Dark Tetrad Narcissist parents aren't the Daleks they pretend to be

Hey my friends. Wow, am I being shown new faces of the people I once called parents! I saw these faces as a child, but not clearly and through a haze of fear and gaslighting. I saw their abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, manipulation, shaming, invalidation, parentification and scapegoating as what I deserved and should expect. I gaslit myself into disbelieving parents would treat a kid this way. And this was what God expected of me. 

But then, on my road to Damascus, a few scales fell off. And I glimpsed,  through the chinks, something that I'd probably always know but which still came a jolt. The narcissists didn't and never had loved me. I started to consider that maybe I wasn't just a crazy, selfish, lying, showoff, oversensitive, failure as I'd been told. That maybe things happened just as I recalled. 

And the more I saw, the more I was shown and the less I could excuse anymore. I believe God is revealing these things to me because I finally dared to peek though that chink. And I started asking for help to see more clearly. I don't think it was gaming on his part to keep me in ignorance and misery. I think He knew the right time to let the narcissists show their true colors and me to see them. 

And the older they get the more their masks slip and the more God is giving me a look at what's behind. And while it's not pretty, it's also not scary like it was before I saw the light. What I'm seeing is that dark tetrad narcissists are more Darth Vader than Dalek, just scary masks and heavy breathing with broken people inside.  It's disturbing, yes. Anakin is one messed up guy. And what appeared to be a mask was actually a breathing machine keeping him alive. 

And so with the dark tetrad narcissists in my life. They wear masks and greasepaint like clowns or magicians hiding their real selves. To preserve the facade of power and authority. But really just to survive reality. As God shows what's underneath, I see not the terrifying ubermensch, overlords they made themselves out to be. But as Scoob and Shaggy, found, just frail very humans masquerading as omnipotent gods.    

Dark tetrad narcissists may run around like Daleks yelling "exterminate!" and thinking they have the power to rule the universe. But inside there's no souped-up, superhuman cyborg. It's only a salt shaker with a sniveling, kind of pathetic weakling hiding inside. It's really quite sad and it doesn't get better. The longer they hide in their salt shaker the more soul-shriveled and decrepit they become. 

I wrote recently about aging narcissists and how they go from grandiose to covert. If they can't be the hottest, biggest, most important, most powerful thing in the room they'll be the most pitiful. And aging alone zaps resources when you're not trying to maintain a facade a superiority. When you are, well it's one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. 

I heard it said well on NarcDaily Youtube channel, that with age, they "disintegrate." I can see why. Being always onstage is wearying. And it's debilitating having to constantly contort yourself into something you're not. The more lies they tell, the less they can keep up with who they told what and when.. The corner they painted themselves in shrinks. And having alienated so many, having burnt so many people and bridges, leaves them alone, friendless and cut off from support. 

And all the exploiting, excluding, estrangement, setting up camps, triangulating and scapegoating comes back to bite them too. My narcissist parents (all four) routinely stranded me, pitted me against each other, cut me off from help, cut me out of their family and hung me out to dry. Finally, after 60 years, I decided two could play at that game and I cut the cord. Well, I didn't really have much of a family to pull the plug on. But it's the gesture that counts. 

And so with healing comes more healing. It really does get easier. The days get brighter and the light stays longer. You begin going from strength to strength instead of that sickening fail spiral. Which you really weren't in but it sure felt like you were. I've always said I'm dyslexic because I can't plan ahead or see a sequence. It's like I'm blinded and can barely see one step ahead. So I can never see that it will most likely be okay. Now I wonder if it's the chaos forced on me by the people who were supposed to keep me safe, that makes me afraid to proceed. 

But good news, For the first time ever maybe in my life, I realized I didn't feel afraid. I actually felt safe to put the other foot down, because I could see the path. For once I didn't experience that sinking dread of the ground being  pulled away again and me falling, again, into the abyss.  I was able to let my self relax a bit in the protection and security that I think has always surrounded me in my now family, but which childhood trauma has never let me trust. 

Thanks be to God. 

Disturbing things CPTSD makes me think, say and do

Hello my best beloveds. I hope you know how much I cherish and appreciate you all for joining me on this miserable...quest thing...I've been on. CPTSD ain't a picnic and trying to heal it isn't much easier. So I'm grateful for companions on the journey. Now you may be thinking, that's kind of a weird opening, assuming we're all pals and on board to help. And you may be right. How do I know who's reading and if they're safe or stalker? Which is kind of what the point of this post is about: disturbing things CPTSD makes me think, say and do. 

