The histrionic narcissistic parents' bizarre and contradictory trifecta of abuse

Hello my friends. This blog has evolved from how I lost 100 pounds to an awareness journey into my CPTSD from a lifetime of narcissistic parent abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, manipulative invalidation, scapegoating, parentification, toxic shaming and gaslighting about it all. Today I'm looking at the bizarre and contradictory trifecta of abuse that my histrionic narcissistic parents leveled at me. 

But first, if you're new to the term narcissist, let me explain. So the DSM-5 has identified personality disorders called HPD (histrionic personality disorder) and NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) with characteristics of self-absorption, lack of empathy and self-awareness, exhibitionism and self-centered delusional fantasy issues. There are types within those. For the purpose of this blog, I'm not looking to diagnose whether my parents were clinically NPD or HPD (although I'm 99.9% sure they would be if examined). 

I'm looking at the specific behaviors that they exhibited, which fall squarely in the category of narcissism. At first it was grandiose narcissism with some covert and malignant narcissism which really unfolded the older they got and the more selfish behavior they got away with. The histrionic behavior manifested in a pathological need for attention, exhibitionism and melodrama. I say they because both of my parents behaved as histrionic narcissists and then when they divorced, married other really disturbed people. 

So, needless to say, self-centered people don't make very good parents. However, in the delusional fantasy of narcissism, they think they are amazing. Just like they think they are moral Christians with a God-given right to pontificate to others while living very (by their own standards) immoral lives. Mine gaslit me  into believing that abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, scapegoating, parentification, shaming exploitation and invalidation of me was all God's will. Which I'm sure you'll agree is insanely, off the charts damaging to the child. 

The way a narcissistic parent views the child is what drives the abusive behavior. Or should I say, the role the triple role a child plays in this self-absorbed, delusional fantasy world. To a narcissist, a child is not just a burden and the problem, she is also a threat, but also, and this is so weird, a prop. A supporting role in the Mommy and Daddy show. And what do you do with a burden? Shift it onto others or in my case, ignore it.  A threat you neutralize.  My life was one unending role of schlemiel to the narcissists' schlimazel. The court jester to their ubermensch. 

There is a constant clash of expectations to be a support to the parent but also a scapegoat. The child must know and feel guilty that she is in the way. She blocks the narcissist from reaching their true potential. She gets in the way of their "success." Note, this is all in the narcissist's fantasy. My mother told me that she could have been very high ranking person of prestige in the church they were in at the moment ( I forgot which one, there were so many), if it weren't for me. It was completely fabricated as so many other stories I was told, were. 

My father felt no qualms spending the few dollars we had to go to LA to witness to the Manson girls and leave my mother and me, 6, homeless, without family or support in Alaska. My mother was on board with this as it left her free to continue cheating on my dad. Neither one of them paid much attention to what I did. I have no memory of meals and how I got to school. When he told me he was going, I put a brave face on and said goodbye because that's what he expected. He later defended his complete abandonment of me, and got some extra guilt mileage in, by saying that I didn't miss him anyway. 

There is no winning for the child in this slippery slope. You are, at once, a burden which you should feel guilty for. You are a threat to them being always the center of attention and you should feel guilty for that also. And yet you are the prop, too. As a tiny girl, I got used to bolstering fragile parent egos. They said dance, I danced like there was no tomorrow. 

I got used to walking a tightrope of shame and expectation. But not really. Somewhere in my heart was a small voice whispering that this was not good. When I heard it, I just assumed that it meant I wasn't playing my part. So I did better. And better. And they kept adding to the job. So I did more. And they added more. And I failed and was punished. 

This endless tailspin has blown my brain apart. It has broken my heart irreparably. I spent the first 59 years of my life in almost total denial. It wasn't their fault. I deserved it. The weight which you can never explain to anyone because it makes no sense, it smothering. I have been so close to ending it so many times, I've lost track. And then there's more shame because according to my church, despair and suicide are mortal sins. So what the hell do I do???

I "know" not that what they did is and was wrong. But it doesn't help. The damage is done and it is permanent. I'll need to blog more about that. I will say this, though. For all I couldn't see what was being done to me, I can't not see it now. The chinks have turned into gaping holes in my parents' version of reality and the sun  is pouring through, revealing the truth. 

I'm hoping and praying that there may be some hope for this little girl lost. 

Histrionic and Narcissistic parents are utter hypocrites

 Hi friends. I know this blog has become really heavy lately with all the sharing I'm finally doing. However, the abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, manipulation, parentification, shaming, scapegoating and gaslighting I endured from four narcissistic parents isn't light reading. It's hard, painful and constantly with me. The fact that I am only now at 60, talking about it, shows how insidious was the abuse and how effective the gaslighting. They had me believing it was all my fault. I brought it on myself. I still believe this to some extent which I why I blog and blog and blog. 

Which brings me to my topic of the day which is the utter hypocrisy of histrionic and narcissistic parents. Mine lived in a fantasy world which they had gaslit me into going along with. Being an empath I fell right into that shit. Mommy doesn't want me around, so I'll go play alone. Daddy is depressed so I have to cheer him up (which was impossible). 

But for all this parentification of me, all the expectation that I care for them, they were still the tyrannical control freaks. They did the bossing around of me (and let their new boyfriends and spouses do likewise) while I did the actual work of parenting them (nurturing, supporting, encouraging, waiting on). So that's one example of  abusive narcissistic hypocrisy. 

Another is that the things they accused me of doing were the very things they did. And when I did it, I now see,  it was age appropriate (crying as a child, teen angst, etc.) They lied, cheated, stole, sulked, pouted, were catty, stormed, raged, humiliated and shamed as grown ass adults. 

I just remembered in writing this post confessing how heavy it was, how my dad used to tell me to "lighten up." And not to be so "sensitive." God, I can still hear his sanctimonious, gaslighting voice. He. Of all people. Telling me a teen, to lighten up?? An adolescent not to be sensitive? You never gave me space to be a kid let alone a teen. Any frustration you may have seen from me was righteous frustration over you constantly expecting me to be surrogate spouse, parent, servant and scapegoat to your new family. It was exhaustion and despair, living in your awful regime, buddy, not disobedience. 

And really, Jack? Too sensitive? You who are notorious for being the biggest snowflake in the room. And you are disrespectful, especially of authority. You treat everyone with arrogant condescension.  You have literally pouted and ranted you're entire adult life, when you only think someone isn't giving you all the adulation you deserve. 

And lighten up?? Really? You routinely told me how you would probably commit suicide at some random time, when I was 5!!!!! You feel no qualms telling everyone whom you know nothing about, how to live their lives. You spout scripture which you do not follow. You bind others up to burdens you do not carry. You are the judgiest of the judgey. Yet no one can even suggest that you reconsider taking your child to Alaska when you had no job or home there. 

And you had the audacity to pooh-pooh other people's hard-won achievements. You actually make fun of people living by their beliefs. When I breastfed my children, you made disparaging comments because I guess you thought I was showing up your lazy wife who "couldn't" breast feed. You actually said "not every woman is a cow." Ass. When I graduated from college magna cum laude, you didn't even know what that meant. Yet you sniffed haughtily and said "college isn't for everyone." Then had the gall to suggest that I was vain. I was fucking proud for once in my life, and you should have been for me. 

And this from you. You who with no training or church support declared yourself a missionary. And everyone was supposed to be so grateful they'd feed and clothe you? You who, without a license or degree felt entitled to walk into any church on a Sunday, waltz up to the pulpit and preach. You were so offended when they politely declined.  You actually believed you were better qualified than a minister with a doctor of divinity. You also eschewed the beliefs of every denomination. Well if you were above organized religion, then why did you want preach in their churches?  Because you were so concerned for their souls? Anghh. Wrong answer. 

Because you like the sound of your own voice. You, like so many others of your right wing party, love to talk. Especially about what everyone else is, according to them, doing wrong. They love to nit pick at specks while ignoring the entire effing lumber yard in their own eye. You didn't care about their salvation. If you did, you'd have actually learned what different churches believed so you could have an accurate dialog. But when I took world religions, you were aghast that I would actually learn about other religions and damn my soul. 

Typical of arrogant people who read about a fifth grade level, to assume they know best what the Bible says. You sort out what you don't like, such as scripture identifying what you are doing wrong and then pick a random, unrelated scripture and twist it to fit your particular agenda.  You claim God's promise of forgiveness for yourself and than come down like fire and brimstone for others. You expect mercy and give damnation. You do not repent. You simply say you told God you were sorry. And continue to do the hurtful things with no remorse or change happily secure in your fire insurance. 

You used to find fault with my singing, saying I was showing off. When you came to see the Shakespeare play I was in, your disdain was palpable. You actually made me feel dirty. Would it have gagged you to say good job? For all your suicide talk, you have no idea how miserable I was that year. How a little kindness would have helped so much. But nope, that memory has to be tainted with dad's disapproval. It wasn't because you were concerned about my studies. You couldn't have cared less. 

And about this liking the sound of your own voice. This showing off? Well, if I did, I learned from the best. My histrionic, exhibitionist parents rarely ever did or said anything that wasn't theatrical. They both loved attention. My mother, also sans training, fancies herself a minster as well. She will do all kinds of weird things to draw attention to herself. Preferably making others  uncomfortable in the process. Like going to a funeral and shouting Amen when she knows the church does NOT do things that way. 

But she has to get eyes on her. And if she can throw some shade at others for not shouting during church, all the better. While the poor family whose church is it, hunch down behind their songbooks and hope no one sees them. But that's not about the church or its doctrine or habits. She does it to us and we're Catholic and her siblings who are Christian Reformed alike. It's not about praising God either. It wasn't with my dad preaching either.  I realize that now. 

It's about the jolt of narcissistic supply that they get when they are the center of attention. And of course, it's delusional too. People aren't awed. They are impressed with the holiness. They are uncomfortable. And often more than a little disapproving of the ostentation. Which comes full circle to the hypocrisy of narcissism. 

