Misunderstandings about sociopathic narcissist parents that their kids understand too well

Hello friends. Today I'm going to share some misunderstandings about sociopathic and malignant narcissist parents that their children understand too well. These wrong notions are perpetuated by religion, society and even psychology itself. And they have been used by narcissists to shield themselves from being held accountable for their actions. But ask any child of a narcissistic parent and you'll get a clearer picture. I'm talking about the idea that narcissists, and specifically narcissistic parents, lack a conscience, or empathy. That this makes them unable to know right from wrong. 

As the child of four narcissistic parents, I disagree that they lack a moral compass or conscience.  They just choose to ignore it. And so, like any other unused thing, it gets rusty. It's like the muscles you don't exercise not developing and so not functioning properly. I will accept that sociopathic and malignant narcissists in their arrogance, don't act according to their conscience. And that they get so used to ignoring it that they suffocate it. I believe also that being deceitful, arrogant and exploitative by nature, narcissists convince themselves that they are ubermensch, above ordinary rules of human interaction. 

But the idea that they don't know right from wrong? No. That I will never accept. Because I know, from experience, that they know full well, the difference between good and evil. I know because my selfish, conceited parents held me to very rigid double standards of moral behavior. My parents were self-righteous and felt fully justified about preaching ad nauseum about how the Bible said other people were supposed to act. While in the same breath, declaring their right to do these same things. 

I think what narcissists don't get is that yes, there's a god but He's not them. But even this is not down to some ability they lack to see themselves correctly. People aren't born with superiority complexes. They aren't born being manipulative or Machiavellian. They nurture these traits by repeatedly shutting down any contradictions, including their own inner voice warning them against their pride and prompting them to be humble. 

I will also accept that malignant sociopathic narcissist parents bend rules to suit themselves. They invert right and wrong so that wrong becomes right for them to do if they choose. And then, by extension,  wrong is right for their scapegoat child in that she must tolerate and live by their double standards. She must acknowledge their abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, manipulation, parentification, triangulation, bullying, invalidation, scapegoating of her as right and proper. So right is wrong for her and wrong is right for them. Confused? Welcome to my life. 

But again, this flip-flopping double standard they live by is not a by-product of any inability to know right from wrong. Their delusions of grandeur may blind them but it is a willful blindness. Else how would they be able to articulate so clearly rules for their children? Especially religious narcissists who have a holy book, on top of general mores of society, to guide them. They know what is expected behavior. They simply don't follow it. And actually, having said that, it's not that simple. 

Because malignant narcissist parents don't just balls-out disobey rules of morality. Well, yes some they do. Some they actually flaunt. Like my Bible-beating mother openly living in sin (as she would call it for anyone but herself, her boyfriend and her golden child). But a lot of common right and wrong issues they muddy and convolute. They tweak societal norms to give the appearance of complying while blatantly defying them. Like sending their little kids out to wander alone when no one was watching but talking a big show of being a concerned, caring parent in public. 

They also cut and paste with scripture injunctions taking them out of context and twisting them to make it look like the Bible supports their extra special rights. It doesn't. This is just creative writing on their part. They also start in immediately grooming their child to follow their very much edited version of reality, right and wrong. They present their faces to her as God and because the first God a child knows is her parents, she just accepts their wrong as right. 

For example, they browbeat her about how she owes honor to her parents. But they snip out all references to their duties and obligations their child. And then they further twist this command to include anyone they shove on her as parent, including their very abusive, unfit, unloving new partners who aren't jack shit to the child let alone being parents. They weed out scripture's very clear admonishment against divorce and just carelessly blow their kid's world to bits, telling her it's all cool with God. And they shut down and dismiss her concerns, calling her selfish for wondering how the divorce will affect her and too sensitive for being sad that they blew her world up. And they guilt her with gaslighting nonsense about how "lucky" she is because theirs is a "good divorce" and how some kids have it so much worse. (!) And then they get mad because the child is too young to understand and so she asks whether grandma and grandpa will still be her grandparents. They don't prioritize her but she sure as hell better prioritize them. And because the kid is so little she just, again, accepts their perverted version of truth. Then they leave the child to deal with all the divorce fallout alone. 

