Accepting one simple truth helps free me from narcissistic family enmeshment and parentification

 Hello my dear friends who follow this blog. Dealing with CPTSD and pain from four abusive and neglectful narcissistic family is pretty grim, I know. Hashing through memories of emotional torment, bullying, abandonment, child endangerment, invalidation, shaming, enslavement, exploitation, gaslighting about it all, is miserable. So today I want to share how accepting one simple truth helps free me from family enmeshment and parentification. 

And that fact is, that I was not in any of their families, neither the initial one of which I was the only child, nor the two new ones they created when my biological parents split up. I was an unpaid servant, scapegoat, surrogate spouse (to all four, creepy) and surrogate parent to their kids. They gaslit me into thinking I was a family member, so that I'd do all (and I do mean ALL) the heavy lifting. But the benefits of family, no. Those I did not receive. I did the work without the perks while they claimed the perks and did none of the work. Here's how they managed it.

By gaslighting, deception, distortion, lies, manipulation and mind-messing, they convinced me that I was responsible to them but also for them. All of them. You have to do her bidding, she's your stepmother. He can harass and abuse you, he's your stepfather. Even when he was just my mother's boyfriend. You have to care for me like I was the child and you, the parent. Why? Because I say so. I'm your MOM. You're my kid. I possess you. You owe us loyalty, servitude, obedience, etc., because...

Well, that part was never mentioned. They talked a lot about their expectations for me. My dad's wife greeted me at the door with a lengthy list of demands, when I moved into their house (notice I say their house, not mine). As you would for a paid nanny and housekeeper. As I look back it wasn't just help with housework, it was all the housework, particularly those tasks she didn't want to do. My dad gave her complete authority over me and probably encouraged her to make a nice long list. My mother and her boyfriend did likewise, including placing me in a tiny bedroom with four special needs foster children under 5. They then made a cozy apartment for themselves two floors down. 

But when it came to expectations I could for them, there were none. To expect, I was told, was selfish. For me. For them it was Godly parenting. See how they twisted definitions? Rules for me and another set for thee. So even minimal care and the most basic of necessities, was denied me. I was deprived of anything that  inconvenienced them and everything inconvenienced them. I was also relieved of anything someone else gave me. My child support, paid by my dad for MY care only, was taken to fund toys and pipe dreams of my mother and her new husband. My toys from childhood were sold or given aways without my permission of knowledge. I'd come home to find them gone. 

And about those rules for me, wooboy were there a lot. Rules, however that they did not follow. Throughout my life, beginning around 3 or 4, they'd leave me unattended, send me out to play alone in hectic, dangerous and unfamiliar places (they were always upsticksing and moving). Several times they literally dumped me on strangers and left to go I'd know where. My grandma commented when they came to visit us in Alaska (I was 6), that when they arrived "Jack went one way and Nancy went the other and left us with Marilisa." What she didn't say but probably meant was, who the heck do they leave her with when we're NOT here?" Well, gram, the answer is, no one. I didn't see my mom or dad for years of my life. 

BUT when they did chance to be around, oh the ridiculous rules they laid on me. At 15, I had to walk to school along a dangerous highway because I had to work two hours before and after school. Because they wouldn't provide even basics. And yet they gave me a super strict curfew that kids who didn't work, didn't have. They put with creepy, nasty people yet dictated to me who I couldn't associate with. They punished me when a guy they didn't approve of showed up where I was hanging out. I was grounded for two months. 

My sorry stepfather refused to hold a job. Yet demanded I do the housework and childcare on top of my job and schoolwork. My mom told me I had to comply because "he's my husband." Same with my lazy stepmom, issuing all kinds of ultimatums and rules and doing nothing herself. And my dad taking her side every time. Yet when I came home 15 minutes past that crazy early curfew, they kicked me out of the house. I was 16. And still they expected me to follow their rules! 

So the truth I now must accept is that I wasn't a family member I was a possession. I didn't have a home, I lived at work. I didn't have family, I had employers. I had no parents, only dark tetrad (malignant, self-serving, arrogant, cruel) slavedrivers. And accepting that is so incredibly freeing. Because since the rules of normal family didn't apply to me, they still don't. 

I learned to play by dangerous, unhealthy, unsafe rules no one else in my family had to. So I learned dysfunctional, overcaring, fawning behaviors. They who never cared for me, still expect me to care for them. That's the enmeshed narcissist M.O, for you. "You have no life outside me and what I allow you to have. I pull your strings, puppet! You do as we demand, not as we do." And do they play the " you have to we're you parents and we're old" card. 

BUT, good news! Now that I see all this (it took me 59 years), I see that I don't have to anymore. They never kept their part of the bargain and I don't owe them anything. Anything I may  have owed them was repaid decades ago. And so they're old now, well, they should have thought about that before they exploited and took advantage of me all those years. You don't get to shirk your responsibilities to your child all her life and still expect her to fulfill hers to you. 

You made it abundantly clear that I was not welcome in your family, now you aren't welcome in mine. The gravy train has derailed, the ATM is broken and your primary caregiver has left the building You don't have any parental rights. You surrendered those when you quit caring for your child. You lose. And you don't even get the lovely parting gifts. 

So is that weird? Yeah. I see people caring for their parents and it triggers extreme guilt that I'm not caring for mine. But I was and always have until it got too toxic for me. I have to remember that they set the terms, not me. The people I see caring for their parents very likely had a more normal set of  rules. I didn't. They care for their parents because they were cared for. I wasn't. It's transactional in the best way. Mine was one-sided. And to keep trying to have a relationship that was never there to begin with, is a fool's errand that only leads to more pain. 

Normal things dark tetrad parents fubar for their kids: goals, abilities and even career path

 Hello my friends. I know it's been heavy weather around here, with me coming to terms with the many levels of abuse and neglect I experienced from four dark tetrad (narcissistic, malicious, exploitative, cruel) parents. I'm working to heal CPTSD from childhood trauma, including endangerment, abandonment, neglect of basic care, parentification, enmeshment and enslavement, scapegoating, constant shaming, boundary smashing by my two bio parents and their new families. 

I started a series on normal things that dark tetrad parents fubar for their scapegoat kids. As this is a stream of conscience blog, they're in no particular order. They're coming to you as I realize them. Today I'm looking at how narcissistic parents mess us their victim child's goals, understanding of abilities, dreams and even career path for her. 