My parents got very angry when they thought others were being "too critical." My dad chewed me out for this many times. Now bear in mind, I was the poster child for "good, biddable kid." I didn't dare to be anything but on my toes. I wouldn't even defend myself, let alone dare to question them. So where did he get that I was so critical of him? (same with  my mom). 

And this from Mr. Critical himself. Even his other sons admit that Dad has to be on top all the time. He will attack if you if cross any of his many invisible lines. He has ripped me apart verbally for asking to try on my new Christmas sweater at a party. He has physically beat me for not dancing attendance fast enough. If you tell a joke he didn't like he would insult and scold. Yet he would tell dirty jokes and laugh  uproariously. You'd better too. 

The creed of a narc is "we do things my way. You smile or frown when I say to. You build me up. I let you down. Unless I'm needing a hit. Then, I will find something to nail you on, even if I have to make it up. So that I can hang you out to dry in front of everyone. I get off on that. 

You show off, I share my wonderfulness with others. When you say something it's shouting. When I shout, I'm just saying something. You find fault, I just  give helpful advice. When you don't say something but I just think you're thinking it, I blow up. But call it Biblical correction. When I'm rude, nasty, attacking, snotty, obnoxious, it's just my way. When you're kind, I'll find a way to make it wrong. I'm never wrong and you're never right. It is my right to tell others how to live their lives but not my responsibility to live by my own standards. Rules, often arbitrary ones I just made up, do not apply to me, just you.

. 

 

When a narcissist is thwarted, embarrassed or unmasked, run for cover

Hi friends. I've been working on healing from a lifetime of parental narcissistic abuse. I listen to several helpful online psychologists and one is Dr. Ramani. I just finished her video on what to expect when the narcissist's mask slips. And I recalled the few times I've seen my narcissist parent's cover blown. It ain't pretty. In fact, it's scary as hell. I took the full force of it. But, thanks to all the gaslighting, I always believed it was something I'd done wrong. 

So I got to thinking about some of these experiences and decided to try my newly-learned skill of looking at things more clearly. Of not automatically blaming myself and actually holding the perpetrators accountable. To say what happened. What I learned was very interesting. And scary. But helpful. 

First a quick history. I had the misfortune to be "raised" by four narcissistic people, my two biological parents and their new spouses. Each had their own blend of narcissism/histrionic/antisocial behaviors. As a group, they were a force to be reckoned with. I've been abused in all forms, neglected, abandoned, endangered, exploited, parentified, invalidated, shamed scapegoated and gaslit by all of them separately and collectively throughout my life. 

I never caught on till last year just how fullblown my parents were. And I certainly never associated the terrifying things they did with any wrong on their part. Like I said, the narrative was that it was all me that caused it. But yanno, I'm a parent and now a grandparent. And I can't think of anything my kids could do to unleash the kinds behaviors they hit me with. 

So that's where I started, by looking at what happened with the eyes of a loving adult parent instead of a gaslit, shell-shocked, traumatized, shamed kid. And I can see the disconnects so clearly. Dr. Ramani explains how narcissists hide their behavior by keeping everyone baffled by their BS and hopping to their tune. But if someone should step out of line, or if the narcissist is just tired or feeling fat or threatened, then the mask slips and their real face is exposed. 

And I realized that this is exactly what those shitshows I'd lived through, were. Not me screwing up, but them being or just feeling exposed. A few things you need to know, if you've not witnessed a narc meltdown are thus: 

The explosion comes out of nowhere

The behavior is waaaaay exaggerated. 

The provocation, if you can call it that, is imagined or minimal at best. 

It is always something they did or caused but will blame it on others.

They are the victim and everyone else is at fault. 

They are experiencing the feelings of insecurity and shame that they have routinely made others feel. And they don't like it. 

IT IS TERRIFYING

Let's take the example I've shared in which my mother threw a pie in my face at her company work party. And her other daughter pushed my son's face in another pie. That was so out of the blue. This was a nice family picnic, not a drunken free-for-all frat party. Everyone was shocked. From her bosses, to coworkers to random people at the park. I gasped so deeply that I aspirated some of the pie and started choking. My son was equally shocked and struggled to breathe. No one laughed except her husband who was laughing hysterically. Then she got mad at me for not being able to take a joke. 

This was about 28 years ago. My mother only just brought it up about a year ago. She said she wanted to apologize. I told her I accepted it. But I realized I don't. Waiting 27 years to say something tells me she only did it to make herself feel better. Not me. Or my son. And her curious response when I asked her why she did it, told me all I needed to know about how sorry she wasn't. 

So, back then, I was still gaslit into taking the blame for every shitty thing she did to me. And to others. When she apologized I asked why she did it. And then just fed her the lines by saying "did I do something to make you nervous?" So nervous that you picked up a pie, as you do, and threw it at me? (yeah I was really self-debasing back then). She jumped on that and said I reminded her of her own "disapproving" mother. (who would have only been disapproving of my mother's bizarre behavior in throwing the damn pie in the first place).

But back then, I actually bought that  malarky and felt sorry for her. So she's able to regain the moral high ground. Mom wouldn't do anything shitty to me without a good reason. And I apologized like I always did. 

And not only does she get to feel justified because bad Mary made her feel bad, poor grandma always gets blamed when mom does weird things. She always says she feels so out of place at extended family gatherings because "they" make her feel that way. But then she goes out of her way to say and do odd things. Like laughing loudly, talking during a speech or waving her hand in the air and yelling "amen" at her brother's funeral. She fake limps and has to be helped by four people to sit down and is fine when no one is looking. And it's always "her" family not any of ours. We're just her miserable, cringing entourage. 

Then her crazy husband who actually has been abusive for most of his life, goes off half-cocked and gets angry with the family who has done nothing wrong.  Stupid shit is done and said. And she preens herself that her brave "hubbie" stuck up for her against her mean family, when all he did was do what he always does and sprays venom. And we all leave miserable and have to hear all the way about how mean they are to her. She did the same shit to my also-narcissistic father and he went off half-cocked too. Such fun. Like damned reality TV show. 

But looking at this with my newfound clarity, I see exactly what Dr. Ramani was talking about and what happened and why. The pie came first, not the embarrassment. Mom felt nervous and didn't like it. So it had to be someone's fault. My mother has this habit of blaming her weird behavior on others. But I see now, that she always starts it. And she sets  people up. 

She will do really odd things, like wearing a nightgown to my granddaughter's baptism. Or talking about her vulva and vagina at a family gathering.  Or farting loudly in public. She then waits for someone to notice or respond and then nails them for "judging her" and making her feel awkward. And then does more weird things. It's complicated but also very obvious. And we've all just gotten used to being uncomfortable so grandma doesn't have to. Some of us even blame ourselves for feeling uncomfortable and not being better at hiding our embarrassment. 

In the pie-throwing incident, she was laying for a fight before the picnic even kicked off.  It was her idea to have a pie eating contest which no one else was on board with. They had a certain tone they wanted for the event and a reputation to protect. This did not include a tacky pie eating contest. They agreed but said no children could participate. I had no intention of letting my kids participate because I thought it was tacky too. I didn't say anything or let on how I felt. We came and were having a great time.  

Well, pie contest time comes and not one adult would participate except my mom and sister. She begged me to and I said no thanks. Her husband wouldn't either. My kids being kids wanted to and so I gave in. And then in front of everyone, she walloped me with a pie and her daughter pushed my young son's face in his. Which is incredibly dangerous,  of course. Children asphyxiate doing stunts like this. I was hurrying to clear his face while he coughed. Everyone took a huge step back and she and her husband laughed their fool heads off. 

I was livid, had to walk my kids through the park covered in food. A kind lady in the bathroom helped me clean them up. I could tell she was thinking WTH? But maybe she just felt sorry for us. I would have, if I'd seen someone in this situation. Did my mom help? Nope. My mom and her husband were busy washing up in the ice buckets. I cringe remembering the pieces of icky pie floating in someone's nice cooler. 

So how is this a narc meltdown? Because again, she does awkward things that make everyone uncomfortable but no one can actually admit it. And my mom thwarted equals punishment for others. Even innocent bystanders. She felt out-classed and was pouting that no one played along. Maybe she was planning to nail others too. I think she was hoping to start a food fight. As if this was Animal House, so cringey. I actually remember her sententiously criticizing some kids having a food fight. But then, it wasn't her idea. 

So instead of backing down and foregoing it as everyone else wisely suggested, she dug her heels in and decided to get even.  One thing you learn in living with a narcissist is that if you don't give them their way, heads will roll. 

And misery loves company. She wanted us to be as embarrassed as she felt. She says she didn't know what came over her. But my husband feels that she had it planned all along. It wasn't enough to just enjoy a picnic with her grandkids. Someone had to be made to feel icky. And as so often happened, that someone was me. 

Because the fact is, narcissists (and histrionic) are very jealous and competitive. It's not enough that they win. Some else has to lose. They thrive on making people feel uncomfortable. Especially people they feel are threats. Or who are getting the attention they feel they deserve. If you cross your narc or are just in the perimeter if they are crossed, watch out. There's a pie with your name on it. 

Oddly specific examples of parental narcissistic abuse and gaslighting about it

Hey friends. I'm working on healing from CPTSD and toxic shamed caused by parental narcissistic abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, invalidation, exploitation, CSA, parentification, manipulation, toxic shaming and gaslighting about it all. I've blogged a lot about general stuff but today I'm going to list some oddly specific examples of parental narcissistic abuse and gaslighting about it. Each of these experiences left horrific scarring, self-loathing and pain. Each came of of nowhere. And these are some of the weirder ones that stand out. But they are only a small pieces of the larger patterns. I also didn't see that they had done anything wrong at the time they happened. I believed it was somehow my fault. 

1) Little Girl Lost. Left alone to wander in strange cities. We moved a lot. So I was always in some unfamiliar place. From the time I was 4, they let me wander alone in very unsafe situations and places. I used to play down at the docks in Haines AK when I was 6. At four, I picked up a dead rabbit alongside the road because I wanted to pet it and didn't know it was dead. There was no adult to tell me not to. 

2) Daddy's little confidante. I was probably the only 5year old to know the word suicide. My dad used to tell me that he was planning to end it all. I'd cry and he'd callously snub  me. After divorcing my mom, he, at 34, would take me on dates with his 17-year-old gf.  