If you have been following you know my backstory of abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, scapegoating, enmeshment, parentification, invalidation, toxic shaming and gaslighting by four narcissistic/dark tetrad parents. Said simply, everything was flip-flopped in my life. Right was wrong and wrong was right for me. Safe was bad, harm was good, yeah. 

And that messed up, twisted existence has left me permanently disabled, mentally, emotionally, physically and socially. I developed many strange coping mechanisms that look really weird outside the family cult and in the light of reality. They may have helped me survive their abuse but they don't fit well in everyday life where the rules are mostly right-side up. Here's how. 

1) I trust others before myself. I give way to their judgementalism over my good judgement. I let them edit, revise and rewrite my narrative. I believe their version of "how things are." I let them gaslight me that their lies are God's truth. I accept their uninformed opinions as gospel truth despite clearly seeing the arrogance and blasphemy in said opinions. Funnily enough, I only do this with self-righteous people not with healthy people. Because healthy people don't beat others with their screwball ideas. Healthy people have adult conversations and don't prat on in preachy monologues. Yet the drones are the ones I let inform me. Or at least my inner child does. Because...

2) I live in abject terror. Of what, IDK exactly. I know it has nothing to do with this faith over fear claptrap. Do me a favour IF ONLY clicking my heels together and boasting of my faith WOULD get me back to Kansas! Back to safety, security, nurture and love. But too many wicked witches and flying monkeys have bullied and hurt me to ever get back home. And there was never a Kansas for me to go back to. The people called parents in my life WANTED me to be afraid of them. Isn't ironic how the very people canting about their faith and our lack of, are the very folks scaring us shitless? 

3) I completely ignore road signs and traffic signals. Not real ones, I mean with people. But it might as well be actual ones for all the harm and danger it's caused me. My little life car runs red lights and crashes into barricades. Not to hurt others, only me. I was taught that ignoring red flags was what God expected of me. I was schooled that self-care and selfish and personal safety was ungodly. He, I learned,  expected me to lay down like a coat over puddles and let others walk on me. I was groomed to invite hurt. Countless unsafe people have grabbed the wheel and ran me into oncoming traffic. They came out unscathed because self-care was their prerogative. While my lil mind, soul, heart and body are twisted and scarred wrecks. 

4) I'm raw meat for predators. It's like I wear a badge that says " Hello, my name is Prey." They growl and I freeze and then fawn.  They can smell me coming a mile away and my perpetrator alert system is defunct. My instinct to run is broken. It's been disabled by predators calling themselves parents. Fortunately, I married someone who makes a point to keep me safe. Because left on my own, I'd have been consumed long ago. 

 There are a lot more weird things but that's all I've got energy to write about today. If you'd like to read more, check out my other posts on narcissistic parents, dark tetrad dangers and CPTSD. 

Thanks for reading. 

Going no contact with abusive narcissistic parents is harder on me than them

Hello my friends. My recovery from narcissistic dark tetrad parent abuse turned a corner recently when I decided to go no contact with them. And I'm finding that cutting ties with abusive family is harder than I thought and much harder on me than on them. Nevertheless it's a necessary decision that I wish I'd made decades ago. Here's how and why. 

So how is it  harder on me than on my four narcissistic dark tetrad parents? Because they cut ties to me ages ago. They energetically distanced themselves from any responsibility TO me even as a little girl. My parents have been absenting themselves, neglecting, endangering and at times abandoning me since day one. But with equal energy, conversely expecting endless responsibilities FROM me. 

Then they divorced and hooked up with new dysfunctional partners who felt zero responsibility to me but who expected me to do inappropriate, unhealthy and unsafe things for them. They were aided and abetted by my parents who used me as surrogate spouse, surrogate parent, servant and scapegoat. While gaslighting me into thinking this was all normal and what God expected of me. To do otherwise would have been disloyal, disobedient and wicked of me. Even though they showed no loyalty to me or obedience to the God they claimed to serve. 

And I bought all the crap hook, line and sinker. That's what traumatized kids do, absorb abuse as normal. Which is why cutting ties now is so difficult for me. They weren't tied to me. They cut me adrift with the umbilical cord. It was only because of  my grandparents that I got anything like love and care. But I sure as hell was leashed TO them. And like a dog left out in the rain, I was to expect nothing from them, no security or support. Not even basics. 

I recently heard the term enmeshment in which a child's healthy boundaries are trodden down by dark triad parents. An enmeshed child doesn't exist extant. She devoured by parents and digested whole. And this is a perfect analogy for my life. I felt caught up in a mesh net whose ropes only grew tighter the more I struggled. They enmeshed themselves in my life with countless cords of expectation and demands. 