To do this we have to go back to the beginning of her life. Dark tetrad parents systematically (operative word) deprive her of even the simplest of things, that most kids in her milieu take for granted. And they do this is a clandestine way that makes it appear that she's no different that anyone else, and has access to what most others have. Or they go so rogue but gaslight people into thinking it's normal that people miss the abuse that's actually taking place. I know, confusing. Welcome to my life. 

Now, you may say and you'd be right, that many children have experienced neglect and that it's not the  parents fault. They were doing the best they could. For example, children of parents who are working poor, doing their best, working their butts off just to provide. But my situation was different. My parents didn't work consistently. And never at plebian jobs everyone else did. They were too good for that. They were "called by God" to be missionaries and I was dragged off on a  "mission trip" to Alaska that never materialized. They just, as my grama put it, "ran off to do their own thing and leave Marilisa on her own." I was 6. 

And we weren't poor, I was. They had money for expensive breed dogs, an organ, new motorcycle with matching leathers, English riding lessons (I can't make this up). For that mission trip across the globe from Michigan to Alaska. And they did this by, bluntly put, stealing, denying me basic things, funneling resources from family for themselves. My grandparents never knew that most of my life, I didn't even have a bedroom or proper bed. 

So I said this was systematic and that was a critical point. Dark tetrad parents groom their victim child by 

1) keeping necessary things from her like safety, security, people to watch over her and even food or shelter.  

2) endangering her in bizarre terrifying ways that destroy her self-care abilities. Actually they frown on her self-care and call it self-centered showing off. Her needs are selfish whims while their entitled selfish whims are God-demanded expectations that she must fulfill. 

3) routinely abandoning her, not showing up, not being there, leaving her alone in scary situations with no one to help and no explanation of how to navigate. Leaving her alone in situations that would traumatize adults. 

4) putting far too much and too adult responsibilities on her, bullying her into doing  their work, and then the coup de grace, attacking her for being unable to satisfy their endless demands even when she does manage to perform pretty well, better than they as adult perform. They create a constant feeling of failure, worthlessness, being a burden and in the way. 

5) indoctrinating her into a fake reality, a parallel universe, a cult in plain sight, using endless lies, humiliation, distortions, twisting, deception, exploiting fears, invalidating, gaslighting, boundary crashing, enmeshment, parentification, role reversal. 

6) grooming her to her into believing this is God's will for her. Even though no one around her, cousins, their other children, friends, are living anything like this deprivation. 

7) manipulating her empathy and genuine care, making her believe it's her job, from little girl on up, to keep them (and anyone else they decide to make her subject to) happy, no matter what it takes or how much it hurts 

8) damaging her brain with endless stress and chaos. Causing her body to spray cortisol like a sprinkler. Creating a shell shock condition in which she doesn't sleep but only cycles through endless nightmares. 

9) sabotaging self-confidence, calling it arrogance and pride, wearing down her resilience so that just staying awake and upright is a challenge. Walking, thinking, feeling, interacting is exhausting and everything hurts. But she learns to suck it all up. 

10) infantilizing and making her feel no use to anyone, ultimately shaming her into thinking that this is all she deserves and it's as good as it's ever gonna get. 

So what's left is one damaged, ashamed, scarred, scared girl who doesn't know safe from dangerous, right from wrong, parent from child. Who has been color-blinded and can't tell red flag from green. And that's exactly what they want, a kid who not only doesn't know how to protect herself but who feels guilty doing so. And she's putty in their hands. 

So how does that screw up her ability to set goals or even choose a career path. Her sense of accomplishment has been destroyed by them endlessly moving the target and raising the bar. She's been worn down and made to feel never good enough. She's been drilled into servitude to them. Having goals requires believing you have the right to have them. But the damaged child has been dictated to all her life. She's been forced to fulfill THEIR goals, dreams, wishes. She's been punished for  having organic ideas and thoughts of her own, let alone aspirations. 

Here's a case from my life. By the time I was 13, I'd been so thoroughly enslaved to both sets of parents that I wouldn't have knows a wish or want if it hit me in the face. I raised them and their kids. I did what I was told and then was made fun of for failing. My only thought was them. So when, in 8th grade, I took the COPS and CAPS test, it showed that my abilities far exceeded my goals. My scores were in the top 2 percentile and I'd listed as my goal, childcare or housekeeper. 

Not being a mom, myself, mind you. They'd convinced me I was far too messed up to ever parent a child myself. My chief "goal" if you will was to care for others' children and clean their houses. Well, that's all I ever did. No one had ever talked to me about going to college. I didn't even know the names of different universities except from reading books. And they certainly weren't going to cough up for any furthering of my education. Let alone give up having me around to do the heavy lifting. That's the infantilizing servitude: destroy her confidence to do anything but wait on them. 

Now, you might say there's nothing wrong with childcare or housework. The test proctors thought otherwise, if the student was capable of more. My teacher called me aside and said that something unprecedented had happened. The test assessors who apparently never comment on results, had contacted him and said he needed to have a chat with me regarding my choice of career vs. my ability. Usually what they saw were kids expecting to have big jobs without putting effort in. I was the exception.  "This kid could design fighter jets and she's settling for babysitter. You've got to stop her letting her potential go to waste. Get her some college and career counseling!"

I didn't go home and tell anyone. They would have just scoffed and taken it as an insult anyway. When I did go to college, I got no help and a fair amount of hindrance and dismissive pooh-poohing.  I still didn't grasp as far as I could reach. Fear will probably always hold me back to some extent. 

But I did cherish that middle school affirmation random strangers. It only takes one person to believe in a child, to make a difference. 

Normal things dark tetrad parents fubar for their kids: confidence and self-concept

Hello my friends. To heal CPTSD from abuse by four narcissistic parents, I'm writing a series on normal things that dark tetrad (selfish, arrogant, manipulative, cruel) parents fubar for their kids. These are everyday things most kids experience normally which the abused kid experiences abnormally or the reverse of. . Today we're looking at confidence, self-concept and self-esteem.  

You know how most parents want what's best for their kids? How they encourage their kids? How they're proud of their children? How they even cover for them when they make mistakes or at least don't blow little things up into huge deals that make the kid feel like an idiot?  Not perfectly, no parent does that, but most of the time?  