3)  Mommy's sex therapist. My mother began cheating on my dad when I was 5. She had several affairs. She talked to me in very uncomfortable ways about sex, starting when I was 7 or so. She made out with boyfriends in front of me. She let them tell me dirty jokes and shame me for the size of  my breasts (I was 11). She'd laugh with them. She moved a 15 year-old with a track record of molesting, into her foster care home and he molested me. She turned a blind eye when the neighbor kid sexually harassed me and then started dating his dad. 

4) Everyone's surrogate parent. I was shuffled back and forth between their new families. Every time they had a baby I was removed from my room and made to sleep in the baby's room. And of course, get up at night with them. That began around 10. I was made to share a tiny room with my mom's four special needs foster care children while she slept with her boyfriend in a little "apartment" as she called it, in the basement. There was one room no one slept in that she kept for show, should the caseworker do a spot check. I just recalled that a few weeks ago and figured out why. 

5) Living in a bordello. My mother moved her boyfriend into our home. This was unheard of in conservative 1970s Michigan. Then she kicked me out of my room so my unmarried uncle and his girlfriend could have my room. I want into the room with all the foster care kids. Then one of the girls she fostered would stay the night with her boyfriend. At one point there were 11 people living in a  3 bedroom house. All of which was illegal and ultimately lost her the foster care license. An extreme right-winger, she believes she is a pastor and in the moral majority. Her second husband divorced her for her constant lies. 

6) Merry Christmas. My dad screamed at me in front of the entire family, including his new wife's family at Christmas. I had asked and been given permission to try on my sweater. His other kids were off playing with their new stuff. He called me selfish, ungrateful and spoiled. He shocked everyone.

7) Homeless at 16. My mom's unemployed, lazy and abusive husband kicked me out of "his" house when I was 16. A house that my dad's child support was being used to pay for. They were living on welfare. I had come home an hour late. Actually I was home on time,  just sitting in the yard talking to boyfriend. My mother let him evict me. She gaslit me into believing, till I was 59,. that it was my fault. My husband says he remembers when he first met me that I fully believed I brought it on myself. It never occurred to me that this was illegal. They would later go on to lose their son in a negligent accident. He was left to play alone too. 

8) Beaten for a too small smile. When I lived with my dad, I did pretty much all the housework including caring for their adult foster care folks. I was moved out of my room and put in with the baby. This happened twice in separate homes. My dad and his wife had a suite with AC and a fountain to drown out any noise. I was locked in with the baby. My dad once beat me because I didn't act happy enough. 

9) My mom told me she would pay for my first six months in an apartment in college so I could get out of my dad's house. After six months, she lied and said she'd only lent me the money and that I had to pay it back with interest. This was after cashed in my savings bonds from grandparents to support her unemployed abusive husband. She stole my car and my son's shoes. 

10) Pie in the face.  My mother invited me and my children to her work picnic. She had pestered organizers to have a pie eating contest. They didn't want to but gave in. No one participated except my mom and her daughter. My kids begged to be allowed to so I let them (against my better judgement). As they were about to begin, she threw a pie in my face. Her daughter shoved my little son's face into his pie. He started to choke. I did too. Everyone was horrified except her husband who howled with laughter. She was angry with me for not being able to "take a joke." 

I was blind to parental abuse and neglect, but now I see

Hello my friends. For the last year, I've been working to come to terms with parental abuse, neglect, scapegoating, endangerment, abandonment, manipulation, exploitation, invalidation, toxic shaming, parentification and gaslighting about it all. I haven't talked to many people outside this blog about it but when I have the question comes up how I could have been so blind for so long, to it happening. Good question. I've wondered that myself and it's part of why I'm on this mission. 

I also ask myself so why now? How did I get to be 60 and not see all the abuse? And then that leads me to (wait for it) second-guess and gaslight myself, did it really happen? This of course, is a classic response to reports of abuse as children by older people. Systems and individuals skeptical that I'm making it up because if it was that bad, why didn't I say anything let alone realize it. Some have contradicted me and said "oh you knew. You had to." Or worse, that it's just done for attention. Or made up.

Do people who undermine a person suffering from CPTSD with comments like this, actually hear themselves? Right there, they've just told me all I need to know about them. They don't care.They invalidate. They dismiss. They're probably abusing someone in their life. But go ahead. Hit me with your best shot. Cuz bruh, you couldn't possibly second guess me more than I do myself and have all my life. THAT'S WHY I'M THE MESS I AM!!

But interestingly, this sick victim-blame-shaming from people, only underscores the reality of all the abuse. The fact that I got to my seventh decade completely clueless to abuse from 4 narcissistic adults who called themselves my parents, just shows how good they were at it. And it shows that the gaslighting had been going on since pretty much day one up to the present. 

Because I may be slow to see abuse in my life, but I'm very quick to perceive it in others. And I care. A LOT. Too much sometimes. Being an empath made me so much  more vulnerable to it. And boy howdy did I make the excuses for them. They didn't mean to. It was a mistake. It was my fault. Pretty soon they didn't even have to lie or gaslight or invent reasons to blame and shame me. I was doing it for them. You should see my bizarre disturbing nightly dreams. I'm always kowtowing to someone or many someones who are treating me like crap. I am always in the hot seat. 

I've written about what made me suddenly start to stuff for the abuse it was. And I need to write more. I'm still not entirely sure, but I know those dreams that I have nightly every single night all night long, are instrumental. I've also had to flip the script and look at things from a different perspective. I've had to look at my experiences as I would if it was  happening to someone else. And I've had to pry my hands off my eyes and admit that they were hurting me because they were trying to. You don't "accidentally" do the kind of traumatizing crap my parents did. They had to go out of their way. 

Being under constant attack or threat of attack, made me jumpy, anxious, fearful, ashamed, worried. And constantly second guessing myself. Just like a soldier develops PTSD from constant threat, I developed CPTSD as a trauma response. 

But, some good news, once seen, I'll never unsee it again. And once you open your eyes and look at things clearly, a lot of other experiences that got swept under the rug come to light. Once I started remembering, I realize that things were so so much worse than I'd forced myself to believe. It's not pleasant. But it's better than just constant emotional and physical pain from believing lies, hating myself and distorting memories to suit other people's twisted narrative. 

The most sickening feeling in CPTSD from parental narcissistic abuse

 Hey my friends. Before I get started today, let me just take a moment to say thank you. Deeply. For reading and hearing me. Working to recover (or just be aware of) the CPTSD I suffer from as a result of chronic parental narcissistic abuse is THE hardest thing I've ever done. Burying two babies was the most painful. This is the most complicated.

I always have to start with a quick backstory in case this is the first post you're  reading. In my growing years, I was shunted between four narcissistic adults (two bio and then their partners and spouses) after my parents split. In 1970  Michigan, this was very unusual. There was constant abuse of one form and another, neglect, endangerment, abandonment (like leaving me alone in strange cities), exploitation, parentification, invalidation, scapegoating and gaslighting about it all. 

I only just began to really look at this about a year ago. I knew things were weird and bad but I always believed it was down to unfortunate situations or, more usually, my fault. I believed I brought abuse (sexual, physical, emotional, financial, religious) on myself. I believed because they told me, that I was the problem. But also, weirdly,  I was expected to provide the solution.   That's the parentification and scapegoating. 

I'll try to explain. So, being very immature and self-centered, my bio parents expected me to take care of them. They did not take care of me. I was left to my own devices a lot. In strange places. Now juxtapose that with the care I was expected to provide them. As young as 4, or as far back as I can remember, I've taken the brunt of their issues. My father used to unload his crap, including suicidal feelings, onto me, at 5. My mom dumped all her sexual ick on me. She used to say we were more like sisters and once told my daughter that sometimes she needed me to be her mom. 

If I failed to provide whatever they wanted, there was hell to pay. Then they divorced and brought other demanding, narcissistic people into my life who exploited, manipulated and scapegoated me some more. Then they had kids who I was expected to parent. There were ever-changing, yet constant demands that varied depending on which configuration I was living with at the time. This on-going expectation has never stopped even when I had a family of my own. The level of care demanded was boggling. 

But, being black holes every one, they were never satisfied. In all the care, housework, childcare, giving, being stolen from, being taken advantage of (actually being scammed by them several times) being the token target and scapegoat, I never heard a word of thanks. In fact, what I  heard was all the ways I'd let them down. They gaslit me into thinking I was such a burden to them that they'd have to kick me out of the  house to protect their other children (whom I was sharing a room with and getting up at night with, since they were babies). 

My dad, his wife and my mom's husband would blow normal teen stuff way out of proportion and rage at me. My mom would triangulate him against me then take his part. Mind you,  my mom's husband never worked, slept all the time he wasn't smoking or yelling, and was too lazy even to cut wood for the woodstove. He'd put oil or tires on it. They were living on my dad's child support. My dad was even worse, if that were possible. He made me his new wife's servant, surrogate spouse, surrogate parent and scapegoat. 

He once beat me, at 14, in front of everyone because I wasn't happy enough about being moved out of my room and into a tiny closet of a bedroom with the baby. So his wife could have a suite of a room to herself and not have to be bothered getting up with the baby. I was also expected to work in their adult foster care home like a hired hand. Except that I wasn't paid. My mom did the same thing...had a foster care home with four special needs kids I was expected to share a room with and care for while she and her boyfriend slept in their little "apartment" in the basement. 

So a lot of inappropriate expectations put on me which was confusing enough. But then when I "failed" they came down on me with the wrath of God. The littlest thing or nothing at all, was magnified into a national crisis. It was so damn confusing. I felt responsible for them all, as if the entire fam damily would fall apart without  me. As if there were no adults besides me who wasn't an adult.

And yet there was NO FAMILY for me. They had blown that apart by the divorce. They made it perfectly clear that I had no family. That I was lucky they let me be part of their new ones. It is such a bloody narcissistic fantasy. That you can break up a family, ignore, actually divorce the child in that family. And then start over as if nothing ever happened. There are no do-overs in families. Just a lot of broken pieces left behind which I am many. 