Narcissist parents also omit the fact that they are to honor their parents and don't. They disregard, dismiss and denigrate their loving, Godly parents right and left. They punish their parents for calling out their bad behavior towards the child. But the child is so conditioned to believe they are always right, she doesn't question this until she out of their cult, if ever. She just accepts their wrong as right. And they accept this as their due, as her deities. 

Does all this sound like the behavior of poor innocent lambs who don't know any better or malevolent wolves who know damn well what they are doing? Yeah, my money's on the wolves, too. And, does it also sound to you like these wolves who would stoop to such low treatment of their child wouldn't also stoop to weaponizing anything to excuse it? Absolutely they would. Which brings me to one of my concerns about psychology, society and religion labeling them as being without conscience rather than purposely choosing to ignore it. 

While they're flying high on the narcissistic supply they get from lying, twisting, deceiving, scapegoating and rewriting reality, and everyone just accepting, they're fine. BUT whenever someone questions their behavior, watch out. Because a wounded narcissist is more dangerous than a Wendigo. They will do ANYTHING, exploit ANYONE, punish EVERYONE to protect their carefully crafted fake reality. They will blame shift and kick anyone under the bus. Been there, been kicked. And they will definitely weaponize any theory that seems to exonerate them of culpability. 

Which the theory that they lack empathy and remorse would suit perfectly. It's not their fault they act so ruthlessly, vindictively and hurtfully. They can't help it. It's just how God made them. And shame on you for holding them accountable for their actions. Actually, while they think of it, how dare you because they're FORGIVEN by God anyway. Oh and their problem was always their child all along. So they are exempt from any repercussion no matter how you slice it.  

Of course real people can see past their smokescreen. We can see the hypocrisy (or well, now I can). We can see the loopholes they've knitted for themselves. We also know that even if they do have a disorder, it's not a carte blanche to indulge it. People with real disorders can't use this as an excuse to hurt people. They are still accountable for their actions regardless of any lack of remorse they may have. But that's not how they would see it. To them, a disorder would just be further reason to hurt people and insulation against consequences. 

Do you see how dangerous it would be if we just put a dark tetrad narcissist's actions down to some kind of birth defect? They would take that and run with it. I know because my narcissistic parents have done this all their lives. That's one reason I've never identified them as having NPD or anti-social disorder. I'll call them narcissists all day long but I won't give them a disorder diagnosis to brandish about. Think of all the harm they would do with that. It would be yet another tool in my mother's and stepmother's Munchhausen toolbox. And my dad would have just leveraged it to further shame and blame me. My mom's husband doesn't need another thing to beat me with. None of them do/did. 

They would also not cease finger-pointing at others for doing wrong either. In fact this would just make them even more self-righteous and hypocritical. Because THEY have valid reason to be evil while others just choose to. They would use having a psychological condition as a license to carry on with their horrible behavior. And with God's Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to boot. See they were right all along. They are entitled to special God-granted privileges. Because poor them, they can't help being this way and how insensitive of their daughter not to see that they are the injured parties here. And further, God expects their scapegoat child to take on herself any problems they caused. 

For people not affected, this is just a rhetorical exercise. For those of us who child victims of narcissist parents, it is a matter of life and death. Death of our souls, selves and entire beings. 

Sociopathic narcissist parents transplant our brains and make us do disturbing things

Hi friends. Dr. Les Carter recently described the most dangerous kind of narcissist and that description lines up with the dark tetrad personality. These people are sociopathic, narcissistic, exploitative and sadistic. They show no empathy, are entitled, viciously angry, vindictive and cruel. This describes to a T, the four people I grew up calling parents: my two biological parents and their new partners/spouses. Some of them were more passive-aggressive but each was dangerous to be around. 