I was caregiver, confidante, sex therapist, buffer, a mark for their cons, defender, guardian, needs meeter, want provider, fairy godmother, whipping girl, a bone thrown to their new spouses to placate their voracious greed. They used endless and confusing guilt, shame, blame shifting, threats, bullying, Draconian punishment, exploitation, manipulation, triangulation and gaslighting to tighten the knots until I couldn't move. 

So I quit struggling and just accepted imprisonment. Pretty soon they didn't even have to bother to try. I lived for them, guessing what they wanted, hoping I was right and accepting when I wasn't. I just rolled over and let them do what they wanted with me. They didn't have to excuse, explain, exonerate, exclude or exempt their behavior. I did all that for them. I participated in my own torture. I handed them the whips and bent over for easier access. 

I've overlooked, ignored and defended shocking abuse at their hands. Yet I can't get it into my head that this was wrong. And I can't get their voices and teachings out of my head. Over the past 60 years, these ropes which enmesh me with them have petrified. I'm unable to sever bonds. I don't love them. I never have, really. I can't, how could I, never being loved and only knowing their twisted version of love. I have just felt beholden to them. Because they indoctrinated me into believing I owed them everything. 

It was drummed into me that my place was to give good, take bad, allow pain, never question, never stop. My memory is Swiss cheese but I recall in crystal clarity being endlessly told the many ways I let everyone down. I vividly remember my mom's husband screaming and waving his fist in my face, while I was holding my baby daughter,  how I was a pathetic excuse for a person, unfit to live and to "get the hell out of his house." Because I'd dared to ask where the baby was they were supposed to be caring for. While my good Christian mother looked on and approved. 

If you read my back posts on them, you'll see their pattern bullying. But I didn't at the time. I just felt obliged to grovel and beg for readmittance into their family. Which I was never a part of anyway, except as general dogsbody. Which of course was the point of the exercise, to get me more enmeshed in their  hellhole of a life. My brain knows sorta that I owe nothing and whatever I may have was paid over and above decades ago. But my core still believes I do. My self is still trapped in those crippling bonds. 

I think what I need is something to dissolve the ties which I can't untie. I don't yet see what exactly that solvent might be. But I am starting to accept that God does. I say starting because God as a loving father was destroyed for me, by their selfishness. Images of my parents and stepparents as gods were superimposed. So I'm having to work to come of hiding from God. I have to pry terrified hands off my eyes. I have to dare to consider that they were wrong and that God does actually care for me. 

Maybe lancing their corrosive acid from my heart and the saltwater tears of grief for the family, love and care I never had will be what breaks down the bonds. 

What makes dark tetrad narcissist parents act so awful (hint, it's not delusions)

 Hi friends. I've been exploring the dark tetrad traits and find that they fit my four parents to a T. So if you're unfamiliar with dark tetrads, they're narcissistic (entitled, self-centered, manipulative), psychopathic (disagreeable, deceitful, spiteful, hateful), Machiavellian (exploitative) and sadistic (enjoy cruelty and bullying). Without the last they're dark triad. I've lived with these behaviors all my life from them. And maybe you're wondering what makes them this way? Are they just nasty? Do they do it on purpose? Is it a sickness? Are they suffering too? Is it delusional? 

The short answers are yes, yes, kinda, not so's you'd notice and no. Yes they are nasty to live with. They're resentful, bitter, pouty, arrogant, malignant, hypocritical, deceitful, manipulative, abusive, bossy, demanding, disrespectful, and all the things other people don't like. They don't form relationships well because they love things and use people. They're frequently divorced and have estranged kids. They don't have many real friends because they don't give. They take. 

Do they do these things on purpose or is it a sickness that they can't help? Eh, it may be prompted by something broken in them but they can help it. They know what they're doing. Because when anyone does anything to them remotely like they do to others, they understand very well how wrong it is. For them. It's not wrong for them to do it to others. My parents could quote chapter and verse of how others were supposed to live. But they did not live it. 

I also believe that it's like anything else. Practice makes perfect. So where they were amateurs as kids, they became pros by repeatedly doing these behaviors. They can stop any time they want to. But they don't want to. Lying, cheating, scamming, winning is too important. The payoff in narcissistic supply is too great. They prefer fantasy to reality. And I think the devil is egging them on. And you know what happens when you lie. You have to keep lying to preserve the fallacies. Pretty soon your entire world is a house of cards with one lie building on the other. 