And that contradiction caused some of the most baffling and sickening feelings associated with CPTSD (complex post traumatic stress disorder). And that is anxiety, insecurity, constant second-guessing, from a constant state of chaos. I never trust a single thing I think, believe, feel, want or need. I think I was finally pleasing them only to find out, oh f*** no you effed up again, kid. When I did EXACTLY WHAT THEY EXPECTED. It was a lose-lose situation. 

I cannot begin to express the depths of self-disgust I feel. I say that I know now that they were wrong. It wasn't me. Too much was expected of me and not enough good given to me. But that does not stop the internal gas lighting and self-doubt. It feels like a riptide or flood that I cannot swim out of. It is overwhelming and all encompassing. I feel sick to my stomach just writing about it. 

So the only thing I can do is fake it till I make it. Pretend I believe that I'm not the cause of everyone's problems. I know it sounds so ludicrous even as I say it. No one could be the cause of everyone's problems. That's so ridiculously exaggerated. But that is narcissism. And that's what abuse, neglect, endangerment, scapegoating, abandonment, exploitation and invalidation do to your brain. 

Probably the most heartbreaking feeling of CPTSD

Hello my beloved friends. If you've been following, you'll know I've been wandering in some some completely uncharted territory in my memory and experience. I've really looked for the first time at things that happened and have happened throughout my life, involving abuse, neglect, exploitation, manipulation, triangulation, parentification, abandonment, endangerment, shaming, invalidating, scapegoating, gaslighting and more, from four parents. 

What got me started was weirdly Reddit, particularly posts on AITA by kids experiencing these things now only with words to identify what is happening. These triggered a tidal wave of memories from beginning 60 years ago up to now, of abuses for which I didn't have words for. And a comment by a very much loved young lady in my life, helped identify further, what is probably the most heart-breaking feeling in all of this. 

And you might be surprised by what it is. How about anger? Is that the worst? It's a difficult one for sure. There's a lot of shaming against expression of anger by people who can't or won't understand. Perpetrators of child abuse use it masterfully to shame the poor kids they are hurting. Narcissists adore whistle-blowing on their "angry" victims because it takes the blame off them and onto the "angry" person. My vindictively, viciously, venomously angry parents loved to blame shift their poison onto me. The calmer I stayed the more they threw at me till I cracked and then they nailed me. If I didn't crack they lied and said I did. Same net result. And I don't know if abused kids can ever really feel the anger we probably should feel. But that's not the worst. 

Is it fear? Absolutely there's that. Abuse of various kinds, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, shaming, invalidating, backstabbing, scapegoating, parentifying by parents causes unspeakable terror. Fear that is so chokingly prevalent but so dangerous to express that it goes deep into bone marrow. And sits there lurking. It's the worst kind of fear because the monster is real. 

But that's not the worst. So is it shame? Oh without a doubt, shame grows where abuse goes. Sick, pit of the stomach self-disgust that is gaslit into you by people repeatedly hurting you with smiles on their faces. It's utterly confusing, being told right is wrong when you do it and wrong is right when they do it. I'll spend the rest of my life having to repeat to myself "it's not you. Shameful things were done TO you." Lather, rinse, repeat. Now I think of it, that is the worst too. 

But the feeling that, I think is the most heartbreaking, is loneliness. Every Advent and Lent, I ask God to give me a focus for prayer and two years ago, He gave me lonely people. Gave it to me in such a way that my empath self was shattered with grief for the lonely. This was before I really started exploring my past experiences. Now I see that I was one of the lonely included in that group. 

Why is loneliness so sad? Because it is so damn vulnerable. It puts us at abusers' mercy. It puts us at everyone's mercy. We  take shit we oughtn't to, because we want not to feel loved and with someone. IN a way, it's the distillation of all the other shitty feelings.  Fear causes anger (or frustration or a triggered  reaction or stress or anxiety) which causes shame which causes fear, you know the pattern. And then, bad people use this to excuse scapegoating, shaming, excluding, exploiting, abandoning, etc. 

We are lonely because we have driven people away. In my case, it was my "sin and disobedience" that apparently made me untouchable. They had to keep me from others because I was so nasty and toxic. In short, if I was lonely I'd only myself to blame.  Completely ignoring the fact that their actions had brought out all this. I had been LEFT TO PLAY ALONE since I was 4. I had been LEFT OUT of everything except the heavy lifting. I had been EXCLUDED (cut out, excised, erased) from family when my birth parents broke up our family and started "their own" families with no room for me. Except again for the heavy lifting. 

There's an old saying, "alone but not lonely." Which I do think is possible. What CPTSD kids experience is alone AND lonely. We do not know what it is like to be loved. We don't know what trust even looks like, let alone when it's safe or not safe to trust. We are left to figure things out alone as preschoolers. We are shamed and told we're a nuisance if we ask for help. Or even just inadvertently show that we need it. 

We grow up knowing that we annoy, irritate and upset people. We not only get in the way, we ARE in the way. We are obstacles to good things in others' lives. So why would we not separate ourselves? We do not want to cause problems for mommy, daddy, new mommy or new daddy, would we? We are the albatross around the neck, the millstone dragging others down. Through no act of our own. Just by being ourselves. It's a twisted, perverted version of Mister Rogers. Instead of us making each day a special day, just by being, we make each day miserable. Just by being. 

But hearing this lovely lady whom I love talking about feeling lonely, makes me think. And it makes me righteously angry as well as heartbroken. It's time to stop this nasty CPTSD gaslighting in it's tracks. It's time to turn the tables and show it up for what it really is. Kiddo, if you've been abuse and shamed into thinking you're the problem, you're not. Abusers abuse because of something in them. Invalidators invalidate because they are broken. You aren't the millstone. They put one on you. 

My "family" put millstones around my neck in the form of angry, bitter, abusive people they had pitted against me and allowed to victimize me. They had become millstones by always taking the other's part and never supporting me. They made me the fall guy for things they had done. They'd left me dangling, exposed and vulnerable. They had abandoned me for boyfriends, girlfriends and their new kids. They had cut me off from the loving people in my life. They'd tried to poison us against each other. 

I wasn't a failure because I didn't serve or parent them as I should. They put wrong expectations on me to serve and parent. A child is a family member, not unpaid staff. A child is not a surrogate spouse. A child is not a parent, either to their parents or other children. A child is not a scapegoat because there is no such thing. There's no thing or person who can take the weight of another's actions on herself. If a scapegoat is needed, it's because the parent has done shameful things that he and she should be confessing, not lying about, covering and pinning on an innocent victim. 

If you are feeling loneliness and isolation, take a look at why. Are you actually doing things to alienate? If so, try to figure out what those things might be and work to stop doing them. Do you prefer being alone? That's okay.  Or have you been brainwashed into thinking you don't deserve any better? That people are better off without you? 

That my loved one, is complete bollocks! We need you. You matter. 

Why endangerment and parentification might be the worst or at least the weirdest form of child abuse

 Hi friends, I realized re-reading my last posts that I didn't actually answer the question I set out to, which how endangerment, including parentification, might be the worst form of child abuse. I answered why parents endanger kids and how they get away with it. I was raised by four narcissistic parents (two bio and their spouses) who routinely abused, neglected, abandoned, endangered, scapegoated, exploited, manipulated, invalidated, shamed and parentified me and then gaslit me about it all. 

Today I'm looking at why endangerment and parentification (which are similar) are if not the worst and least the weirdest and scariest form of child abuse. This is not to discount or compete with the experiences of a child who has experienced other forms of child abuse. This is not a race for last place. Because really all the forms have similar roots. They are perpetrated on a helpless child victim by selfish, arrogant, screwed up, narcissistic, immature people. 

So first what is endangerment? For the full explanation of what endangerment is and isn't see my other posts. Synopsis is it's willfully and consistently subjecting the child to dangerous situations and people for selfish reasons. Examples of endangerment in my life included making me play alone with no adult supervision, often in strange places (because we moved so much). And several times even leaving me behind on trips of significant length with strangers. It also included bringing very dangerous adults into  my life, expecting me to obey, serve and wait on them and then allowing them to harm, humiliate and threaten me while quietly approving and often joining in. 

And piggybacking on that was the parentification. If you're  new to the term parentification, it means expecting the child to be the adult and parent the parents and in my case their new spouses and other children. My two biological parents were very needy even with me. They confided terrible things to me, such as my father's plans to commit suicide, when I was 5. And my mother's affairs and sexual exploits after divorcing my dad. And then cutting me out of their new families except to expect me to raise their new kids. And allowing their boyfriends, girlfriends and new spouses to routinely shame, abuse, neglect, exploit, manipulate, scapegoat and parentify me. 

The creepy, sick part of endangerment and parentification , is how it messes with a child's mind. We are sooooo vulnerable to gaslighting. They're not really hurting you. You're too sensitive. It's her right because she's your "mother" (stepmother). It's his right because it's "his" home (when it was actually my mom's and my house that she moved her boyfriend into. Our kids are your siblings thusly you have to serve, wait on and raise them. Guilt layered on shame layered on lies layered on inappropriate expectations till I ended up brain damaged, dissociated and completely cut off from reality. It was very much like living in a cult. 

It's also so difficult because hides in plain sight. Other family members are gaslit into not believing the evidence of their eyes. And if they do, and say something, boom, the parents cut them off from the child. In my case, by moving me across the country to Alaska (not for work, for a narcissistic fantasy) thousands of miles from my other family. 

Also, the narcissist parents are VERY good at manipulative tactics: lying, faking, covering, denying, twisting and distorting. And because they get VERY angry when their self-driven version is not accepted. It is NOT safe to question or speak up. In my case, it was terrifyingly dangerous. My dad once beat me when I was 13, for not being "cheerful" enough about being moved out of my room and into a tiny room with his and his wife's new baby. This is part of parentification with the servant/scapegoat/surrogate spouse and parent crap added in. 