Well, dark tetrad parents are just the opposite. Most of the time dark tetrad parents sabotage their kids' success, or at least feeling of success. Occasionally they might seem to encourage but that's only to string the kid along, to keep them duped into thinking they have parents that love them. What we are to them are possessions and servants. And the only way to keep us in servitude is to throw us the occasional crumb. But it's always self-serving and agenda-based. 

Instead of wanting what's best, they want the worst for their kids. They put us in dangerous situations with dangerous people. They do scary weird things that undermine our confidence. They kick us out of the house for some trumped up thing we supposedly did. They terrorize us. They make us afraid and then mock us. They turn their backs on us. They set us up to fail. They put up stumbling blocks that we fall over. And then they laugh. They sucker punch us and kick us when we're down. 

They're never proud of us and they make no bones about it. No matter how good a job we do, they just dismiss it. When I graduated university Magna Cum Laude my dad just sniffed and said, well, college isn't for everyone. They eff up self-confidence too. My dad who was arrogant AF, would scold me for "showing off." If I felt good about getting all the housework done that they had set for me, he'd snap that I shouldn't do it for praise. I should  just do it. Then he and his wife would find fault with it. I never did feel like I did a good job at anything.  

They only time they feel pride is in themselves. They spin our success to be theirs. They remind us how much they did for us. Which in my case was damn all. I paid my way for everything beginning around age 16. They shame and blame us for their failings. The child of dark tetrad parents feels only self-hatred. Sometimes it gets suicidal. Sound like I'm making it up? I'm not. Ask anyone who identifies as being raised by a narcissist. 

What to do (and not do) when a narcissist parent asks why you've gone no contact

 Hello my friends. I'm working to heal CPTSD from a lifetime of abuse and neglect by four narcissistic, dark tetrad parents. And a few days ago, I met what could be my Waterloo. One of them texted to ask why I no longer keep in contact. And so, because this is a stream of conscience blog, you're getting all my experiences with me, in situ. So, how do you respond and what do you do (or not do) when someone asks why you've gone no contact with them? Short answer, I'm not sure myself But I have some ideas. 

1) Take my emotional vitals. Immediately upon reading the text, my CPTSD responses (flight, fright, fix, fawn) went into overdrive. I was triggering like a battlefield,  panic and anxiety firing like 4th of July. My hands started shaking, I felt sick and short of breath. I'm sure my blood pressure even shot up. So you know what I did? Not a damn thing. I just closed it and went back to what I was doing. Which for me is unheard of. Because I don't...

2) Take care of myself. I have always let shame drive my into those trauma responses. Then I stopped and went no contact. And the narcissist, who has been manipulating, dismissing, gaslighting, shaming, invalidating, suddenly wonders why I stopped participating in the abuse. And my trauma responses say, bad me! I must fix this! I must answer, how dare I ignore! And do those narcissists know how to play THAT! Guilt was screaming in my ear that I'd better rush to do something, but instead I did something revolutionary and I..

3) Don't just do something, sit there. Thank you Alanon for these words of wisdom. Instead of hurrying to reassure, justify, answer, defend and explain, I ignored it. She's been ignoring me when I'm inconvenient all my life. And then when convenient, demanding I jump in to fix something they broke. I've been inundated with all I owe and then stiffed on what they owed me. It wasn't transactional, it was a grift. And so I finally realized that I can...

4) Respond when and how I want. I owe them nothing. Not even a response to a text, till such time if any I choose to respond. This is big. Because I was groomed to believe that if someone expecteded something of me it was my responsibility to answer. Especially when it was an interrogation, accusation or ambush. And no matter how passive-aggressive, it always was an attack. They could ignore, evade, lie, deflect, distort, blame-shift all they wanted. But I'd better damn well be forthcoming with remorse, shame, groveling whenever they decided to retaliate. Because no matter how softsoapped it is, I now...

5) Accept that it is retaliation. We've marginalized and manipulated you all your life but how dare you now put us aside?! We call the shots, missy! We dictate who will be ignored and when. Well, maybe you did but you don't now. Because I now...

6) See that it's a ruse. I was expecting something like this, but I didn't realize how templated it would be. It could have come out of the textbook on "how to get others to take the blame for your actions."  I was begged to explain why I didn't text anymore. I was offered a lightweight blanket apology for "anything that might have offended me." And then asked to tell her what that might be. Which comes straight from another textbook on "how to sound sorry without actually being sorry and make others feel guilty for what you did." And I now...

7) See the trap. They apologize without saying what they did wrong. They admit to nothing and want you to tell them what they've done "to offend." They know very well what they have done. They just want to see what we'll say. They've got an answer prepared for everything. But we weren't expecting this and didn't come prepared. So we tell them (making ourselves do very uncomfortable, unfamiliar things they've punished us for in the past). And they fire back with denials, lies, gaslighting, mocking pooh-poohing, distortions and blaming. All we get for our pains is more pain. Because what we must do is...

8) Know that they are not sorry. They are angry and blaming us. They don't confess and the "remorse" is fake. They apologize to lure us into trusting them and apologizing, as if what happened was a two-way street. Which it was not. That we somehow had a hand in the problem which we didn't. They don't acknowledge what they have done wrong because they arrogantly don't believe they do wrong. What they've done is open to interpretation and you are just "offended" Or that we were somehow to blame too. And we must...

9) Recognize how they twist words and distort reality. Now, these people are good. They proclaim to be Godly and they know that God is offended by things. They are always talking about what offends them as if it's what offends God too. But if we're justifiably offended by their offensive behavior, we're just being "politically correct" or "a snowflake" or "unable to face the truth." Actually, they're not sinful at all but completely righteous. It's us that are sinful for objecting to their objectionable behavior. Even if we didn't say a word. They just can sense our evilness because they're special. But all that's just hogwash and what we must do is...

10) Accept that they are deceitful, entitled, arrogant, exploitative hypocrites who have no intention of apologizing or even admitting what they did. If they were contrite, they'd have confessed decades ago what they'd done to hurt us. They would have tried to make amends. They would have humbled themselves. They wouldn't have expected us to put ourselves back through hell telling them what they did so they could mock, scorn, humiliate, shame and blame us all over again. But that is what they have always done and will continue to do so if I do respond back...

