Defogging gaslighting of narcissistic abuse by thinking out loud

Hello my friends. Today in childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm defogging gaslighting by thinking out loud. I'm owning and validating my feelings, thoughts, anger and frustration.  I'm boosting self-confidence and banishing parent-induced shame and confusion. 

Unmask the betrayal

Narcissistic and enmeshed parents aren't just "difficult" or "demanding." They betray us, particularly the scapegoat or "broken vending machine child."  We give good and get bad and they take good and give bad. Our trauma bonding causes betrayal blindness. We never saw how they've been stabbing us in the back and pulling the rug out from under us. This is intentional, not accidental. They do it to destabilize us so we are vulnerable and desperate for any bread crumbing they throw at us. They use DARVO, gaslighting, catfishing and devious confusing double standards. So our job is to see the Decepticon behind the innocent parent mask. And to do this we need to...

Fumigate

So what powers gaslighting? It's gas--lethal, toxic hot air that has no boundaries and seeps into every crack. Gas is a good metaphor for boundary crashing parents who use coercive control to terrorize us into complying with their sick, twisted demands. And gassing is a good metaphor for how narcissistic and enmeshed parents poison their child's mind. These hypocrites preach but don't practice all kinds of convoluted rules and commands. They engage in nasty, immoral, unethical, illegal behavior. They gas on and on with their self-serving word salad two sets of rules. So to heal our childhood trauma responses of fawning, people pleasing, appeasing and groveling, we need to air out our brains and breath fresh air of reality.  

Defog FOG

A primary tool that arrogant, malignant narcissists use is FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) that we owe them things we don't. They confuse us that we are responsible to and for them ((parentification). Then they who really are our parents, groom us to think they owe us nothing. That anything they do for us comes with unaffordable price tags. There's no reciprocity. We give, they take. They frighten us into betrayal blind obedience. Yet they are disobedient to everyone. They demand respect they don't earn and don't give to others. Defogging means seeing past all the evasions, lies and spun narratives to clear, cold hard facts. These people are imposters. They do not have the power they wield. They just spin a good web of deceit. 

Lean on my own understanding

My dad used to preach-bully this Bible verse at me about how wrong I was by "leaning on my own understanding." I would feel so ashamed and awful, though he never said how I was doing this. He just accused randomly. The implication was that I wasn't relying on God. But what he was really saying was that it was him, not God I should be listening to. That he, not God, was the omniscient, omnipotent one. And for me as a bullied child, he and my other three parents were all powerful. They called the shots and dictated my reality even into adulthood. Because early training sticks, good or bad. It directs the way your brain grows. Now I'm starting to correct some of those falsehoods. But good Lord, it's back-breaking all uphill work. 

Talk back to the voices in my head

I hear shaming voices of my toxic parents in every breath I breathe. I can't take a step without their humiliating harassment dogging it. And not hearing them is about as easy as holding back the tide. So now, I'm trying a different approach. I'm talking back to them. This was another thing that was punished: "sassing" "lipping off" back-talking. And everything I said that wasn't "yes ma'am" constituted backtalk. Any answer I gave was me just "defending myself" or making excuses. I never stopped to ask why I would need to defend myself against the people who were supposed to defend me. I never wondered why I had do speak up for myself in the first place. But now I am. And you can bet I'm backtalking their nonsense. And the more I "sass" them, the wronger I realize they were and are. 

Hold their feel to the fire

For all the nasty things they said to and about me, I'm holding them accountable for, instead of myself. For every time I (in my own head) confront them with something they accused me of doing, I find it was them doing it. They weren't just blaming me for their bad choices. They were lying and saying I made them. I was their problem. But as a wise child of whom I'm very proud, just said "he ruined my life." I didn't ruin theirs. This wise child sees, what it took me six decades to, who was the victim and who was the offender. He didn't fall for the DARVO bullshit. He got the order of operations correct. He assigned blame where it belonged. The sad thing is that any child has to do this. 

Think out loud

There's are two contrasting Alanon sayings that help me. 

"Act your way into right thinking, vs. think your way into right acting." 

"Don't just do something, sit there." 

The first, is a a call to proactive, affirmative action as opposed to simply ruminating about childhood trauma. The second is a call to pause and reflect before leaping into reactive trauma responses. This is doing something just to be doing something, rather than constructive action. Which I think should be called "trauma reactions" to show that they are knee-jerk not thought out responses. 

And rumination is just as destructive. As opposed to carefully considering alternative actions and responses, it's endlessly "chewing on" what happened without any end game in mind. It's asking the answerless "why?" instead of productive questions like "what can I do about this now?" 

But sitting there without responding is proactive too. So I'm doing a two-prong plan. I'm thinking out loud and clearly to reorient myself after baffling parent abuse. I'm telling myself the real versions of their weaponized false narratives. I'm explaining to my younger self that what happened, happened. I'm not wrong, crazy, or an attention seeking show off. My parents were. And I'm also concurrently, making better choices for myself. Choices like self-care, self-affirmation and trusting myself, that I've known all along were right but which I let them derail me from doing.