My mother left me, at 11, for a week to care for her four special needs foster care kids all under age 5. One was a severely abused infant. She left her dangerous, unemployed, sexually abusive, venomously angry boyfriend with me. He slept on couch and lit into me one night when I couldn't comfort the baby. He lied to my mother and said that I "shook the baby." I've lived with that horrible shame ever since. When she got home she believed her boyfriend and docked my pay. Then she let him kick me out of the house when I was 16. He was still unemployed and so lazy that he poured fuel oil on the fire because he hadn't cut wood. Yet me coming in an hour late was grounds (illegally, I might add) for removal.  I believed that BS for decades. 

And because these types of people have the child so gaslit and bewildered that they believe that no one will believe them. I now know that if I had reported just one of these incidents, they would have been investigated and possible arrested. But all four of these "parents" lied,  denied or weaponized it to further shame me. My mother justified leaving me with kids at 11 because I "wanted to earn the money." Which she docked and then never paid me. Then when I, under duress, confronted her, she flat out lied and said she would never have left me alone with the kids because she would have lost her  license. 

So I was left with a broken brain chockful of scary, traumatic, shameful  memories of which I never told anyone at the time. Even into adulthood, I believed that everything that happened was in some way my fault. Or that it never happened and I  made it up. I see now it wasn't and I didn't. But old sins, especially of parents against children, cast long shadows. 

Why endangerment and gaslighting about it, is the worst form of child abuse

 Hi friends. If you've been following, you know that I'm working to recover from a lifetime of parental abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, scapegoating, invalidation, toxic shaming, parentification and gaslighting about it all. I experienced this from four parents (two bio and their two partners whom I used to call stepparents but now don't). 

Today I'm looking at why endangerment and then gaslighting about it, might be the worst form of child abuse. I include in endangerment, parentification (making the child parent the parents and other children). There are many reasons why this child abuse is so bad, but I think the biggest is how it destroys the child's sense of self. Depending on the age that endangerment begins, it can damages the self-concept before it even begins to form. 

When I talk about endangerment, I'm not talking about open to interpretation situations. All parents have probably done the occasional thing that others might question. Leaving kids in the car during a snowstorm, to mail a letter 12 steps from the car. These are mistakes at worst and don't happen regularly and seem to be in the kids' best interest. 

The endangerment I'm talking about is knowingly and willful, as in the parent goes out of her way to, put her child in vulnerable, scary, icky, exploitative, hurtful situations. This endangering parent leaves the child alone in the car to take a girl to a clinic to have an abortion. Or a 4 year old to wander blocks away alone. Or a 5 -year old play in a park blocks from home where a convicted pedophile has been known to frequent. Or a 6- year-old alone to play at a marina not knowing where mom is. This is consistent endangerment, not accidental or unwitting. There is no emergency or excuse. The parent isn't working and can't afford care. In my situation, both parents were unemployed. 

Endangerment also goes beyond neglect. The parent purposely exposes his daughter to unsafe people and often triangulates (pits the unsafe adult against) his child. The mother leaves her daughter unsupervised at far too young an ages. The parents absent themselves, are unapproachable and unavailable. They place the child in uncomfortable situations with sketchy people. 

They are unavailable because they don't want the child to rely on them as parents. They shame the child for needing them. They behave as if they want the child to be injured, molested, abducted or worse. It's not just that they don't care what happens. Or are too oblivious, such as the drunk parent. They manufacture dangerous situations to leave the vulnerable child in. And then fault the child if something does happen, saying the child caused it. Or they seem to sickly gloat or take pleasure in it, such as when the boyfriend or new wife humiliate the child.  Or they weaponize for their own ends. Or get irrationally angry at being inconvenienced.  Or they act cold and unmoved even by things like sexual assault. Or all of the above. 

Children with good, loving parents are abducted literally under their parents' noses. Even with everyone watching and caring, accidents occur. Children of  vigilant parents come to grief. Loving parents who want their children, have them taken from them. So how did I who was exposed to threat almost daily, survive?? Seriously, I have more far, far more memories of dangerous situations with no parent around, than of normal loving safety. In fact, I really don't know what that looks like. 

And no one ever knew so how could they help me? People I've told as an adult have shaken their heads shocked that I survived relatively unscathed.  Don't get me wrong. There were many times I was hurt, exploited and traumatized. But for all the endangerment, it could have been a lot worse. It was not for their lack of trying however. One person aptly asked "were they trying to get you killed??" Which gets me back to why endangerment is the worst child abuse. 

Four reasons: First, parents are good at hiding it. My parents (before and after they were divorced) moved around a lot. They've been homeless and on the run. Really. From child abuse charges and legal trouble. They've squatted. But they were good at making it all look quasi-legit. Enough to keep relatives from looking too closely. And when anyone did, they moved far enough away to avoid prying eyes. 

All of which should have been a clue but for reason two: it hides in plain sight. What I mean is that in my situation, my parents looked like normal people. Well sort of. If you looked at what they were really doing and not their gaslighting version, it's clear, in the pictures of me alone and in the trauma in my face. 

And endangerment like I lived with is so bizarre that no one expects it. You really can't make this shit up. No one in any place I've lived did anything like this. I think my grandparents, aunts and uncles had no idea because they themselves would never do anything like this. And who was going to tell them? Me? I was too young to know how weird it was. And I'd have kept quiet to protect mommy and daddy. 

Which is also reason three. Abusive parent rely on kids keeping quiet. They gaslight us into thinking its not weird and that no one would believe us anyway. Which is kind of an oxymoron. If it's not weird, why would no one believe us if we told? And that loved ones would think I was lying. As if! And that saying something is disloyal. The gaslighting is real. 

Reason four is covered in the previous post. Sorry. I'm just so shell-shocked from writing all of this I can't write anymore. 

How my parents were able to get away with all the neglect, abuse and endangerment

This piggybacks on the post that comes after this. I added them in the wrong order. That post discusses. why endangerment might be the worst form of child abuse. Because the worst part is the destruction of the self, or really, the never developing a sense of self as separate from others. I then discussed how and why endangerment is so insidious. I gave four reasons but only discussed three. Here's reason four. My two incredibly narcissistic parents were enabled by their healthy loving parents, but for understandable reasons. Yes, weird, I know. Here's how and why. 

So before my parents divorced (and hooked up with other selfish, abusive partners) they were already pretty entrenched in abandonment and endangerment of me. Their behavior as adults and then as parents was pretty sketchy and fringy. I have very few memories of them actually caring for me. I always spent a lot of time alone or with others, some I knew and some I didn't. I was left to wander and don't remember parents around. We moved a lot. They were at various times unemployed, homeless, on the run and have squatted. 

Then when I was 5, they got the bright idea (which they always said was God calling) to go to Alaska as missionaries. They had zero training, higher education, prior ministerial experience or even really very good people skills. They were going to go tell others how to live their lives without even having a home, job or caring for their child. They weren't supported by any church. They church shopped a lot. In fact, the one they happened to be in (Baptist, I think) said, unequivocally, no! Do not do this. You are not missionaries and there is no mission field in Alaska. But they sold everything and off we went. 

Which gets to reason four why endangerment is so terrible. And this is the hardest to write about, by far. Earlier I wrote that I didn't understand it as endangerment because I was so young. I knew I was scared and alone a lot but it was normal for me. So I get why I didn't understand how bad it was. But why didn't the other adults in my life see it??????? My grandparents were good loving people who loved me. Why then did they not follow up when they saw the shit my parents were doing? I mean for God's sake, who doesn't question when their kids take their kid to Alaska, from Michigan, on a whim, to be "missionaries???" Why were blind eyes turned to the homelessness, constant unemployment, moving around, squatting, leaving me alone, etc.??

I think the reason is that narcissists are very good at gaslighting everyone about what is going on. They have this weird ability to, if not get people on board, to at least distract them. They speak a lot of nonsense which baffles others. They play the shell game with facts. They also lie and hid a lot. And plus, no normal person could ever envision parents being so off with their kids. Like in my case. 

As I've said before, my parents really weren't around much. I have very few memories of them at all.  I was left alone most of the time and it never occurred to me to ask my parents for anything. They liked it this way but knew even at their most delusional that others wouldn't. So I think they played their parts when anyone was around. 

But then they moved to Alaska and there was no one around to see. I think they moved to be able to do what they wanted when and where they wanted with me completely cut off from anyone who cared about me. I've wondered why they didn't just leave me with family and go. But that wouldn't lend credence to their delusions. I know, it's not making sense yet, but bear with me. 

They believed, or said they did, that God was calling them to "convert the Indians" in Alaska. They may have believed that I'd enjoy it and learn from the experience. But that was only an afterthought. If I was a priority, they'd have secured jobs, housing, etc before moving. That's what parents do, right? 

Of course it is, you say. Why do you second guess yourself? Because I've been brainwashed all my life into thinking that what's best for others is what's best for me, even if it's actually hurting me. It took till 60 to finally admit that no provision was made for me. That they lived like wild Hedonists and completely disregarded me and left me to my own devices. I wish I could be more like my husband and  just say "that's bullshit." But I'm a slow learner. 

And not only were no plans laid, they didn't even try. Once they got to  Alaska, it was full on fantasy. We lived in 13 different places (at last count. I keep remembering more) Some for only a week at a time. Neither was working. My dad would leave for months at a time. I don't know where my mom was or what she was doing. I know she spent a lot of time with various older men. We weren't calling them boyfriends yet. But then she announced they were divorcing. No help for me processing that. Dad is still wandering around "preaching." Then she moved us to a remote island (place #14) to be a "youth group leader." And then left me for a week with strangers to go to Seattle for treatment of a "bladder infection." 

The missionary thing was delusional but also pragmatic, if you think like a self-centered narcissist. To begin with it shows their bigotry thinking these good people with a thriving spirituality needed white saviors. But beyond that, I think they fully expected the grateful native people to wait on them, as Jesus told the disciples to allow the people they preached to, to feed and care for them. 

So how was moving me with them to Alaska part of the delusion?  I was their calling card. They may have deluded themselves into missionaries they knew others might not see it that way. They might see them for what they were. Without me, they were two lazy, entitled adults expecting to be waited on. With me, they were a "homeless family that needed help." Having a child involved changes everything.