11) Take our time. Give it a week or so. Make them agonize a bit like they've done to you all your life. Is that vengeance? Meh, IDK. That's above my paygrade. I do know that if we don't, all the trauma responses will take over and we'll fall right back into their trap. And we need time to...

12) Consider our options. Which are admittedly few. If you rush to answer, you'll either lie and say no we're all good, when you're not. Or you'll make excuses and probably blame yourself which is just what the narcissist wants.  And you'll end up back in contact and nothing will have changed. It will just get worse. Because the only way out is...

13) Stay out. Either by keeping the text on read or with a short, sweet, honest response. I think mine will be something like, "The problem isn't me being offended but it should be. It's about things that happened that shouldn't and things that didn't that should have. Things which I got no acknowledgment of let alone amends for or assistance with. If you search your memory, you'll recall. But I will not explain nor discuss it. I wish you no ill, but I think it's best left at arm's length." No JADE (justify, answer, defend, explain). I've never done anything like this before. But I have to because I need to 

14) Heal myself. If they won't heal it, and I don't trust them to, I have to. And if they're ever going to grow a conscience it will be because I stopped doing all their dirty work. If you finally stop protecting, lying for, defending them, they might just bend the knee. But that's not why I'm doing it, I need to 

15) Do what's best for me. And talking about it, discussing, will only make it worse. It always has. It's never ended well. Confessions and closure are things for novels, not for me. I just rolled over for more. If they heal, terrific. But they'll have to find that on their own. The scapegoat has left the altar. 

  

Normal things dark tetrad parents fubar for their kids: memory and memories

 Hello my friends. I've been working to heal CPTSD (complex or childhood post-traumatic stress disorder) from narcissistic abuse and neglect by the four adults in my life who called themselves my parents. What does CPTSD mean for me? Endless triggering of trauma responses, pervasive anxiety, brain damage from constant cortisol release, nightmares and amnesia-like memory loss. Let's talk about the memory loss component. 

You may contend, that we all have memory loss and you'd be right, of course. However the memory problems from narcissistic parent abuse is not so much fading or forgetting certain things. It's memory damage by destructive forces purposely intent on damaging memories for ulterior motives. My narcissistic parents and their two new spouses were also dark tetrads, having malicious, manipulative, entitled and cruel behavior traits as well. 

How do they destroy memories? Dark tetrad parents place the child in hostile, frightening situations. They subject her to disturbing things like abandonment and angry mean people. They neglect basic care and don't teach her how to be safe. They groom her to serve and parent and take the blame for them. They say and do icky things about sex which make her uncomfortable and vulnerable to predators. They do creepy things other kids' parents don't do. They preach about immorality and then behave in very immoral ways. 

All of this is very out--of-sync with the more normal world the child sees outside the home. Perhaps kids see more inappropriate behavior now. But I still think, by and large, we try to keep it child-friendly. In my time, life was moderate, outside the house. No one else seemed to live in anything like I did and they looked at me like I was crazy if I told anyone. And it is crazy and crazy-making. It's like living in a cult in the middle of an everyday community or a parallel universe. 

Then they compound all that routine craziness with lies, distortions and deceptions. They connive and trick her. Then they gaslight her into distrusting her perceptions and experiences. They say  none of this happened, that she's lying, showing off and making it up for attention. Or if it did happen, she deserved it. They mock her and make fun of her trauma responses. They openly resent her, call her names and accuse her of being jealous of them (?). 

So the child is left bewildered, nervous, anxious and unsure of what to do or think. This normal little girl is made to feel like a freak. She learns to see herself wrongly, as a problem, a nuisance a bad person. She mistrusts everything she thinks, feels and wants. Because someone along the line said it was wrong. And wishing to please and be a good girl, she smothers anything that they say is wrong. She smashes down impulses, feelings, wants and needs. And doing this over time, has the cumulative effect of squashing memories too. 

Memories of bad things they did, can't be allowed in because then she would have to admit that these things DID happen to her. And dark tetrads can't have any questioning. So she compartmentalizes the memories. Memories are parsed by her damaged brain and by parenting brainwashing, into those to retain and those to repress. 

Good memories are exaggerated, by self-serving parents, and made much larger than they were. Any time spent with me or thing done for me was to be endlessly appreciated. Even if it was just a normal thing parents do for kids, like feed them. Extended family never did this. Just  my dark tetrad parents. Culling back through my memories, I realize that aren't many good ones. And of basic care and simple things like meal times, toys, a bedroom, patterns of wallpaper in my bedroom, I have no recollection. And I have a very good memory for such things. So my conclusion is they weren't there. 

Memories of bad things parents did are neutralized by the servant-child's mind. They never have to say sorry or even admit it because I already absolved them. I never even remembered they did it. These things just passed right through me as being all fine and dandy. I think on some level too, my brain was protecting me by doing this. It put these memories into little drawers, like a library card catalog, and then shut the drawer, locked it and threw away the key. But shut in is not forgotten by the subconscious mind. The drawer's contents leak out, in bad dreams, trauma responses (fawning, flight) in panic triggers and half-recollections. A little digging and then I remember...

Now,  memories that painted me in a bad light, accusations made against me, things twisted, even lies, stay in my mind as truth. Dark parents must scapegoat the child to take on all their sins. So they drill into her head all the wrong she's supposedly done. They catechize her on her many failings and sanitize their own wrong-doing. They gloss over their part in problems so all the child recalls is her wrong. 

Then they go even farther. They trump up charges, evade questions, feign ignorance, ignore hurts to the child, rewrite history, invent wicked things she has done. They imbed memories of transgressions that probably never happened. I say probably because I'll never know for sure, thanks to their complete gaslighting. I've always assumed they were true though I could never recall doing these things. And believe me, with all the self-hatred I had, if I'd done them I'd remember. 

So is all this newly remembered trauma just a figment of my imagination? Am I really just looking for attention? No. I know it was always there. It just wasn't safe to admit and and now it is. And I won't get much attention out of it because I've only told a few people outside this blog. Someday I may tell more when I write my book. If that's attention-seeking, it's about damn time. As for as using it against anyone, I have no intention of using it at all except for my own growth and healing. 