So these are delusions, then? Nope I don't think so. They have convinced themselves they're all that and then some. Above it all, accountable to no one, making up rules as they go along. Delusional, yes.  Clearly they're just people no more or less. But I don't think they really believe it. They just want to superimpose this belief on others. They want us to believe it. They gaslight and con everyone, even God. 

They choose to act superior because they want to be worshipped and adored. They want to do as they please, no matter how hurtful, and have others not only go along with it but approve and admire. They want to be exempted from the consequences of their actions. They want others to treat them as if they are beyond reproach. Because this supports their fantasy. They want the easy, lazy path with others doing the work.

And Christians are particularly vulnerable here. (I'm only speaking to this religious group because it's the only one I have experience with.) Christians know this is completely antithetical to scripture, the commandments and the gospel. It's anathema to God. It's blasphemy and apostasy.  And here's where the devil jumps right in just as he did with Adam and Eve. He didn't tell them to disobey God. He tempted them to want to BE God. 

And that's how dark tetrad Christians comfort themselves. They can preach and proclaim God's word all they want. To do so is to do His will. They can and should warn others, as my mother so frequently does, that sin is still sin. Hell is still hot. But she has let Satan fool her into thinking that she is not held to these truths. For all the energy she puts into telling others what to do, she doesn't do it. She does what she wants which is often very sinful.  Blatantly so. She goes out of her way to. 

She doesn't confess, apologize, admit or acknowledge her sin. And here's why. She has believed for so long that she has God's ear, that she's His emissary, voice on earth etc. that she is now SELF-righteous (right on her own merit) She doesn't have to follow these rules she just has to preach them. All her preaching has somehow rendered her immune to sin. Keeping her finger pointed at others, distracts attention from the four fingers pointing back at her.  As the serpent promised, and she's deceived herself, she KNOWS God, understands like God, thinks like God and (I hate to even say the words), now IS God.  

And that is the biggest delusion of all. 

Traits of dark tetrad parents that make them nightmares to live with

Hello my friends. I wrote recently about finally getting some insight on my four abusive parents' behaviors. I realized it wasn't just narcissism that made them so difficult to live with. Both  my biological parents exhibit dark tetrad personality traits.  Dark tetrad is narcissism (arrogant, entitled and manipulative), Machiavellian (deceptive and without scruple about getting their own way), Psychopathic (disagreeable, aggressive and bullying) and sadistic (enjoying seeing others hurt or put down). Then they married other people with dark tetrad traits. 

Their behavior has always bewildered me, especially when I became a parent myself. It was as if there was no low they wouldn't stoop to in order to humiliate, belittle and eff me up.  I'm not a perfect parent, but I saw huge Grand Canyon divides between what I did and how they treated me. It's not just me. Many people including my kids have said they can't believe I came from these people given how put together I am. Their words not mine. I don't know about that. But what I do know is that I tried my best for my kids. And my parents hell bent on doing their worst to me. Upon hearing some of  my stories, people have said it sounds like they were trying to get me killed! 

So as you can imagine, identifying the dark tetrad behaviors in them has really been an aha moment for me. A real lifesaver and sanity saver too. Being under their collective thumbs and subject to their endless abuse, neglect, machinations, bullying, exploitation, willful endangerment and abandonment, scapegoating, gaslighting, parentification and harassment, I got pretty beaten down. Yet I explained away, excused, exonerated, excepted (ignored) and enabled them in this all my life. But it never did any good. They just got meaner and more aggressive.  Here's a list of things I routinely dealt with living with four dark tetrad parents. 

Endless hypocrisy: do as I say not as I do. Right is wrong for you and wrong is right for them. It's always your fault. They are never to blame and they never apologize. My  mother posts things on Facebook about "hell is hot and sin is wrong so get your act together, people." She has never admitted to, acknowledged, confessed or apologized for a single thing she's done wrong and certainly not done wrong to me. She lies, gaslights and says things never happened. She "forgets" plays dumb and fakes dementia if confronted. Yet is lucid enough to enumerate the many sins others supposedly have committed.  

Constant double standards (unsafe and deprived was fine for me but only the best for themselves). They blatantly deny you things and take from you. My toys were sold to pay for her boyfriend's new motorcycle. They lavish on their other kids things you never had. I was kicked out of the house at 16 and had to buy my own sanitary napkins. And my parents still support their other adult kids in their 40s. 