I think, too that they arrogantly figured these "heathens" wouldn't know child neglect when they saw it. But they saw. Wandering alone was something I did all the time. But none of the children I knew was allowed to wander with me. They allowed to me play with their children but later not even that because my situation was just too sketchy. But they were too far up their own asses to pay attention to that. 

In their fantasy, why would they make plans, secure housing and jobs etc.? I mean Jesus told the disciples not to even take a staff or second cloak. The grateful "converts" should take care of all that, including me. Which of course, was completely opposite to what Jesus meant. But it sure sounded like a win-win for my parents. 

And some native Tlingit people did take care of us. But not because they were ignorant or grateful. They were good humans. And because there was me. Children need care regardless of the adults they are with. So these people were the real missionaries. And the elderly couple who took us in, took over where grandparents left off, letting my parents get away with every weird thing and making sure I had food and a place to sleep. The only reason they allowed me to play alone was that they were in their 80s and couldn't look after me. 

But that didn't matter to my parents because they didn't ever anyway. And my mom and dad got exactly what they wanted. They could fantasize and freebird to their hearts content. My dad went off for months at a time. No one ever knew where. I don't know what my mom did. No job, no kid, no responsibilities, no worries. 

And because there were no sanctions or censure, they took this as approval. Self-centered people do this. If you don't check them, loudly, clearly and regularly, they conclude that you are happy with it. And since they are very poisonous when checked, people don't do it very often. Because everyone was playing along, this meant that they had God's imprimatur too. 

Which only made it worse. The only way to stonewall narcissists is to stop enabling. Which they couldn't do because of me. Catch 22. Because when they once confronted my parents, saying that I belonged home with my family, my parents got mad. My parents do not like to be told they are wrong. That's when my dad's road trips got longer and my mom moved us to a remote island. To keep me from any protective influence they may have had. 

Which kicked my parents' narcissistic delusions into overdrive. It looked to them like everyone was applauding their "missionary work." But then my grandparents decided to visit. By the time they arrived, my parents were so deep in cloud cuckooland, they made no pretense of parenting me. God had told them they didn't have too. And I just went on, thinking all this was normal.  Or that I had imagined it. Until about 25 years ago, my grama affirmed it. 

My grampa made some home movies he'd taken in Alaska on their visit, into VHS. I showed them to my mom as I thought she'd enjoy it. She made a snarky comment about some things she heard my grama say while watching the movies as my grampa taped them. I guess they must have hit home. But being my mom, she wanted me to feel ashamed and sad for her. Which I did until I began this quest a year ago. 

So grama said that she recalled that as soon as they got there, my parents both took off in different directions leaving me with my grandparents. No word of where they were, what they were doing or when they'd be back. As you fucking do. Your parents travel across the effing continent to see you and you dump your kid on them? What the hell?? Which is exactly what, if I'm understanding correctly, my grandma basically asked. 

Who takes care of Marilisa when we aren't here?? She was probably the only person to actually consider that these people were dropping the ball with me, a bit. But I think that what she couldn't imagine, because no sane, caring person could, is that the answer to that question was: No one. 

No one expects parents to leave a 6 y/o child on their own, in a strange country, thousands of miles from home. Which is pretty outlandish but then, no one lets a little kid play alone blocks from home, in the bowery, or in a park with predators either. I think, being self-centered and delusional, my parents just got used to people believing all their bullshit and not asking questions. I think they relied on the fact that no one would believe they did these things. 

Am I saying it's partly my grandparents' fault for enabling my parents to behave this way. I don't know. I don't think so. Because they were bullied too. They probably kept their own parents in check, threatening to disallow them any contact with me if they intervened. And they were gaslit by my parents into not believing their own eyes and instincts. 

And I've come to believe now that narcs also punish people who look to closely. They don't like their fantasies questioned. They don't care about the kid but they use her as leverage against people who do. They threaten vocally or in hints, to keep the child from anyone who asks too many questions. Or they move her across the damn continent so that they can't. 

All this didn't help me much. It would have been helpful if someone had reached out to help. To tell me it was wrong. I've gaslit myself for decades that they didn't because there was nothing wrong. That they would  have turned on  me if I'd said something. Mainly, I think they just didn't know the extent of it. My parents were very good at covering the bruises they inflicted. 

Childhood trauma and parental abuse: once you find your voice, keep talking

 Hi friends. For the past year, I've been exposing and exploring abuse and neglect I endured at the hands of four narcissistic parents (two bio and their partners). Today I'm looking at why it's important to keep talking once you find your voice. Because once seen, you'll never unsee it or look at family dynamics the same again. 

If you have been following this blog, you might wonder why I talk so much about my childhood trauma. And why after 6 decades am I finally opening up about abuse (physical, sexual, financial, religious, emotional), neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, parentification, family scapegoating, manipulation, invalidation, toxic shaming, gaslighting and other shit I don't have words for yet. Well, not because it's any fun, let me assure you of that. 

There are many reasons why I keep writing about it. Sixty years of keeping quiet about parental abuse, of not being allowed a voice to articulate it, means thousands of bad memories crammed in, broken, rotting and oozing poison. Plus, years of parents gaslighting, lying and brainwashing about what happened has left me confused and bewildered. What the hell just  happened? Why?? 

Emotional child abuse is the horror hidden in plain sight. To anyone willing to admit what they are seeing.  To everyone but the child. To the child, this is normal, for her. Her parents, with their self-centered, manipulative lies, have caused her to believe that this is all she deserves. That she brought it on herself. That they, their partners and kids are her responsibility to serve and obey. 

The concept of family loyalty is royally effed up too. It's drilled into the abused kid's head that she must play along with, keep silent about, ignore, put up with all manner of crap to be a good family member. She OWES it to them. But no one ever talks about what is owed to her, like affirmation and love, let alone basic care. It's one-sided. 

The only expression for those decades of bad memories has been in CPTSD dreams and nightmares. Till now. And now that I have begun to understand what happened, I can't unsee it. Nor can I wrap my mind around it. There is so much that it seems endless. It's overwhelming and terrifying.  Early traumatic childhood memories take on specter like shapes, diffuse, looming and completely overpowering. 

Like a shadow that gets bigger and bigger till it takes up the entire room. Like Nosferatu who was most frightening in the shadow on the wall. Even now I get short of breath when I remember the fear. My chest gets tight and I feel like I'm choking. 

Talking about it helps frame in the boundaries. It helps me sort out what  happened and some of the why. It helps to put it in a manageable place where I can safely contain it. It helps me get Nosferatu down to size and see him for what he is. A sad, strange little man in a mask. Scary people look so big to kids. But as an adult, I am beginning to see them for what they were/are. Scary only in the horrendous lengths they'll go to to protect their narcissistic delusion. 

Why it's impossible to just "rise above" malignant narcissist behavior (and other stupid nonsense advice)

Hey friends. Mar here with more on how I'm attempting to heal from decades of narcissistic abuse by two selfish parents and their abusive partners. Today I'm going to debunk some of the stupid nonsense advice people get about dealing with narcissists. One of the worst is "not to take it personally" and "rise above." This is not only incredibly insensitive, it's impossible. 

First of all, you need to know that anyone who says stuff like that, clearly has never lived with a self-centered malignant narcissist or they wouldn't make these comments. I won't say it's even well-meaning advice. It's just meant to make themselves feel better and is actually narcissistic itself. In some cases the person is passive-aggressively shaming you the victim, gaslighting and and affirming the narc in their abuse of you. 

Let's start with the infamous "don't take it personally." It sounds good in theory. And it can be helpful if the person really wants you too feel better and isn't just defending the narc. In that case it's just it's the old "you're too sensitive" BS which is one of many tactics malignant narcs use to gaslight, shame, invalidate and manipulate. Because what it implies that you can stop the narc hurting you just by clicking your heels together and pretending it isn't what it is, a targeted attack.  

Advice like this also dismisses that very real problem, that the narc isn't accidentally being hurtful, they are going out of their way to. They want you to personalize it. They are targeting you and they want you to know it. If you do rise above (what that means) they will double down on the attack. So stupid advice to pretend they aren't doesn't protect you, it makes it worse. 

The best advice I can give, from decades of narc abuse is to either call it out when it happens and then cut contact with them or just cut or limit contact and know it is about you. But it isn't your fault or problem. This is not an argument or a two-way street. What you shouldn't do is to believe that it is something you provoked. The narc attacks you because he has chosen you as the target. And you've been if anything too nice and patient. 

One super creepy way I was endangered, abandoned and exploited by parental narcissistic abuse

(warning: another very disturbing post) Hi friends. Couldn't sleep last night. CPTSD from parental narcissistic abuse will do that to you. And while I was praying/writing a novel in my head/trying not to ruminate, a memory of childhood trauma came shouting through. It exemplifies one tiny, but super creepy, way I was endangered, abandoned and exploited by a narcissistic parent. I say tiny only because in my life, it was small beer compared to the full buffet of abuse by four selfish, self-absorbed parents. 

I've taken to listing the types of abuse I have experienced. Physical, mental, emotional, sexual, financial, religious and narcissistic abuse, plus neglect, endangerment, abandonment, shaming, exploitation, manipulation, scapegoating and gaslighting. This example shows the lengths my mom went to, to prove to me that she didn't give a fat rat's ass about me or my feelings, and would even use my pain for narcissistic supply. 

My parents divorced when I was 6. We lived in Alaska where they had gone to "be missionaries to the Indians." (Yes I hear all that's wrong with that. It was how it was presented to 5 y/o me.) That never  happened. The local Tlingit tribe didn't need missioning to and actually took care of my unemployed, homeless parents. They weren't sent by any church. It was just their delusional fantasy. 

My dad left on a series of "mission trips" which were just wandering around without his family. My mom had her own delusions of grandeur which she'd dream up while leaving me on my own. She started cheating on my dad in a series of affairs that began there and continued when we moved back (sans my still-wandering dad) to Michigan. 

Now before it get to this particular story, you need to know a few things about my mom. She loves attention. She has exploited me regularly to get it. She also fancies herself a pillar of the church, a good Christian woman, moral example and also a preacher in her own right. She regularly preaches about moral living and feels justified in calling out anyone or anything she deems immoral, sinful etc. She is completely in denial and hypocritical about her incredibly immoral (by her own standards) behavior. 