Bottom line, which I've said before and I'll say it again. If something is so bad it has to be lied about and kept secret, it must be pretty bad. Telling the truth about what someone did isn't what's wrong, it's that they did it in the first place.  

 

Weird things CPTSD makes me think, feel and do from living in narcissistic parent abuse

Hello my friends. To heal CPTSD from a lifetime of abuse and neglect by four narcissistic parents, I've started writing a series on normal things dark tetrad (narcissistic, entitled, manipulative, cruel) parents fubar for their kids. Today I'm exploring weird things CPTSD makes me think, feel and do. And to do that, I'm going to try to paint you a picture of what it's like in the mind of a person with CPTSD. I don't know to what extent others' experience these things because I only know what it's like in mine and what others' who identify as emotionally abused have said they experience. 

A quick note (because the flying monkeys in my head are shouting). If you're here to pooh-pooh, invalidate, undermine or minimize, move on. This blog is not for you and you are not for me. If you're tempted to dismiss it with a patronizing "oh we all feel that way sometimes." Again, move on. Obviously I didn't get to be 60 years old and not realize that. What I'm talking about is not occasional, episodic or temporary.  These ARE my mind ALL the time. If it seems exaggerated or made up, well, all I can say is I wish. If you have toxic positive advice, such as just pray about it, please don't assume I haven't. Go preach to yourself. You haven't lived my life. All this crap resides rent free in my head because of gaslighting scorn and shame like this. I'm trying to get it out and don't need more.  

Now, if you really want to help or if you need help with things like this, read on. Here are words that describe the mind of a victim of narcissistic dark tetrad abuse. I feel consistently 

disoriented, dazed and confused. My mind and memory are foggy. My nightmares are clearer than real life and I have more dream memory than actual memory. I act and think in hypnotic, trance-like, sometimes robotic ways. I'm on autopilot too much of the time. This, I've learned is a CPTSD symptom. I'm exhausted from the constant chaos and I lived in. I struggle to rest at night from resulting nightmares. My brain is damaged by continual flooding of cortisol and anxiety-induced adrenaline. I don't act naturally, I just trauma respond with fawn, freeze, fix, flight and occasionally, fight.  

afraid nearly constantly. I notice when I relax because it happens so rarely. And sometimes I don't even know what it is. I don't move out of the path of pain because I'm so used to it. Even simple things like adjusting an uncomfortable shoe to be more comfortable, I don't do. I don't notice pain until it's screaming. And then I can't get it under control. I am used to hurting everywhere. It's as if I must constantly mortify my flesh. And I've done it so much that it takes more and more to get my attention. And I still don't fix it. I'm jumpy and nervous. I apologize too much. When someone snaps at me to do something, no matter how rude they say it, I instantly comply and apologize. I can't stand people being mad at me and expect that they are. 

like an imposter, dressed in costume, in a masquerade. I feel fake, inauthentic, disingenuous. Like if people saw the real me, they'd be disgusted and abandon me. Life feels imaginary, illusory, like a fantasy and not a good one. I often feel as if I'm living in a parallel universe or in the negative of a picture, where everything is reversed, upended and ass-backwards. I feel like I'm behind a two-way mirror. I can see everyone and no one can see me. Or rather everyone can see me and I can see no one. And no one hears me either no matter how loud I yell. 

twisted and bent out of true. I get a lot of strange looks because I look and act so strange. I make odd, tense, facial gestures. I clamp my mouth down so tightly that I get headaches. I grimace, frown and furrow my brow weirdly. It looks, because I've seen myself randomly in mirrors, like I'm angry. I'm not. I don't even know I'm doing it. I'm not angry just braced for assault. I'm clamping my teeth to keep from screaming in pain. 

like I've had a series of TIAs. My speech is slurred and my communication broken. It's like I have a language barrier. I can't formulate sentences and often have trouble thinking of simple words. I get vague ideas that I can't put into words. Words and concepts I used to know have fallen out of my brain. I transpose words, use the wrong word and say the opposite of what I mean.  People close to me have to learn to translate what I say. I can't think straight. My writing is shaky and I can't even form letters. It's a bit like having had a stroke.

There's more but that's all I have energy to write about for now. 

 

Normal childhood things dark tetrad parents fubar for kids: innocence

 Hello my friends. As a writer/blogger, I maintain blogs on a variety of subjects, another being lesson plans and activities for kids. And sometimes it feels like I have multiple personalities. Or live in parallel universes. On the one hand, I'm writing about fun learning experiences for children and on the other, in this blog, I'm writing about my own miserable childhood and resulting CPTSD. Maybe the one is an expiation for the other, or an attempt to help little me. I don't know. 

I recently began writing here, about some of the many normal kid things narcissistic dark tetrad parents fubar for their children.  Writing in my lesson plans blog about children's literature, it occurred to me how even simple pleasures like kids' books are tainted for children of selfish, arrogant, manipulative and cruel (dark tetrad) parents. It's just one example of how they rob us of our innocence and how some of us spend the rest of our lives trying to reclaim it. 

What do we mean by "dark" personality parents? Well what is dark? It's not just the absence of light. It's shadows and distortions from other reflected light. Things aren't as they appear in daylight.  We can't see clearly in darkness and stumble over objects. It frightens us because it's deceptive. A bathrobe hanging on the door looks like a monster waiting to pounce. Who knows what horrible dangers darkness is cloaking? And who knows what's real, the light or the shadows, the bogeyman or the bathrobe? 

So with dark personalities. They're false, tricky, disingenuous, misleading. They lack light of their own or rather they hide their light (we all have light). They steal our childhood light-heartedness because they are dark hearted. They take our innocence because they are jealous that they ruined their own. They want us to be as miserable and dark and twisted as they are. They  are black holes, taking and taking and never filling up. And that brings me to my point. 

Dark tetrad parents do not want their children to have light or light-hearted joys. They sabotage even the simplest things. They break toys. They pervert and taint. This is very painful for me to write. It took me all my life to figure out why I was always so guilty, ashamed, fearful and confused. Not that I felt these things I WAS these things. I grew up in their narcissistic cult of controlling lack of self-control. 

