it. And this has led me to some very unhealthy habits that oddly have nothing much to do with food or body weight and everything to do with deadly low self esteem and concomitant self-destructive behavior. I cut  myself short on everything. Austerity was my middle name. And that is because I thought because I was told that I didn't deserve what other kiddies got (the OG Secondhand Rose). Love, nurturing, support, encouragement, wants and needs met, was for others but not for me. 

Well, now I'm taking back what was taken. Heaven help me, I've not a clue how to do that or where to start. I don't even feel convinced that I'm right to do it. Old gaslighting casts long memory shadows. I'm constantly having to talk back to memories of my mom, dad and their spouses' dripped poison in my head. It will probably never feel comfortable but I think if I fake it till I make it, I just might. 

I have to disobey my narcissist parents' voices shaming me self-care is selfish. I have to unlearn the toxic lessons they taught me. I have to listen to that still, small voice of wisdom inside me instead of their hateful harmful words. So part of how I lost 100 pounds was to lose the burdens they wrongly put on me. To go my own way and try to find some light. 

How I lost 100 pounds by ceasing to carry weight of narcissist parents

Hello my friends. I started this blog to discuss weight loss and how I lost 100 pounds. Then I began processing my CPTSD from narcissist parents' abuse and gaslighting. And I saw how weight gain and obesity is directly connected to childhood trauma, abuse, neglect and narcissist parent gaslighting about it all. The story of how I lost 100 pounds is also the story of how I lost (or am working to lose) narcissist parent gaslighting. I'm working to end their reign of terror over me and reclaim my own power. A strange memory resurfaced recently that proved how gaslit, frightened by and dominated I was by my narcissist parents. 

Because that's what narcissist parent abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, scapegoating, invalidation, triangulation, manipulation, exploitation and gaslighting distills down to is fear. Narcissist parents create an atmosphere of hostility, chaos, trauma, insecurity which destabilizes the child. But they do it in such insidious ways that it may not be readily apparent to outsiders. They keep the child in her own private hell. 

Having said that, my narcissist parents' abuse (by all four of them, bio and then their new partners) was pretty weird even by malignant narcissists' standards. But somehow, I was so groomed to weird that I didn't see it clearly. That's the gassing effect that gaslighting has on victims. Their brains get damaged by the effects of their narcissist parents bizarre and toxic behavior.  

I didn't see clearly that deprivation of basic necessities like medical care, a proper home or bed, rest, nutrition, love, kindness was something a child deserves. I somehow knew and didn't know that these were rights not luxuries I had to earn. All I knew as a child and teen was to soothe and placate and humor mom, dad and then their new partners. 

What reminded me of all this was something I recall writing in the back of my Bible. (That's in itself is weird and ironic, that they didn't provide basic needs, like period products or a bed or pillow but gave me instead a Bible. Hmm. ) I had written to myself "you  can't fix all of mom's problems." I wrote that because I felt such intense guilt and worry for her. Over problems she absolutely and entirely brought on herself and not only on herself but me. And which she showed no concern for me about. Not a bit. 

That recollection brought to mind how she must have dumped and dumped on me like some kind of toxic waste site. I can't remember specific things she said (that's another effect of gaslighting...confusion). Rather I recall her never NOT dumping. It was so common for her to exploit me as her personal pity party host that all I ever heard was how terrible her life was. SHE was drowning ME under the weight of consequences of HER very blatantly irresponsible, risky, dangerous, immoral, unethical, illegal, abusive behavior. And making ME feel responsible for her bad choices and also to protect her from the repercussions. Which is what prompted me to write that in my Bible. I was sending myself and SOS to save me from self-destruction trying to rescue someone from her own self.  

But here's the clincher. Never once did I stop and consider how I was the one suffering from her choices not her, nor her husband nor her shiny new family. To make matters worse, this is just one half of the story. This whole shitshow was being repeated with my dad, his wife and his shiny new family. They called all the shots. They said jump and I asked how high? It took me till I was 60 (!!) to finally see, thanks to my husband's truth-telling, that THEY had everything they needed and wanted, while I had nothing. I went without so they could demand and take too much. 

So part of how I lost 100 pounds was by losing the weight of them. By dropping the burden of worry over them. By starting to care for myself, to prioritize myself over their incessant never-satisfied demands.