One of the most egregious is that she is very off about sex and has been since I was about 6 or 7 when she began forcing me to hear the "facts of life." I would cover my ears but she persisted. She gave me a blow by blow description of "A Clockwork Orange." She would make out with her boyfriends in front of me. She used crude street language and let her boyfriends talk this way to me. As a result I'm kind of broken sexually and filled with shame that I've had to work for decades to overcome. Thank God for my miracle-working husband. 

At the time (early 1970s) virtually no one I knew was divorced, let alone dating. Let alone having affairs. Let alone with married men. Let alone living with boyfriends (that happened later, but it relates). Regardless of faith or lack thereof, it was almost unheard of. Adult friends have confirmed this. My friends all thought it was weird and I was weird by association. 

I felt so icky about all her sex talk. She said it was to protect me.  I believed her but still felt icky. She said she just didn't want anything bad to happen to me. Mind you, she also let me play alone in a park a few blocks away when I was 5, where a known pedophile hung out. She told me,  just don't go in the bathroom.  And as you'll see, not only did she not protect me, she endangered, abandoned and exploited me for herself. 

So on with my story. We moved a lot. And next door to the house in which this happened lived a single dad with four sons. I think the mother had passed away. Anyway, two of the kids were really nasty. One time, one of them poured a bottle of salad dressing over my head in the street while everyone sat and laughed. For some reason I developed a small crush on him. Which further shows how my parents had abandoned all protection of me. Isn't that what girls do? Fall for abusers? 

Anyway, then his brother did something to me that would haunt me all my life. I was 10, I think. On Halloween, he sent a note to me, telling me all kinds of sick, dirty things he'd like to do to me, sexually. I think his brothers had a hand in this too. I seem to recall them laughing about it later. I remember reading it and just coming unglued. I got sick to my stomach and was screaming and crying. And really afraid. He basically told me he'd rape me if given the chance. My mom just dismissed it like she did every other weird and creepy thing that happened to me or that she allowed to happen to me. She told me to go trick-or-treating and just ignore it. 

So that was bad enough. Knowing that some fat, stupid, ugly bully was out there waiting to get her daughter didn't phase her. If it was my daughter, I'd have called the police, gone over and ripped them all new ones and gotten me counseling. And maybe slashed their tires. But not my mom. She actually used this to her advantage to get an inroad with the dad. Who as I look back had to have known about what his kid did. I mean he was a high school teacher for fuck's sake! But I guess, yanno, boys will be boys?

Anyway, a few months later, she started dating the dad. We'll call him Duane. Of the bunch that had traumatized me. Imagine for a minute how awkward and sickening that was for me. Duane was a lot older than her which was another part of my mom's creepy MO. Looking for a sugar daddy. Blech. And let me just segue here to say that I understood none of this as a kid. I believed all my mom's bullshit gaslighting. I was just your average  funny-looking but sweet, slightly naive tween who liked to read Scholastic books. It's only now that I'm 60 that I'm realizing how crude, lewd and morally bankrupt she really was. Back then, I thought I was dirty and trashy. Now I see that I wasn't. I was treated dirty and subjected to trashy behavior. It's actually kind of amazing how I navigated it all while still remained relatively innocent. I sure as hell didn't feel innocent. I felt like a VD germ. 

So anyway, the dad and his bunch had moved and she'd drag me over to their house so she could be with her new boyfriend. Then one weekend she announced that the two of them were planning to go away and leave me with his four sons. Who had sexually harassed me.  No adults. Not even any other girls present. Just me and the creeps. The kid who had told us exactly what he planned to do if left alone with me. All of us tweens and teens camping out on the floor. I can't honestly remember if he did anything, but I lay awake all night long in fear.  And it didn't really matter because my mind was so raped by him and my mother's allowing it. The word pimping leaps to mind. 

She didn't just allow this or turn a blind eye. She had to go out of her way to create this situation. She had fucking options. She could have asked my grandparents or my dad to watch me. My dad was back in town. But oh wait, then she'd have to admit what she was up to. Or actually no she wouldn't. She'd have just lied like she always did. I suppose she was worried I'd say something. And my dad wouldn't have done anything anyway. He have just said to pray about it. Or even have made me feel even more responsible for it happening. Anyway you cut it, I'd have been left high and dry. 

I didn't even bother telling my mom how scared I was. Why would I? She'd already proved I was on my own when it came to being safe. Then she had to audacity to trauma dump on me about how the old man had "molested" her. Or some such nonsense. I can't completely recall because it's all such a CPTSD nightmare. And if he did, what did you expect? You went away for a hookup. If he even did which I doubt. It was just an excuse to put more ick in my mind. And to activate my pity. And to deflect attention away from the truly traumatic experience which she landed me in. 

That experience wasn't the first endangerment involving men in my life and certainly not the last. It was just one of many situations she not only didn't protect me from it but pushed me into. Between her, my dad and their partners, they taught me that this was what I was supposed to do, let people fuck with my head, hurt my body, break my spirit and damage my soul. 

How I am using CPTSD triggers and emotional flashback triggers to get healthier

 Hello friends. This is part two of  my post on CPTSD triggers and how to use them in recovery. Today I'm looking at  how to use emotional flashbacks and childhood trauma triggers. I defined a trauma trigger as anything, anyone, any place, any event that activates an emotional flashback (a sensation of being back in the original experience with associated feelings). In childhood trauma, these emotional flashbacks take us to negative, dangerous and hurtful experiences with unpleasant feelings and thoughts. I flashback to abuse, neglect, dysregulation, exploitation, manipulation, parentification, coercion, scapegoating, abandonment, endangerment and gaslighting from two narcissistic parents and their equally abusive spouses (my "stepparents".)

Triggers take me back to those initial experiences. I feel the fear, anxiety, confusion and panic that original experiences of abuse, neglect and especially parentification, endangerment and abandonment, caused. And each time adds another layer as the older I get the more of these emotional flashbacks I accumulate. 

They activate muscle memory and autonomic responses and coping mechanisms (fight, flight, freeze and fawn, mostly fawn). I'd even add fake and fix. I go into an unnatural brittle "fake cheerful" mode that my husband and I have dubbed perma-grin. I scramble to please and placate. I start doing  weird dysregulated things. It's my repertoire of defense and coping mechanisms that I've built up from decades of use. 

And because the thing that triggers the emotional flashbacks seems or is unrelated, it makes no sense to anyone with me, why the heck  I'm melting down like a little kid. It's because in that flashback, I am a child or teen. And my inner kid is going into coping mechanisms I did in childhood. 

But as weird as they are, coping mechanisms served a purpose, just as triggers do. Triggers are red flags that something isn't safe. Or resembles something unsafe. Or just requires some closer scrutiny, to see if it isn't. I used the example of being triggered by my son's violin lessons because the people at the church they were held at had treated me so poorly. All that required was paying attention to the panic attack feelings, doing the math and getting him out of that situation. He hated the violin lessons anyway, which probably should have been another wake up call. 

The feelings of dysregulation, panic attack, associated with triggered emotional flashback are helpful too. They generate a sense of urgency to get the heck out of danger. To pull my hand away from the fire instead of keeping it there and letting it burn me as I'd been taught to do. They help me understand that coping mechanisms were all I had as a kid. But now I can create a toolbox with healthier options than flying, fighting and especially freezing, fawning, fixing and faking. 

Physical symptoms of CPTSD from narcissistic abuse are getting worse

 Hello my friends. All these posts about my experiences with childhood abuse, neglect, parental abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, toxic shaming, scapegoating and gaslighting about it all, are painful to write. Today's post is especially uncomfortable because it is so very sad and scary. It makes me physically ill to think about. But the toxins have to be lanced or I will never find peace. 

What spurred this was that Saturday, I had an out of nowhere physical shutdown. It just came on  me in the middle of a musical festival I'd been looking so forward to attending. All of a sudden I got dizzy, shaky and felt like I was going to faint. My chest hurt and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I felt terrible for my husband who was enjoying himself but I had to get out of there immediately. I almost didn't make it to the car without collapsing. It felt like the sidewalk was sucking me in. 

And this may sound really weird, but it felt a lot like it did when I was "roofied." A few years ago, I was slipped Rohypnol at an event. I can't prove it but I had all the symptoms. My husband was there, thank God. I don't know how it happened but I have my suspicions about this guy sitting at our table. Whether it was meant for me or not, I don't care. It was terrible. Husband says he's never seen me anything like that. 

I had been dancing, got very dizzy all of a sudden and stumbled back to the table. It was so embarrassing, but by the time I got there, I was incoherent. I remember almost none of it. I know that my husband carried me home and  my son helped get me to the couch because they told me. I woke up from the soundest sleep I've had in decades, totally confused. My cat was sleeping  near me and he only did that when I was sick. 

This experience Saturday felt a lot like that only it came on slowly. I had ordered some food but was unable to eat it. We had a beer each but I'd only had a few sips. It was very hot and dry and I'd forgotten my allergy medication. I have also been dealing with several autoimmune problems (arthritis and psoriasis). I'm sure some dehydration and allergy symptoms were involved. But that was not the whole story, I'm convinced. 

Psychologists and Youtubers Dr. Ramani and Patrick Teahan have talked about the physical effects from childhood trauma. And what they describe is, to a T, what I felt: confusion, disorientation, shortness of breath, collapse, dizziness, fainting. 

I've had fainting episodes during pregnancy. I know what it feels like when they come on. This was different. I've had panic attacks which are similar. This was worse. I've had migraines which are more painful (and also symptoms of childhood trauma). There was no pain with this except in my chest. It felt like what I think an early stage heart attack in women might feel like. It was terrifying. 

I'd been feeling it coming on for several hours but ignored the warning signs. Because that's what I do. When I feel sick, I feel ashamed. I believe I'm showing off like my dad said. I feel like I'm ruining other people's fun. I think others think I'm faking. Or malingering. Which isn't fair but I can't help it. It's knee-jerk. Because that's how parents and their spouses treated me. They had little compassion, zero empathy and much blame for me. 