Today I'm exploring deeper into weird things that sociopathic narcissist parents make us feel and do. Using gaslighting, invalidation, betrayal, manipulation, exploitation, scapegoating and intimidation, these dark tetrads created a terrifying, false reality for us that kept us in bondage. Youtube therapist Jerry Wise identified these disturbed and disturbing things we kids of sociopathic narcissist parents do and I'm giving my experiences with them. These aren't just  occasional behaviors. They are my everyday  life. 

You know how you feel good when things are going well? I don't. I feel anxious when things are going well because I learned to expect problems to come out of nowhere. Instability and chaos were my norms. I was groomed to be my narcissistic parents' scapegoat and savior. I was expected to fix every mess they made and they made a lot. I was trained to fawn but I was also taught to expect that I would get it wrong all the time. I was a letdown, a failure. 

They kept me in this perpetual double bind as an excuse to blatantly, arrogantly screw up while facing none of the consequences. Whatever THEY did was always Mary's fault and Mary believed they were right. Mommy and Daddy are always right and I'm always wrong. Their new people must always be right too. Even though I saw them behave in egregiously dysfunctional, unloving and toxic ways. Because what kind of parent would blame their faults on their child? What kind of parent would foist nasty, selfish, bullying people on their child, let alone allow them within 5 miles of them? Sociopathic narcissist parents, that's who. 

So I would, in confusion (because I never really understood any of what I'd supposedly done and what the hell was going on) would apologize and beg to be told what I could do to fix it. And then they had a list a mile long, now that I asked. BUT, here's another double bind. I would complete all the tasks given. I'd hop and smile and grovel. But then they'd move the hoops. And I'd fall over them and they'd shake their heads, such a screw up. And they could continue to wreak havoc because their savior kid had let them down. And still I kept hopping...

I know, seven levels of crazy there. And I ask myself now, if I am the scapegoat, I can't also be your savior, guys. The scapegoat takes the sins out of the community, on herself and presumably dies somewhere. I cannot also be present to be fixing all your shit. And no one with a brain would believe that a child is responsible for her parents. But that's the gaslighting of sociopathic narcissist parents' cruelty. We traumatized kids have to do it ALL. And we have to know what's expected without being told. And we must be on guard because we have multiple bosses expecting many kinds of things that change randomly. 

Ergo our constant sense of urgency and hypervigilance. Which creates strange trauma responses that don't fit real well with normal people. That is one way we know how really messed up our lives were in comparison to most everyone else. Including our narcissistic parents believe it or not. They don't act with all the insane trauma responses we do because they didn't have to growing up. Mine at least, had normal childhoods. And we know this because when I'd go into my freeze, fawn, fly or fix mode, they'd look disdainfully and mockingly at me. 

I have a permanent flinch-cringe response. I screw up my eyes waiting for punishment. I pretzel myself to stay small. I bite my mouth and clench my teeth to keep from doing or saying anything that might set them off. I always expected the worst because it always happened. No good deed went unpunished. My mother bragged about how she slapped my face but then ( to get a little pity) she said she had to stop because I hit her back. I believed that until my wise truth teller husband said, what I probably did was to put my hands up to protect myself and bumped her in the process of hitting me. 

I have scoured my brain to come up with a memory of what I did wrong. But all I can come up with is a bunch of vague gaslighting crap she SAID I did. I was "sassy." (no explanation of what that meant.) Both my mom's husband and my dad would attack me for no reason. They'd rage, with saliva spraying at me. But again, no reason given. And then my dad would say I was angry. They repeated that nonsense to me all my life and made me believe I had an "anger problem." When actually I was far calmer than I had any right to be given the mean, nasty things they all did to me. I should have been a vicious dog with all the kicking I got. 

What I had was intense confusion which led to frustration because I never knew what they wanted. And they never told me. Just said I should know. Because I'm clairvoyant, evidently. But they sure knew when I got it wrong. Or when they needed me to be the bad guy to shield them from consequences or guilt. And then I'd cry or stutter. I'd hit myself in secret but never in front of them. I didn't want them to worry about how fucked up I was. Or shall I say to feel guilty about how they had effed me up. I was befuddled because everything went one way for others and completely the opposite for me. 