I was brainwashed and groomed to be the sacrificial lamb on their altars of self. I did not  have a life or an identity. I was a possession. An extension. A shadow. A thing. And things don't have interests, hobbies, thoughts, needs. They exist to serve. To reflect back what selfish parents want to see. And it is a very lonely, isolated, baffling half-life. 

So how did this ruin even such things as reading for me? Writing those articles about my favorite children's books, I realized that I didn't just enjoy them, I desperately needed them. As a source of life. I didn't just like the characters I worshipped them. I have always felt inferior to everyone, especially normal kids. I didn't envy them their normal lives, I felt ashamed that mine was so abnormal. 

No book ever written, or kid I ever met, has ever even imagined experiences which were common occurrences for me. You cannot make this shit up. My parents couldn't manage to be normal neglectful or abusive parents. I do NOT for a minute justify "normal" abuse, like hitting and beating. I just mean that this type leaves recognizable scars. Neglected kids, sexually abused kids show visible signs. I know because I've been the teacher and reported the head lice, bad smells, bruises, cowering.  

My scars and bruises were well-hidden. And they weren't scars. They are open, bleeding ulcers on my heart. My experiences so damn weird that no one would believe them. And no one ever did. I went through 21 years of life and 12 years of school without anyone ever noticing how disturbingly off my life was. Or they just buried their heads. The signs were there. 

Given no bedroom and being made to sleep with infants and multiple foster kids while dad and wife had a suite of their own. And mom and boyfriend had an apartment in the basement. Me having to do all the heavy housework, childcare, cooking, cleaning. Being kicked out of the house at 16 and living on my own? Refusing to wash, hiding in the house all summer. My single mom having an over-full foster home and a live-in boyfriend and moving in a kid with a known  past history of molesting younger kid. Me reporting said kid for molesting me and getting shamed for it by mom. Yeah. The signs were there. 

So when I would run to my beloved books for escape, I never read anything like the the neglect, quiet abuse, exploitation and parentification I was living. Even kids in historical novels who endured terrible things, like the Holocaust, had parents that loved them and would have done anything for them if they could. Meanwhile mine didn't even bother to see to it I was safe walking to school at 5. Mine left me with strangers to go 3,000 away. Mine looking on approvingly and laughing as her boyfriend called me "blisters" and "tiny tits." 

I know now, because I have compassion and common sense, that I can't have been the only one living with such awful people. But I didn't then. And I did then, too. I always felt so sorry for any other kid who was suffering. And I was pretty good, even as a kid, at reading those signs. What I never could do was read the signs in me. I thought, because I was told, that I was the problem and that all they were putting on me was normal. 

So I grew up just knowing, on an unter-conscious level that I was so flawed that I didn't even deserve everyday things that everyone took for granted. Food a bed, a home, rest, sleep, toys, peace of mind, love, privacy and down time were for everyone else in their family, not me. Everything I've ever thought, felt, believed, done or had has been scorned, shamed, mocked, destroyed or taken from me by one or more of the four people who called themselves my parents. 

Normal things dark tetrad parents fubar for kids: childhood and adulthood

 Hello my friends. If you're following, you know that I'm working to heal CPTSD from narcissistic dark tetrad (malignant, entitled, exploitative, cruel) parent abuse from four narcissistic parents. I've started a series on normal things that dark tetrad parents fubar (foul up beyond all belief) for their kids. These are in no particular order because I'm unpacking as I go. Today we're looking at how narcissistic parents screw up childhood and adulthood for their children. 

Three things got me thinking of this. One was watching vlogs by counselor Jerry Wise who talks a lot about narcissistic parent/child relationship. The other was remembering a visit with my daughter, to my dad and his wife and their adult sons about 10 years ago. This wasn't a homecoming because I never had a home with them. I lived in their house as an unpaid nanny and maid. Just saying. The last was a bizarre dream I had (among many weird dreams) that I was my dad's wife. 

The entire visit was miserable for me. I was 50 years old with four children, a good marriage and successful writing career. But as soon as we arrived, they immediately thrust me back into the role of idiot child and I let them. Upon arrival I stepped in their net of enmeshment. The entire family began what I see now was a direct shame campaign to paint me back in the corner of scapegoat child wearing the dunce  cap. And I fell into it because I always did, no matter how patently untrue it was. 

And the way they did this was with gaslighting, lies, distortions and loads of shaming. My dad's unemployed, morbidly obese, drug addicted, felon wife began mocking and disparaging my blog work. My illegal pot-farming, morphine addicted dad let her carry on, like he always did and did not defend me like he never has. His grown married sons (whom I had parented when they were kids) started in too. 

The government-sponging, unemployed, native-grant exploiting, religious maniac, wife abusing, father of two son conned me into staying with them so I would give them money which I did. I always did what was expected of  me no matter how dangerous it was for me. The needy, alcoholic who no one was on speaking terms with, dragged me off to help extricate him from some legal entanglement he'd gotten himself into and I let him. Then I went for drinks with him. Terrible idea but then when you're taught not to trust your judgement, you don't. 

I ended up taking a cab back to brother's house in the wee hours. Next morning my brother stood up in front of the entire family and self-righteously shamed me saying "our doors are locked at thus and such time." Even though I'd just paid his electric and grocery bill. They all laughed condescendingly. Tsk, tsk, there's fool Mary, making a fool of herself again. I of course, felt foolish on cue, even though my goal was to bond with my brother. We left the next day and they went back to their dysfunctions, confident that as usual, Mary (whom they saw once every 5 years) was the problem. 

My poor daughter. She's the only one I let down and all I got out of if was a banging headache and confusion as to how I'd let myself get into this mess. But now I know exactly how. The role of court jester was assigned to me decades ago when my dad and mom divorced, remarried and had kids. Also the role of surrogate spouse, surrogate parent to them and their kids, servant and scapegoat. I was just playing my part, pathetic though it was. 

Because that's what dark tetrad parents do. They mess up their scapegoat kid's childhood by flip-flopping roles. They neglect her basic needs, shame her for having them and act like demanding, whiny brats expecting daughter-mommy to fulfill their every whim. They are more spoiled and petulant than any real kid ever could be. But they retain the parental reins, demanding more outrageous things and levying more punitive punishments than any real parent ever did. The child never gets to be the kid and yet she's subject to them. They are neither parent nor child yet they expect to be treated as both, with all the perks included. 