I believe, worst of all, that I always bring everything on myself.  That my pain or needs are an inconvenience or annoyance. That I'm getting in someone's way. That their problems, no matter how trivial are more important than mine. That by being sick or in need, I'm preventing them from getting what they need. It's always my fault. Because I was taught all that. 

When I was sick as a child, it was ignored. Or I was told to quit being lazy. Or showing off. All through my life, any illness was weaponized against me or to leverage sympathy for my from parents. I spent so  much time sick and alone that it would never occur to me to ask for help from adults. That is just being "needy" or "selfish." My job was to give, not receive. 

I well remember, beginning around age, 6, that sick feeling in my stomach, knowing they expected me to do so many confusing, adult things perfectly well and not having a clue how to. Of knowing I had to serve, serve, serve and not having enough resources, let alone maturity, to do it all. Of being 14, feeling exhausted, burned out, asleep on my feet, yet knowing I had to keep going. Of feeling so responsible for others and having no idea what to do. Of just trying and trying, failing and failing to please. Of feeling so wretchedly guilty about it all. 

It comes flooding over me in wave upon wave of shame and guilt. It comes back to haunt  me nightly, in dreams and nightmares. Even writing this now, I feel guilty. I should be out working or helping or fixing or serving. Not wasting time on self-indulgent self-pity. (My dad's words, in my head).

But yet I write. Because maybe someone somewhere out there needs to hear this. Maybe I need to hear this. Because as I think of it, perhaps God allowed what happened on Sat, to show me how pervasive and devastating are the effects of parental abuse and neglect and the ensuring CPTSD. To see how very sick and dangerous is child endangerment, abandonment, exploitation and toxic shaming. To see how hurt and frightened, is little me. 

I think too that He is warning me that it was and is really bad and I need help dealing with it. I think He's showing me that because I have been so roundly dismissed, ignored, shamed and gaslit that I'm doing now doing these things to myself. I'm ignoring and powering thru what I should be paying close attention to. 

I believe He is saying  that I am NOT too sensitive as my dad said. That I'm not showing off. That I'm not being "disloyal." Or a bad family member. Or disobedient. I'm not the problem. I have problems because of the was I have been treated. I'm not exaggerating, I'm minimizing. I'm not too sensitive, I'm not sensitized enough to my needs and feelings. 

It still feels weird. It probably always will. But as AA says, fake it till ya make it. 

. 

Healing CPTSD by recognizing triggers, part one

 (Caution: post contains reference to suicide). Hi friends. I've been on a journey to heal CPTSD from toxic shaming, abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, scapegoating, parentification, exploitation and gaslighting by four narcissistic parents. Today I'm beginning a series exploring triggers, what they are, how understanding them helps recovery, but also what they are not. 

What are triggers? They are anything that generates a negative response or feelings, panic attack or emotional flashback, a partially subconscious memory of  something unpleasant that happened. I have dysregulated (came apart emotionally) with certain triggers. 

What triggers aren't. They're not responses to what's happening right now. When I had a panic attack over receiving a sweater for Christmas, it wasn't that gift I was reacting to. That triggered the memory of my dad screaming at 12 y/o me in front of the entire family when I asked permission to go try on my new sweater. 

Trigger also aren't common responses to immediate provocation. If someone insults me, retorting, responding angrily, telling them off, are logical responses. They may not be the healthiest, but they make sense. 

And that's what triggers don't do is make sense, at least at first glance. They seem to come out of the blue. Often,  what triggers the response seems totally unrelated to the original thing. That's why it can be so difficult to identify and source a trigger. It usually looks like you're over-reacting. The response is too big for the situation. And it's because it's so extreme that identifies it as a trigger. 

Because triggers don't lie. There is always have a connection. They are not irrational. And the triggered responses, originating deep my muscle memory, are there to protect me. They remember past trauma and injuries around situations and people, that I have forgotten or pushed down. 

One of my triggers was taking my son to violin lessons. I was always a little uncomfortable. But one day, I had a full-blown (in my head) panic attack. I felt suicidal. If it wasn't for my little daughter in the car, I can't say what I would have done in that moment. 

Which might all sound completely insane, Unless, you know the back story. Fortunately, I have a loving, understanding husband whom I was able to talk to about this and who took it seriously. He helped me see that it wasn't just the violin lessons but the church at which they were held. 

He reminded me that "Hon, those people have been awful to you!" The minister, his wife and members of the congregation were incredibly judgmental and had passive-aggressively shamed me. I had also  recently lost several babies to stillborn and several had lorded over me, their large families and ability to reproduce like rabbits. There was even some insinuation that I caused my babies to die because of sin in my life. Mainly the fact that I was a Catholic and they were not. 

(I'd actually only remembered the last part in writing this. This is how deeply buried triggers can be). 

So that was difficult enough. But it also reminded me of all the toxic shaming and religious persecution from my parents. It reminded me how my brother had harassed me for being Catholic, claiming he wanted to save me from hell. It recalled all the hypocrisy I'd lived in--parents doing very immoral things and proclaiming themselves good Christians. Parents humiliating, scapegoating, attacking, abusing, exploiting, endangering, abandoning and gaslighting me. All under the guise of doing God's will. 

Tomorrow I'll post more about what it feels like when I'm triggered. 

My weird, constant, CPTSD nightmares

Hi friends. Today's post is about the weird, disturbing CPTSD nightmares I have on a nightly basis. And when I say weird, I ain't just whistling Dixie. I  have so many dreams that I have dream memories. There not recurrent in that they change and piggyback off each other. I've had dreams involving all areas of the town I live in. I have more dream memories than actual memories, at least of childhood. Sometimes I can't separate dream from reality. More than once I've had regular dreams about something I thought had actually happened. But when I looked back, it only happened it my dream. 

 They are nightmares in that they are upsetting, scary, disturbing. I'm always in unfamiliar situations, burdened with loads of work I can never get done and caring for many children I don't know. There are endless expectations from others who do not help. I'm doing it all but I have no idea what exactly I'm supposed to do, how to do it, where to get the supplies to do it why I have to. There are always dirty bathrooms I have to clean. Toilets that turn out to be chairs, urine and feces everywhere. 

I'm always late, or I've missed something. I don't get schoolwork done. I am in a play and I don't know my lines. I've let people down. Children go missing and get injured or worse. Children are always in danger and I don't know how to protect them. My dream plunks me down in situations and I don't know what I'm supposed to do, who I'm responsible for. And people are always upset with or angry at me. They are accusing and questioning.

It loops endlessly. I'm never relaxed, off duty or enjoying myself. I'm waiting on others with no help. I'm scared, worried, exhausted and stressed. My home is broken down and filthy, with gaping holes and bugs and vermin. There are familiar elements but mostly odd or different. In short, my dreams are never good. 

 In last night's dream, I was with my oldest daughter Molly who was both and adult and a teen (her age went back and forth). I was in an unfamiliar church bathroom and found, on the bottom shelf of a changing table or toy shelf, a baby. She was abandoned. There were people around but no one claimed her. I called to my daughter who was outside. She was an adult but then a teen of 12. I asked her to ask some people if they had any formula to feed the baby. My phone wouldn't work so I could call someone. 

Now I also have many dreams in which I am still breastfeeding. I dream that I nurse my grandkids but secretly so my kids won't find out. I know this sounds super creepy. But I don't think it's really about my grandkids but the two stillborn babies I lost. I'm forever trying to reach them so I  can care them. It's quite heartbreaking, really. 

Anyway, while looking for formula, I said to my husband who was suddenly randomly in my dream, that today was the first day my milk had dried up. We were sad. When I woke, I had to bring myself up to present and recall that this happened decades ago. 

But then the dream jumped back to my daughter (a teen now in dream) and I (she is pregnant in real life, which might have had something to do with the dream). We couldn't find any formula. In my dream I was feeling bad about giving formula because I always nursed and somehow I felt I should with this baby, as if she were my own. The baby was okay but I knew she had to be getting hungry. 

Then the dream cut to my daughter now holding the baby, who still hasn't eaten ( I dream a lot that my babies are hungry because I haven't nursed them). Near us was a woman I recognize as "Jan" an older teen who was in a  singing group I was in (in real life). We younger kids were in hero-worship awe of her and her agemates and were kind of led to be. They were set up as examples of  holiness that we should follow. 

Jan (an adult but weirdly, younger than me, now) is lining people up with their babies to be in a pageant of some kind. She pulls Molly over, telling her what to do, where to stand, etc. She is being a little too nice and chummy and trying to elbow me away. I said, "no, this isn't our baby. We found her here. We don't know her and can't find her parents. I'm trying to do that. Have you seen them and do you know this baby?"

Jan ignores my question and screams at me to leave my daughter alone and butt out. It's none of my business. My daughter is looking confused like she should do this to keep the woman happy. I try to take the baby and the woman shoves me out of the way and tells me to stop being such a control freak. Everyone seems to just accept this as okay.  I say "Look, this child has been abandoned or lost by her parents! She has not eaten!" The woman says "she doesn't look hungry. She'll be fine!" I say "okay but if anything goes wrong and Molly needs help, I'm coming to get them, pageant or not" Woman says "no you're not!" 

In the dream I felt ashamed of myself and in the way. I was starting to believe that I actually was keeping Molly from something. Even though I knew we needed to help this child and so did my daughter, I felt like I was letting someone down by not going along with it. And I was still terribly worried. I felt torn between doing what's right and what was expected. I started by knowing what I should do but letting someone else gaslight me into ignoring that. The dream ends with me saying "you clearly know nothing about abandoned kids. I DO!" 

This is the first time I've dreamed this dream but it's very much pattern to my other dreams. I experience a lot of questioning. And what do I conclude from it? Well, I should have stood my ground and gotten my daughter and the baby out of there. The fact that I kowtowed against my better judgement (and often do in my dreams) tells me that I've often let bullies push me around. Especially people who were wrongly set in authority over me or as examples of "good Christians." It tells me that maybe I have even perpetuated unhealthy tolerance of bullies in my kids.