And then they'd accuse me of showing off for attention. Seriously. They'd tell people I was just a show off. What I did looked weird because they made me weird. Because they needed me to act weird so they would have someone to point their fingers at and shake their heads over. Jerry Wise says that we traumatized kids were only allowed a voice if it served the family. My "voice" was to play the fool. When they'd laugh at me, I'd laugh at myself. When anyone of them humiliated me, I just stood there shame-facedly. My dad thought it was so funny when his sons kicked me to the curb. Me, who was their primary caregiver, live-in nanny and housekeeper. Me who slept with them at night so their lazy mother didn't have to. I wish I'd used my voice then and told them all where to get off and that I was moving out and taking my services with me. Oh and I'd be submitting my bills. 

We have a lot of kneejerk reactions, like laughing at other people's dumb jokes so we don't hurt their feelings. We smile and smooth and soothe. We placate at our own expense. We body block people from feeling the consequences of their behavior. Because our narcissistic parents hijacked our bodies, minds and hearts and press-ganged them into their service. They pirate our successes as their own. And what they can't steal, they trash. When I earned a BA, the first in either family, my dad sniffed and said "humpf, well, college isn't for everyone." They did not have a party for me but did have a lavish do for a friend's kid when he joined the army. I'm serious. 

They don't let us feel good about anything. My dad mocked my singing voice when I was singing in the bathroom. He told me I was "fishing for compliments." I'd never even said anything. Now I wonder why the hell he was even in the bathroom with me. Meanwhile he proudly played his violin. He'd take it with him and look around waiting to be asked to play. It makes me sad that we couldn't have one of those family duos you see people having. But there's only room for one in the conceited narcissist's band. 

When I was in high school, living with my mom, I started a singing group. He muscled in which was fine because he plays well. But even then, he never acknowledged my part in starting the group. I left soon after. He never came to my plays saying they were boring and actors were just showing off. He never once told me that anything I did pleased him. It hurts most because I have always believed him and let it hold me back from pursuing any arts. 

I act tongue-tied a lot because I'm confused a lot. I find it difficult to think clearly or remember. That's the gaslighting effect. Huge portions of my memory are blank, except for the pain. That's because I was indoctrinated in this cult of theirs where rules were very different than anywhere else I had to interact. So I was always living this double life. And the rules for me in the cult were different than for anyone else. I was the only child of my parents marriage and when they divorced, being narcissists, believed they could just start over, clean slate like I as their child never existed. I was now their tool with no thoughts or feelings of my  own. I was what they told me I was, a possession, a surrogate parent and spouse, a servant and scapegoat. A sex therapist. A vestal virgin, acolyte and entourage to golden children. 

But never just me. So I don't know who I am outside of someone's something or other. I very often apologize for being. At family events, I was nobody unless someone said I was. Grandparents loved me but they turned blind eyes to the chaos my parents put me in. Very immoral and often illegal, by any standards. My parents were never not neglectful, abusive, endangering of me. They abandoned me for several significant periods of time. They marginalized, exploited, manipulated, parentified, triangulated and invalidated me as a matter of course.  I think this is because I had the audacity to be a reminder that they were not perfect. That they couldn't make up family as they went along. You'd think they'd have adopted me out. But then they would have faced backlash and who would they have to care for their second families? Narcissists aren't giving people. They take. And if they weren't giving in their first marriages, they certainly weren't going to be in their second ones. Unfortunately, they met their matches for selfishness in their new spouses. So they kept me around to wait on them. 

We act uncomfortable at gatherings because we were always invisible except if the narcissist parents needed a little narc supply. My dad has exploded and screamed at me for no reason during holiday celebrations. Which he proclaims to love. Apparently, I ruin things for people. My mother tells private details about me to people. Their birthdays are holy days of obligation to me. I must attend and not come empty-handed. They give me worthless cast off junk or nothing at all. My dad gave me a race car set when I was 15. The only ones who wanted to play with it were my brothers, so he and his wife got free babysitting too. I think they spent all their money on their other kids, forgot to get me anything and then wrapped up one of the kids' gifts for me. I'm told I attended many family gatherings with my grandparents. I wasn't invisible to them but I may as well have been as I don't remember them. The only times I remember going with  my parents, they ignored me. I had to ask my aunt for food and then my mother cozied up to all the other kids. She always took other kids' part over mine. I just kind of hovered on the fringes. 