So this in turn, fubars adulthood for the child as well. They robbed her of childhood and then adulthood. She is stripped of power and deprived of the tools to enter adulthood successfully. She is shamed into continuing in their service and maimed for adult life. And they need her to fail at everything, like they have. They need her to take on their childish immaturity and failure to launch as adults. That way no one will see where the real problem lies and they can maintain their fake IDs of parent-child. 

They not only require her to parent them when she is the child but also AS a child. Because it's only as a child that they can perpetuate this cycle of guilt. Children aren't adults and certainly not parents. So they don't know how to meet these demands. It's like expecting a baby to be a master carpenter. And they know this and weaponize it. Because she MUST fail. 

See, it's not enough that this far-too-mature child somehow manages to comply with their disturbing demands. She must fail, be seen to fail or feel like a failure. Preferably all three. And they pull out all the big guns to ensure this. Shaming her into feeling like she's letting them down keeps her ever-striving to keep up with their ever-changing demands. Neglect and deprivation keeps her trapped and unable to move ahead. 

Exclusion keeps her ever trying to be let in. Exploitation keeps her baffled and bewildered. Gaslighting makes her think she's too immature to make adult decisions. Parentification keeps her fearful of separation from them. Enmeshment keeps her in bondage to family demands. Intimidation makes her fearful of everything

Why the H would any parent do this to a child, you ask. They aren't parents they are parasite zombies feeding off their child. The floor is lava which keeps the kid dancing to avoid burn-drowning. They keep changing rules and roles to keep her confused and to preserve this freak show balancing act they call family. If one card is moved, the entire house of cards falls. Keeping her in this limbo is the ultimate win-win-win for dark tetrads.

And if you think all this was wacky, wait till I tell you what it's like to deal with aging narcissist parents. Their expectations change with their delusions. They who never parented and expected her to parent them, now want the perks of being cared for as aging parents. As if they had actually cared for the child. And the poor brain damaged, shell shocked kid keeps hopping. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. 

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Moral principles dark tetrad parents fubar for kids and inner conflicts they create

Hello my friends. To heal my CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse, I began a series on 25 moral principles that dark tetrad parents fubar for their kids. I realized, a few posts into this list, that it was going to be much longer than I thought. And it's not just Biblical and moral principles they screw up for us. It's basically everything. Our understanding and experience of life is flipped ass over apple cart. Our lives are chaos. So we have our work cut out for us here.

But where to start? If everything is broken, how do I begin to collect the pieces and reassemble them into something resembling normal when I have no idea what normal ss? My life experience was one of endless inner conflict. Conflict between what I suffered with and did without and what others seemed not to suffer and did have. 

My normal was abuse (emotional, sexual, physical, spiritual, financial and medical), neglect, endangerment, abandonment, enmeshment, exploitation, gaslighting, parentification, scapegoating, intimidation, harsh punishment, invalidation and shaming were my normal. And not just by one or two parents but four, with very dark tetrad (selfish, entitled, manipulative, bullying, cruel) personalities. 

What I saw around me were normalish kids with normalish lives and families. In 1970, I knew no one I who's parents were divorced let alone with a dad completely out of the picture and mom living with her unemployed boyfriend with a foster care home. I knew of no one who had to care for children and wait on adults the way I did. They rode bikes, watched TV, had activities. I came home to housework till bedtime. They went to bed in beds in their bedroom. I slept and got up with babies, crammed in the kids' bedroom with four other kids, on unheated porches, on army cots and on the ground. 

So how do I know my life was so different? Because of how other kids reacted. They distanced themselves a lot of the time. Their parents didn't let them over. I never tried reaching out for help because I think I knew no one would believe me or understand. It was just that weird. I know because I had no idea how to fit myself into their world. And because, as an adult, I've asked trusted friends and they find my story odd and disturbing in the extreme. Every single person I've told (not many albeit because it's embarrassing) and they express shock. They say they've never heard or seen anything like it before. 

Getting back to my point of where to begin enumerating the many things dark tetrad parents mess up for kids. I guess we begin at the beginning, with the very orientation of my life. With my parents' entire approach to parenting, family and childcare for me. And what I see and what others have told me is that it was flawed at inception. The entire foundation was cracked and buckled. 

I did not ever have anything anywhere near resembling normal. Rudimentary things that even the youngest and most ignorant parents  know they need to provide, were not for me. Unless someone was watching. Or it was in my parents best interest to provide. They want to appear like normal parents so no one questions. And because it supports the image that they are genuinely good parents. And because they get things for making it look like they are caring for their child. Once inside the door however, it's a whole other animal. 

Dark tetrad parents cut as many corners as they can get away with, on things that don't benefit them. They compete with their child in very unfair contests which they always win. They resent their child needing anything and they gaslight and shame her for doing so. Even if she isn't asking. Just the fact that she is a child dependent on them, annoys the shit out of them. And when my dark tetrad parents divorced and married other dark tetrads, all hell broke loose. Now there were four demanding, resentful, spiteful, backstabbing people to please and all their offspring too. They gaslight the kid that their whackjob lifestyles are healthy and God's will. Even though they're obviously dysfunctional AF. 

Dark tetrads dislike and resent their child and make damn sure she knows it. For most parents, nothing is good enough for their beloved children. In my case, nothing is too low. I went hungry while they had expensive diet food. The dog ate better than me. He had better medical care than me. I had no space of my own and slept with their children while stepmother had a king-sized bed in her suite of a room. I slept with four foster kids while mom and unemployed boyfriend slept two floors down in their apartment. I did without so mom could treat him to a new motorcycle. 

They went out of their way to be unfair, uncaring, scornful. It wasn't enough that I was abused and neglected, I had to KNOW it and FEEL left out. Much of my memory is toast. Because my brain is damaged from chaos, stress, lying, manipulation, double standards and crazy brainwashing. My brain has to be very selective about what it lets me recall. Cause it's too dangerous.

But somehow, I survived their cabal. Somehow, I kept afloat, just barely. I don't know how. My husband says I must have had a ton of fortitude and determination. And a host of divine intercessors. I think they resented that too. I was the x variable they just couldn't factor out. Which I think made them double down on their odd demands, harassment and shaming. 