Tons of inappropriate expectations on me and none on them or their other children. Housework was for me, not them. Childcare was my responsibility since I was 10. I was given adult chores because my stepparents didn't want to do them. 

It is all about them. They don't just enmesh you, they absorb you body and soul. They eat you alive. You don't exist except to serve. 

A lot of scary, dangerous and destructive situations. My dad blamed some people for letting his son watch a scary show, all his life. He said it scarred the kid. He didn't even know that I at 4, was being made to watch "Dark Shadows" (and scared shitless) at the neighbor's house. He wouldn't have cared if he did. Neither one of them worked but no one had time to watch me or even walk me to school. 

Being stolen from, lied to and cheated, routinely. I was told I lost things when they disappeared. I've caught my mom going through my purse. My son's shoes came up missing because my mom had taken them. She conned my into paying full price for a lemon she flipped titles on and then took my nice car and gave me only $100 for it. She expected we'd just give my sister our only car when we had a family of 6.

Living in their endless delusional fantasy of magical thinking (my mother would read about things and then adopt the role as if it was her) nothing was real except the fear and trauma. I was always getting in the way of her dreams, I was told. Even though she never did anything with her life. 

Always above it all. Neither parent had any missionary, pastoral or even Sunday school teacher experience They looked down on those who were actually trained. They expected to preach and be treated as ministers and missionaries because they said they were. And got furious when family and even churches refused to support them in this.   My mother lied her way into, or just lied about getting a job in what she called a superintendent of religious ed at a church she had no experience with. She didn't know the first thing about it and expected me as a qualified teacher to bail her out. Then got mad when minister refused to pay or keep her on staff. 

They're not delusional. They just firmly believe they are entitled to things others have. They don't have to work. Work is for other people. They are exalted. The government, other people, their kids, God, everyone owes them for the privilege of knowing them. They will scam anyone. All four of my parents exploited programs set up for native Americans when they have not a drop of native blood in them. One even stole from a domestic violence assistance fund. They have what used to be called superiority complexes. 

Constantly resentful. I heard a lot of "must be nice" to have or be thus and such. Things they could have had but refused to work for. Or sometimes had but trashed. They were so bitter and spiteful that they ruined a dresser my grandmother left me, because they were pissed I was given them. Things seem to get oopsy so sorry, broken when they're around. My dad brought his stupid dog into my house without permission and laughed because it attacked my cat.  I had to adopt him out because I couldn't care for him and my children. 

Bitterly bitter. Every missed opportunity was someone's fault even if they were not qualified claim it (see above story about teaching job). I was told that if it weren't for me,  my mother would be highly placed in one of the many churches they attended. I forgot which. I do remember we changed every month or so. And I recall neither of them working in or for the church, even in a simple volunteer way. 

Lazy and expect to be served. They don't and won't work to care for themselves, let alone those in their care. They shouldn't have to. That's someone else's job (mostly mine). They expected me to prepare dinner for them on my first day of work. When I got in an accident, they pouted about not being fed. 

Take pleasure in lording it over others. You really can't take them out in public. They're cringy-rude to wait staff. They insult things people make for them. They make passive-aggressive comments about those they consider inferior. They mock disabilities. They do embarrassing things to humiliate you at events.  My mother once stage whispered how a girl who clearly had health issues was "so skinny." 

They enjoy pointing out fault in others and will invent faults if nothing is wrong. One time I made dinner for them and was on my way home from work, I was informed that the meat which was perfectly fresh was off so they threw it away and what was for supper now? What they actually did was to eat it all and invite their daughter over and none was left for me. 

Entitlement that knows no bounds. My mom and her daughter once stayed with me. Mom expected the best room, wanted me to kick my kids out of theirs. They made a huge mess of, then left, took themselves out to lunch, brought no leftovers or invited anyone, boasted to my hungry kids and demanded to know when supper was because "she was hungry." And THEN paraded around NAKED in front of my kids. 

Greedy, hoarding and demanding. They give cheap junk and expect expensive gifts. They expected me as a stone-broke college kid to give lavishly to their kids while I received piddly gifts or nothing. My dad made a point to shame the gift I'd given his sons saying they didn't like it and could he have the receipt? Then gave me a racecar set which I was to share with his sons when I was 15.  

Super spiteful and vindictive. They do not like success in others, especially not the scapegoat. They will punish you if someone praises you and gives you what they see as preferential treatment over their other kids. They will attack, humiliate, mock, insult or tear you down however they can. Even if they look stupid. 

Paranoid as hell. My dad could sense what he saw as shaming him, my disobedience or lack of loyalty a mile away. He would go ballistic. He would routinely shame me in shocking ways in front of others. 