I don't sleep well ever. I trauma dream all night long. I'm always tired and in pain. People have scoffed at why I sleep late in the morning. It's because I can't get up. I'm utterly exhausted. As Jerry says, were are tethered to their expectations of us. For me, this includes dreams in which I'm having to do all kinds of work and care for countless children. I have no resources. I'm cold and tired and hungry. The environment is wet and dirty. Yet I kneejerk response to jump to comply to all these expectations in my head. It never ends. They tangled up my sense of self in themselves. In short, they stole me and replaced my self with a bottomless pit of fear, obligation to them and guilt. 

Cutting ties with them has been as invasive as a lobotomy. Which is actually a metaphor for their gaslighting indoctrination of me. It's as if they cut out large chunks of my brain and transplanted their selfish selves in me. I'm like Frankenstein's monster. I can't think for myself. I can only dance to what tune they play. I respond like a puppet doing and saying what the one pulling the strings makes me do and say. 

Because this is going core deep in me. Every good thing I believed about them has proved to be false and lies. That they were loving parents and I was part of a family, all illusion. So where do I go from here?  Attempting to undo this damaged thinking is very dangerous and could be deadly. Can I  reanimate myself? I don't know if a brain transplant has ever been un-transplanted successfully. Can I disinter the bits they implanted without destroying the healthy parts?  I don't know if I even can replant the parts that were stolen. Because I don't know where they are. I think they were just discarded as useless. I'm not even sure it would be safe. 

Healing CPTSD from sociopathic narcissist parent abuse by holding space

 Hello my friends. Whew, we've been through some rugged terrain together, on this blog, for the past year or so. I'm working to heal CPTSD from sociopathic narcissist dark tetrad parent abuse. And the deeper I go the worse it gets. So I'm appreciative of anyone who holds space for me, as I would hold space for you in your trauma. What does that mean?

Google AI says that "To hold space for someone means to provide non-judgmental support, creating a safe and present environment for them to experience their emotions, process their thoughts, and find their own solutions, rather than trying to fix, advise, or minimize their situation." For me, the most important parts of holding space are NON-JUDGEMENTAL and WITHOUT MINIMIZING. 

All too often, traumatized adult children (adults who live with memories of childhood trauma, or CPTSD) are subjected, by society, to the very things that their abusive parent perpetrators did to cause the problems. All too often they are shamed, ridiculed, invalidated, scolded, humiliated and mocked FOR BEING TRAUMATIZED. Let's just let THAT treachery marinate a bit.  Horrible experiences are downplayed and deceitfully manipulated, why I don't know. And the abused child is gaslit about it all. In the name of caring concern (we'll add that hypocrisy to the marinating stew). 

We poor shell-shocked kids of dark tetrad narcissist parents are conned into thinking that these invalidating flying monkeys are "well-meaning" and "just trying to help" and (worst of all) "Godly advisors."  If that's not a case of wolf dressed as lamb, I don't know what is. We absorb all their smug pontification, dismissing of our pain and twisted manipulation as validation that our abusers were right abuse us We believe that it's God's plan for us to be destroyed. Their gaslighting drips in our ears like poison. All their "Christian kindness" slowly kills us in a death by a thousand "well-meant" cuts. 

So don't listen to these poison drippers. If what they are saying feels invalidating, trust that it is. Especially if they say things like, "I don't mean to pooh-pooh, but" know they're pooh-poohing. Or "I'm going to be brutally honest" and "tell you things everyone's thinking but no one else will". Oh hell no, they're just brutal, like your dark tetrad parents. And they don't speak for "everyone" else. Avoid that idiotic, gaslighting generalization like the plague. They're just sadists getting off on your suffering. 

