Hello my friends. Yesterday I wrote about the most baffling and cunning form of narcissist parent abuse. Which to me, is the betrayal. I then explained how this betrayal makes me feel: perpetually confused, nervous and fearful. Rereading, I see that I went on to describe the confusion this caused more than the actual forms this abusive betrayal takes. So today, I'll discuss how malignant narcissist parents betray their children and how this is the most bewildering, destabilizing and poisonous form of narcissist parent abuse.
Exploitation of parent role. Parents care for their kids. The words are almost synonymous: parent=nurturing. Everyone knows this, including narcissists. They take advantage of their role as parents and the expectations that come with it. They know that parents are supposed to care for their children. But narcissist parents care only for themselves. They take, they don't give. But because hurting children is so alien to the concept of parent, narcissists are able to hide their abuse behind their understood role of caregiver. You'd be surprised at how many people are misled by these folks into thinking that because they hold the title of parent they must be doing the work. Narcissist are no more parents to their children than a person wearing a bear mask is a bear. So often, us poor children of narcissists are gaslit, not only by our parents but by society which tells us, "well she IS your mother. He IS your dad." No actually they're not. It's a fake ID. They wear the badge of parent only to get things FROM the child (loyalty, love, respect, caregiving, support, a scapegoat, a shield), most of which are not the child's job to provide. Some are even dangerous to the child to give. Meanwhile the parent deprives and denies the child basic things that actually ARE their responsibility to give and which the child needs to survive. I think this might be the most insidious form of narcissist parent betrayal.
Double dealing parent-child role reversal (parentification) As narcissistic parents ditch their responsibilities to their children, they also twist the relationship again, teaching the child that she is actually responsible TO and FOR them. They groom her to think she owes them all kinds of weird inappropriate "duties" that they have preordained and which are completely out of line in normal parent-child relationships. And which they were never obligated to perform as children (at least in my parents lives). They had relatively normal childhoods while mine couldn't be any more odd. And then, as if it could get any worse, malignant narcissist parents twist again by infantilizing the child, shaming her for normal child behavior and exaggerating any mistake into a capital crime. Behavior, might I add, that they ROUTINELY ENGAGE IN as ADULTS!! So childish acts are fine for grownups but not for the actual child, the actual child learns. Children abused like this by malignant narcissist parents would not know normal childhood if it bit them in the butt.
Purposely harming child. Narcissist parents play on their role as parents for their own selfish ends. It may or may not hurt the child. Malignant narcissist parents ALWAYS must hurt the child with their selfish behavior. They aren't satisfied with just getting their way. It HAS to come at the child's expense. And they go out of their way to hurt, when it would be easier not to. My mother purposely cheated me on a junk car which she suckered me into buying from her. And then triangulated and lied that my husband said she could have my good car. She told him the same things about me. She knew perfectly well it was a lemon when they bought it. They didn't even want it and flipped the title selling it to me. Which I was fined for. Comparing notes, my husband and I see now that her sole purpose was steal my car and stick me and her grandkids with a dangerous one. Again, a lot of people miss this abuse because what kind of parent does that?? It goes against all that parenting stands for.
Sadistically scoring off the child. In the case with my mother, it wasn't enough for her to rob me. She literally had to make me bleed to feel good. This is the cruel, sadistic part of malignant, sociopathic narcissist parents. They enjoy their child's pain. They get off on it. They set the child up to fall by denying basic necessities which strip resources and leave her vulnerable. They orchestrate scenarios to humiliate the child. They TAKE OTHER PEOPLE'S PART AGAINST THEIR OWN CHILD. They believe spiteful lies about her and perpetuate them. I can still feel the sucker punch, the nausea, the sharp pain and windedness from these ambushes. Which is of course, completely contrary to loving parents who treasure and uplift their child, not beat them down. They rejoice at their in their children. They aren't jealous of and constantly seeking to sabotage them. But again, the narcissist parent plays on this to gaslight the child that she's imagining it or too sensitive. If I had a dollar for every time I hear that...
Violating parent-child trust relationship and then doubling back on the child. This one is so bizarre. My malignant narcissist parents broke faith with me repeatedly. Actually they never were trustworthy at all. They willfully abandoned and endangered me. They left me with unsafe, predatory people. My mom and her boyfriend would jeer at me for my trauma responses that THEY had created. My dad and his wife would shame me for trying too hard to please and then rail at me for failing to please them. And yet I trusted in them, because that's what kids do in normal relationships. And THEN they confiding highly inappropriate things in me: my mother shared intimate details of her sex life and my dad frequently told me, beginning at 5, how he was planning to commit suicide. I was their toxic waste dump.
Breaking confidence So good parents know that secret keeping is unhealthy when it's a child keeping an adults secrets. But they also teach the child that it's perfectly alright to keep some things private and that adults have a duty to respect that privacy. If they do have to share secrets they explain why and they only tell people who can help, like a doctor. Narcissist parents tell a child's secrets, not to help them, but for personal gain. They backstab, invent lies and spread malicious gossip about their children, especially the scapegoat, for attention and because they enjoy the discomfort it causes the child. And again, they weaponize the parent role to gaslight the child. Because what kind of parent does that? No one will believe you, they say. You're just framing me. (DARVO). Well come to find out after 61 years of believing such nonsense, these nasty behaviors are EXACTLY what a narcissist parent does. It's as if they read from the manual.
Self-serving "snooping" Not only does the narcissist parent break confidences, she actively goes looking for private details. Diary reading, eavesdropping, going through a child's possessions looking for somethings to steal or manipulate. I caught my mother going through my purse several times. She doesn't do this to help the child but to hurt her and thereby help herself. Yes you read that correctly. Malignant narcissist parents get ahead by walking on their kids. They only "win" if someone else loses.
Faking concern. This might be the most insidious form of weaponized parenting. Normal parents care about their children. When the child shares something, a good parent tries to help. With narcissist parents, it's completely the opposite. They mimic caring words but have no genuine concern. They only do this to elicit confidences from the child which they then exploit for their own use. They gather, compile and store data to retrieve when they need it. They use it to blackmail, extort and coerce the child at their convenience.
Giving a little, expecting a lot. Piggy-backing on the feigned concern is weaponized giving narcissist parents do. They do not do for the child because they're parents and that's what parents. They they tally these things up and then present the child with a bill, in form of ridiculous expectations and with usurious interest. Narcissist parents have a very skewed bookkeeping system with heavy entries in the child's debt column and nil in the credits. They groom the child to believe that they owe her nothing while she owes them everything. However they don't outright tell the child that payment will be required for the things they provide. Which never amount to anything like what the child should just get because she is their child. The child did not know that she was entering into any transaction or that she should get anything from it.
Company store conditions. I learned too late never to accept anything a narcissist has to give as it will come with invisible price tags. Gifts come back to bite. Living with these people is like working for a place with a company store in which all items must be purchased at unaffordable prices. You end up paying all your wages and the debt just rises. Because narcissist parents believe their children owe them not only their service but their lives and soul.
These random acts of cruelty are just part of the nightmare of narcissist parents. For me, they were probably the most bewildering, destabilizing and poisonous.
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