Outside their cult, I had to fake a lot because I didn't know what a normal kid was supposed to look like and do. I didn't know how to act so I watched for cues and play acted. I also had the handicap of being dangerously empathetic. I was others-centered and people pleasing was all I knew. This is a terrible impact of childhood trauma and a deadly habit to have in society. 

I got it wrong much of the time and made people very uncomfortable with my over-fawning. Sometimes I was punished for being too kind and sensitive especially to needy older boys and men. I was taught that God expected me to let anyone have their way with me. And so I did. Unfortunately for me, no one bothered to explain that this did not include allowing creeps to paw me.  They expected me, who didn't even have parental care and love, to just get that this was wrong. But not wrong as in bad for me. Wrong in some quack-religious shamey way. Wrong OF me, not wrong for me. 

Ironically, or not, a lot of this happened at youth groups and at church. People who should have known better, in whose care I was entrusted, put sicko older guys in with tweens and young teens. Some wer in their late 20s! And the pervy guys did what pervs do: stalk, isolate, groom and molest. Instead of taking on these bullies, and not letting it happen in the first place, cowardly "youth leaders" shamed and blamed the victim, me.  

Who was I to know that "immoral" behavior was the unpardonable sin? I never knew immoral except as example. I was exposed to icky, off adult and parent behavior all my life. My mother used to make out with boyfriends in front of me. She dressed like a hooker for a church Halloween party. She talked about sex anecdotally all the time. So I let an older guy kiss me on the bus. It's what he wanted and who was I to say no? But I was made to sit in the entrance well of the bus like the class dunce. Which was fucking illegal for a start, not to mention how it made me the laughingstock. Talk about feeling like the sl-t. 

So, number one, issue. Why did no one read the red flags here? Why did no one try to find out what or why I may have allowed him to? It doesn't take a Rhodes scholar to piece out that molested kids are used to letting people molest them. Maybe what they should have been asking themselves was why the hell they let 20-year-olds (there were many) on OVERNIGHTERS for 13-year-olds?!? And kissing takes two, if memory serves. Why was HE not punished? Why was he given access to me in the first place?? 

And it wasn't just one guy or one church or one situation. I've been used as a cuddle toy by older men in so many disturbing scenarios. Like lock-ins. Where kids are literally locked in unsupervised with these known freaks?  And not one person stood by me. Not one person ever confronted the bully. They just shamed me and twisted it to by my fault. 

My very sexually off mother and her sexually abusive live-in punished me for letting a creepy stalker stalk me. No one told him off. No one yelled at him for creeping on their daughter. Not my mom. She flirted with him. Not my supposedly big badass stepfather. He just yelled at me. Not my own dad. He never even knew. Because NO ONE EFFING CARED. They just swiveled that camera lens away from their disturbing behavior and on to me. I was actually (illegally) kicked out of the house over it. 

And this is what happens when a child is raised by people who live by one set of rules and expectations but hold her accountable to another. Dark tetrads write easy, flexible rules and do-what-you-want guidelines for themselves. And inflexible, harsh, impossible rules and do-what-we-expect guidelines for their child. Immoral behavior is what I saw and experienced not what I did. But I never knew that. I never did get, till I was in my 50s, that the pervs and their hypocrite enablers who fed me to them were the problem, not me. All I knew is I felt humiliated, ashamed and suicidal AGAIN. 

 

Biblical and moral principles dark tetrad parents fubar for kids: parent-adult-child dynamic

Hello my dear friends. In my quest to heal CPTSD from narcissistic dark tetrad parent abuse, I started a series on 25 biblical and moral principles that dark tetrads fubar for their kids. Today I'm looking at number 3, the parent-adult-child dynamic. People with dark tetrad personality traits are exploitative, narcissistic, entitled, malignant and cruel. As parents, they wreak the most havoc on their children, particularly the scapegoat child. 

Using weapons of abuse, neglect, manipulation, parentification, abandonment, endangerment, shaming, invalidation, enmeshment and gaslighting, they distort a child's reality so far out of shape that it isn't recognizable anymore. If these parents are Christian or of another religious persuasion, the teachings of that faith become tools to control a child also. Basically, everything in the child's life is twisted, flipped on it's ass and messed up. And the parent/child and child/adult relationships are some of the worst. 

Before I delve into this, a bit of explanation. So, I'm an old Freudian at heart. And I have always had great respect for the work of Dr. Eric Berne who based his transactional analysis model of parent-adult-child on Freud's superego-ego-id teaching. The parent or superego is bossy, overcritical and rigid, the id or child is self-centered, entitled and immature and the adult/ego is mature, rational and balanced. In these disciplines, these three exist in all of us. Each one has some merit but the Id and Superego must be kept in check. Problems occur when we get stuck in the unhealthy parent (superego) or child (id) state. 

And narcissist dark tetrads dwell permanently in Id-Superego mode. Which of course is a contradiction.  They are overly critical, bossy, demanding and harsh while also being childishly selfish and irresponsible. They want what they see as the perks of being both parent (controlling, authoritarian, punitive) and child (irrational, petulant, spoiled and pampered). They want none of the responsibility of being an adult. 

Now, to you and I, these aren't perks. Good parents don't enjoy disciplining their children. They do it because they are also grownups who know children need guidance. And chronological-age children aren't whiny brats. They are just growing and learning to advocate for themselves. But in narcissists, these behaviors are destructive and dangerous, especially to their children. 

The roles in these relationships are flip-flopped. The immature parent usurps the role of child and thrusts the unprepared child into the adult role. They expect adult behavior from the child. They groom her to perform duties of a parent (parentification). Yet they retain the "right" to control the child as if they were parents. And their adult age aids the deception. Society expects that people who are of majority to be adult and underage to be a child. No one expects that the child is the one doing the heavy lifting and so they miss the obvious clues. 

And Christian dark tetrads weaponize scripture to support this. They hound the child to be "respectful and obedient" to their parents. They twist this to mean serve, wait on, kowtow too. However in this fubared relationship where the adult is acting as the child and the child is acting as adult and parent, this doesn't apply. The Bible is not referring to people who call themselves parents but who are in fact being parents. St. Paul speaks of adults putting off childish ways. We act like children when we are children but we grow up as we age. 

Dark tetrads just age. They refuse to grow up. And this contradiction destroys childhood and much of adulthood for their kids.