Vindictive as hell. They go for the jugular. If there's any confrontation, or if they even suspect you are questioning them, they'll go nuclear, bombs away and guns blazing.  Don't confront. 

Cowardly. They use social media to attack. But they don't even write their own material. They "share" poisonous crap and ask "can I get an amen?" If embarrassed, put down and reprimanded, they act sweet the person's face. Even if they weren't actually put down but just felt uncomfortable (usually because they'd done something purposely awkward.) But oh just wait till you're alone. They will make you miserable in retaliation for the slight. 

Awkward is their prerogative. They thrive on doing and saying things that embarrass you. They adore shaming and mocking. If someone laughs they'll happily join in. In all the weird they've done to me, I can't recall one time when any one of them reached out to comfort me or told the bully to knock it off. BUT if anyone puts them down or makes fun at their expense, run for cover. Two CANNOT play at this game. 

Never at fault. They will never admit to wrong. They lie and say what they did was fine and then if that fails that it was someone else's fault. Or that it was really your fault. Or you had it coming. Or that you had a hand in it because it "takes two to tango" which of course you didn't. This is just them playing both ends for the middle. Because when they are dishing out the shit, you better not respond because that would be, wait for it, disrespectful! 

Believe the worst of others despite it being untrue and out of character. Yet they expect others to always give them the benefit of the doubt even when they're repeatedly done what they're being held accountable for. 

Believe others are jealous of them and should be. They go out of their way to make a loved one, spouse or child jealous, then mock and insult them for feeling hurt. They triangulate their child against their new partner. They "cheat on" their children by showing unnecessary preferential treatment to other children and make a point of it to belittle their child. My mother excluded me from her life once she got a new boyfriend and then accused me, 10, of being jealous when I felt hurt. She flaunted him like a bullying mean girl as if we were both in middle school. 

Waaay off sexually. They share inappropriate intimate details with children. They run around  naked in front of kids then mock them for not being as sexy. They let icky adults be icky with their kids and take pleasure in the child's discomfort and shame. My mother would openly make out with her boyfriends in front of me. She told my husband and sons about sleeping naked. She preened herself when her live-in boyfriend mocked me about my small undeveloped breasts. 

Mocking and purposely humiliating and then gaslighting when confronted. They whisper behind people's backs and laugh just loud enough for the person to hear. They shame and embarrass their kids by throwing pies at them and shoving their faces in birthday cakes. They say they were  just joking and why are you so sensitive? Can't you take a joke. 

Can dish it out but can't take it. They routinely try to make a fool of their children but if the child does something, even accidentally that makes them feel foolish they become enraged, punish the child and tout out the old business about not being disrespectful to parents. 

Dark tetrad parents don't show respect but expect unmerited respect. They are condescending, minimizing and shaming of others. They will flat out tell you they don't respect you, sometimes adding that you don't deserve it. Sometimes just for shits and giggles. But they demand you treat them with slave-like deference. 

Dark tetrad parents set their own weird criteria for what respect, obedience, loyalty, love, etc you are supposed to show.  They ignore accepted definitions and invent their own. They expect you to guess what they want without telling you. This is because they don't really know and are making it up as they go along to keep you hopping. 

BUT Dark tetrad parents set completely different standards for themselves and their favored children. Lined up next to their other children, you wouldn't even know we shared the same parents. Ultra rigid and demanding expectations for me bore no resemblance their other kids. They got away with murder. Even my boyfriend's (now husband) dad commented on this and he'd never met them. He'd just heard about the demands they put on me and declared it "bullshit." 

Dark tetrad parents speak weirdly. They don't talk like normal people. They pontificate, with big, out of proportion gestures, like televangelists, as if everyone is  hanging on their every word. Their words are exaggerated and their facial expressions look like something out of melodrama. It's no surprise that my two parents were very taken with hellfire and brimstone preachers. It is almost impossible to carry on a conversation for long. 

They gather data to use against you. My mother and her husband believe they're some kind of CIA agent for God. They can "always spot a liar." Because they go looking for it and twist innocent things into deceit. They entrap and then do a mic drop. They are accomplished liars always looking to deflect attention away from this fact. 

Dark tetrad parents mirror then backstab. They copy your behavior and calculate your responses. They feign interest in you. They do this because they are emotionally bankrupt and have to fake empathy and other relationship emotions. They're also trying to scam you into trusting them. Then they turn on you and try to make you appear and feel foolish. That's a component of their sadism. 

