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.
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