Hello my friends. Today on the path to heal childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse, I had to face some very heartbreaking facts. This is a painful post and may triggering as all my posts on child abuse and neglect are. I write them to help myself and anyone who has suffered at the hands of enmeshed narcissist parents. You are welcome to join me in this bumpy road and I thank you for your company.
The Reality of the "Normal" Facade:
The idea of "loving parents" was just cardboard cutouts, not real. A poisoned tree hides best in a forest of similar-looking trees. Living next door to normal families didn't make our experience normal.
"Loving parents" was a mirage
The idea that children of narcissists have family and parents is smokescreen to cover up abuse and neglect. It hides in plain sight, behind closed doors and curtained windows, in churches, larger extended families and normal neighborhoods. Because where do you hide a poisoned tree? In a forest of similar-looking trees. The facade was that we were normal children because we lived next door to normal kids. But childhood trauma survivors have about as much in common with nurtured kids as peasant with a king.
Societal Gaslighting:
Society is often quick to minimize parental abuse and blame the child for "damaging a reputation." Choosing No Contact is a valid response to a lifetime of hidden neglect and exploitation.
We were and are being gaslit by society
It angers me how quick society-the church, the community, psychology, medicine, law-- is to excuse, euphemize and minimize parental abuse. And how ready they are to blame the child for making it up, showing off, attention-seeking, misunderstanding, damaging her parents' reputation. Just by saying what happened. Or just going no contact with them. Very often childhood survivors have never spoken up. We hid their shameful behavior as if it was ours. Because on some level we knew all we'd get was societal gaslighting. Everyone, it seems to the child, seems bent on explaining away neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, parentification, dehumanizing, cruelty, bullying, scapegoating, blackballing the child.
Service vs. Love:
We were not loved; we were utile. We were used as narcissistic supply and forced into "parentification" to care for parents who chose to remain entitled and needy.
Our narcissistic parents never loved us; they used us .
Nor did they like us. We were utile. We served their purpose. They used us for narcissistic supply, as servants, to get what they wanted, to care for them, to be their parents so they could be spoiled, selfish brats. We were a necessary nuisance. They "needed" us to do for them because they were too lazy, entitled and needy-wanty to do for themselves.
We annoy our narcissistic parents just by being.
Enmeshed parents get stuck in their own sticky web. They trapped and shackled us to them, to serve them. And we did succeed at caring for them like our children, too well. So they got what they wanted and yet were never satisfied. And that came back to bite us. Our ability to nurture them and their failure to nurture us enrages them. They are stuck in their own weaponized loop of indolence, impotence and dependence. They taught us that we owed all to them and they owed nothing to us. But it annoys the hell out them that to be in our debt.
The Exit Sign:
Accepting that they will never change is the way out. It frees us from the FOG (Fear, Obligation, and Guilt). Knowledge is the power that paves the road to recovery.
And the worst and yet most helpful realization...
It never will be any different. They won't change. They are too entrenched. Even if they did have some miraculous 11th hour epiphany it wouldn't matter. They began as they meant to continue, using and abusing us. They went on doing it and the only reason they would ever stop is if they got sick of it. It would always, ever be about what worked for them. Narcissistic parents have created a bulletproof shell of self around themselves that nothing penetrates. They take it to their graves. We their scapegoat children never going to be anything but a source of narcissistic supply.
And that is helpful to us because...
It is our exit sign. Knowledge, though painful, is power. Radical acceptance of the facts that these people never loved us, gaslit us, used us, took advantage of us, is our way out. It frees us from FOG of fear, obligation and guilt they gaslit us with, that was never ours. These cold hard facts are paving stones to recovery. It's our epiphany. And I think, speaking for myself, I always knew. And it is a relief to let go of my own illusions of being loved and move into the light of my now genuine loving relationship.
Homework for today
Sing along with Elsa, "let it go." Let go the hope, dreams, fantasies and most importantly the false notion of obligation to them. We owe them nothing. We never did. Now we know that.
Today’s Reflection:
"Let go of the false notion of obligation. You owe them nothing. You never did."
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