Dark tetrad parents set you up. They ask loaded and baited questions calculated to back you in a corner. They never give you the benefit of the doubt and purposely misunderstand you. There's no response you can give. 

They don't stand up for you in situations. My 6th grade teacher hit me across the back and called me a fat pig. I routinely go beat up. My mom didn't know and my dad didn't care. It was the principal who called the other girl's mom who got mad at me for telling on her daughter. My mom was oblivious and also annoyed that the mother got upset with her too. No on did anything about the teacher. 

They  "cheat on you" with other adults and children. You know how most parents will take their kids part in a situation between two kids or at least want to hear their side? Not dark tetrads. They take the other person's side even if they know you're right. They cozy up and ingratiate themselves with other kids so the kids will like them. It's disgusting and terribly hurtful. They do this to make you jealous and to feel like you're not good enough. They hang you out to dry. 

They backstab, purposely exclude you and then make fun of you. When I was four a girl and I were divided over a TV tray at a picnic. My mom (who had no idea what was going on) put her arm around the girl, gave it to her and said "is she taking it from you? Shame on her. See it's yours. It has your name on it." (and pointed to two little screws on the side which I at four knew weren't letters). Then she told me to leave her alone and waltzed off. She never did even check to see if I got anything to eat. This is just one of many times I spent alone. 

Dark tetrad parents blindside you. They lure you into what you think is an innocent conversation or activity. You let your guard down because they seem so sincere even though they've tricked you before. Then they ambush you.  But you didn't know and come armed with flowers to what turned out to be a sword fight.  My mother threw pies in my and my children's faces at a work event she invited me to, then she and her husband ganged up and attacked me for not being able to take a joke. Even though no one else was laughing. 

Dark tetrad parents pride themselves on their "brutal honesty." They love to proclaim that they say what everyone else is afraid to. Or what everyone "needs" to hear. They fancy themselves courageous and bold. What they sound like are ignorant, idiotic, hypocritical, blabbermouths who say malicious, untrue and cringy stupid things no one is thinking or wants or needs to hear.  

Dark tetrad parents play victim when something bad happens to you. I went to a sleepover and broke out in hives. I was miserable and couldn't participate. The girl's mom felt very sorry for me and called my mom to come and get me. My mom said she "couldn't" (she was out with her boyfriend). She got mad at me the next morning accusing me of ruining her evening when I hadn't even asked the lady to call. 

Dark tetrad parents are parasitical. They feed off others. I have one memory of my parents and I doing anything for Christmas and no memory of any meals we had together. I don't recall having a bedroom till I was 8. We lived with and off other people. They expect to be cared for by others. 

These were not a few random occurrences, interspersed with good times. It was the good times that were random. And they were very confusing. I'd get hopeful that maybe I'd finally be included as a family member and loved and cared for. And I never was. I wish when they kicked me out at 16, I'd have closed the door and never looked back. 

Healing CPTSD by finally seeing parents' dark triad and dark tetrad personalities

Hello my friends. The first response I get when people hear my backstory of abuse from four narcissistic parents is, "what kind of parent does that??" or "What parents doesn't provide that for their child?" And those are excellent questions. How does a parent treat a child as I've been treated and call themselves a parent? But it took me a lifetime to realize what lay behind the intense pain I felt. 

Having just come to terms that it was abuse and not just their version of love, I'm still working to answer that. Narcissism, and other cluster B personality disorders seemed to fit the bill, sort of. What makes it more difficult is that I lived with not one or two but four self-centered, hurtful parents, or as I now call them authority figures (two bio and their two new partners). 

Each manifested a little differently, my father being more grandiose with some covert, his wife, covert, my mother grandiose, covert and malignant and her husband just a raging maniac. But narcissism didn't alone didn't cover the many levels of systematic abuse (physical, emotional, medical, financial, religious and sexual), neglect, endangerment, abandonment, shaming, invalidation, enmeshment, exploitation, manipulation, parentification, bullying, scapegoating, double standards for them and their "real" families, exclusion of yet dependence on me and gaslighting about it all. Which could in part been a result of abuse from all sides but still didn't quite fit.

I just recently learned two terms which do: dark triad and dark tetrad  personalities. Dark triad is narcissist (entitled and manipulative, Machiavellian (deceptive, exploitative, self-serving) and psychopathic (purposely harmful, aggressive). Dark tetrad adds sadism, or deriving pleasure from the suffering they cause. And when I look at my parents, especially my mother and father, through this lens, boy, do things become clear. My dad ticked most of the boxes for dark triad and my mother ticks all the boxes for dark tetrad. And then when they remarried, they chose new partners with similarly nasty personalities and they all fed off each other. 

I've been told that I can't "diagnose" these things. Well, I sure can tell you what I saw (all these behaviors manifested since my inception) I can say what it was like to live with (miserable), what they did (countless cruel things) and how they treated me (abominably) . How it made me feel (confused, ashamed, suicidal) and how I struggle now with CPTSD from all the suffering. So diagnosis or not, THAT is my story. and mine alone. I know from a life of experience what it's like to live with dark triad and dark tetrad parents. 

I'm just some college student latching on to psychology terms and twisting them to fit. Hell, I studied and have a degree in psychology and I never once considered how what they did fit to a T, these clinical patterns I was studying. I have a background in child abuse and neglect and I never saw myself in it even though the writing was clear on the wall. It took me 60 years to get to this realization. The lies, deceit, gaslighting and manipulation are very potent. But now that I do see, I will never be able to unsee. I'm a little late to the party but better late than never. 

What radical acceptance of CPTSD from dark tetrad parents means to me

 Hi friends. We're in the midst of a blizzard in Michigan and that reminds me how dark tetrad (narcissistic, psychopathic, exploitative, sadistic) parental abuse is like a blizzard of hurt and shame. Like the winter winds, it comes from all sides in their cult of pain. If they divorce and marry other narcissists or dark triads (which mine did), it is a vortex, a whiteout of abuse for their scapegoat. For more on my back story, you can read previous posts. Today I'm exploring more on how radical acceptance is the root of healing from the CPTSD this causes. 

I wrote recently that acceptance is not approval of. It's more honest recognition of. It is affirmation of my own version of events, not their deceitful ones. It also means finally hearing, embracing, comforting, supporting and nurturing the many damaged women in me. My lonely 4 y//o self, my terrified 6 y/o, sexually abused me at 8, parentified and overworked 12 y/o, abandoned 16 y/o, conned 21 y/o, scammed 36 y/o, manipulated 41 y/o to name a few. A group of ladies in need reside in me. And what they need and have always needed is recognition. 

I think the place we have to begin with accepting that what they gaslit us into believing was love and family was harm and danger, for us. We weren't loved, we were used. We were not disobedient, a burden, a nuisance. They were disobedient to God in not caring for us. What they said were our many duties and obligations were them exploiting and working us to death. So we all have to start over, to go back to the beginning and to rethink it all. 

A wise priest once said to me that anyone who doesn't have my best interests at heart doesn't love me. Well my (our ) parents and stepparents certainly had only their interests at heart and were perfectly happy to screw me over to get what they wanted (That's the Machiavellian component of their dark tetrad personalities). So let's begin our new radical acceptance there. 

They didn't love us. They made mercenary use of us.  We were expedient, convenient and easily misled by gaslighting. They made us believe we owed them for being allowed to be part of  their family. We didn't also weren't. But even if family is transactional (it isn't), we never got our part of the bargain, though we gave ours to overflowing. 

There was a constant double standard. We weren't family. We were staff, scapegoat, surrogate spouse, surrogate parents. They owned us (that's enmeshment). They broke up what was our family (which wasn't really ours either. It's always been all about them) I always say my parents divorced me not each other as they were never committed to it anyway. But they didn't delete us altogether. Oh no. That would deprive them of the benefits we brought them. It also would have actually been better for us. And the sadistic part of their dark tetrad hated anything that was good for us. They don't love you but by God no one else is going to either. 

Sounds pretty grim. And maybe a bit paranoid on my part. But that's dark tetrad for ya. It ain't pretty. It's selfish, greedy, conceited, condescending, hypocritical, disgusting. But it is what it is. And that's what radical acceptance is for me (us): acknowledging that the past happened, and it was as bad as we remember it. What I do recall. A lot, as in months and years are missing. What I've told you represents only a fraction. But I'm told by people I don't remember  meeting is that I looked miserable. So conclusion: it wasn't good what I've forgotten. I'm capable of remembering good things. So this repression is probably a safety valve of CPTSD. 

I also accept that nothing's going to change any of it. I (we) can't change the past. We can change the now and the future. To do that, we allow ourselves to accept (acknowledge, believe, confirm) that this is what I (we) have been dealing with all our lives. It's one of the healthiest things we've ever done. That and snipping ties with those that are left. Sadly, it's about all that's left to us of these past relationships. Honestly admitting they never were family relationships at all. They were scams.