Have nothing to do with these people. Get out of their presence before they can do you more harm. Don't JADE (justify, answer, defend or explain). Just excuse yourself and get the actual out of Dodge. Don't ruminate on whether they meant well, or were just trying to help. I don't care if they're church friends who proclaim to be Christian. You can wear a white coat and stethoscope but it doesn't make you a doctor. All that matters is that they are hurting you and you need to be safe.  

BUT those who will sit with us in our pain, who will gently, genuinely and lovingly hold space for us, those are our helpers. Their care is authentic and so it feels genuine. They're not getting some cheap thrill or self-righteous narcissistic supply at our expense. They are patiently, humbly, lovingly and supportively holding space so we can find our Tao. They have no grandiose delusion about being able to "fix us." They don't feel superior and holier-than-thou compared to our vulnerable inferiority. 

In fact, they recognize that we are neither frail nor weak nor inferior at all but may actually be warriors. That our suffering and pain has refined us and made us bigger, better people. Now, don't hear what I'm not saying. Our suffering never was and never will be good. It was never God's plan for deviant, degenerate narcissist parents to harm us. BUT because we traumatized kids were able to turn it around for good. We became wounded healers. And those who hold space for us are in turn helping to heal our wounds. 

If you need someone to hold space for you, let me be that person. If you know someone struggling, please, hold space, without judgement for them. Thank you on behalf of all traumatized kids. 

Hypocritical contradictory, gaslighting double standards sociopathic narcissist parents put on kids

Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal CPTSD from sociopathic, dark tetrad narcissist parent abuse, I'll share weird hypocritical, contradictory, gaslighting double standards narcissistic parents put on their kids. They do this with everyone but the child is the most vulnerable to it because she grows in it from infancy. These actions are not only inappropriate, but, as you will see, they are passive-aggressive, blame-shifting, isolating, grooming, enmeshing, soul-crushing and spirit-stealing. I experienced narcissistic abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, manipulation, triangulation, invalidation, exploitation, enmeshment and gaslighting about it all, from four "parents": two biological and their two partners, each of whom was a package of sociopathic, covert, overt, malignant and vulnerable narcissism. 

The one thing they agreed on was that I was their scapegoat. the source of all their problems, and could be treated in the most contemptible ways imaginable. AND, as self-proclaimed Christians, all this was God's will for me. They gaslit me that whatever shit they did was approved by God. I realized as an adult that this was not because they followed Him but because they fancied that they WERE gods. And their combined cruelty left very broken children, teens and younger adults trapped in their victim's self. 

1) Sociopathic narcissist parents parentify their children. Instead of the child using a parent's resources or trying their patience as kids are supposed to, the narcissist parents are the child's energy vampires. They feed off their children's bodies, minds and spirits. They try her patience before she's even old enough to know what that is. They drain her resources as their own. If the child has the misfortune to also be an empath, they play to her tender heart, making her pity and shield them with her own self. The child takes all the bad results of their misdeeds on herself. I've always done what I call the 7 X's with them: excuse, exonerate, exempt, expunge, explain away their horrible actions and exclude them from consequences at my own expense. 

2) Sociopathic narcissist parents spin their own wrongdoing as being framed. They blame-shift. They cloak their genuine conscience pricking as self-pitying unmerited "guilt." Then they dump this on the child to make HER feel their own deserved guilt. My dad would moan and pout to me beginning at age 5, about how everyone was against him and how he felt so guilty. This would come out any time anyone questioned his outrageously neglectful behavior toward me. Or, I see now, if he was feeling wrong for his wrong behavior. Yet he never admitted to one single thing he actually did, nor did he ever confess. He just weaponized it to elicit sympathy from his daughter whom he knew was already over-sympathetic and forgiving of things she'd never gotten an apology for. But if I made any mistake, he rained down wrath like the very devil himself. He would fiddle with truth to make me feel that not only had I done the wrong thing he did but that it was my fault he felt guilty. He'd guilt-shift. My dad and mom would set me up to fall and then point scolding fingers, making sure to expose me to as much shame and ridicule as possible. They somehow managed to make it look like they were righteously angry and I was sinfully angry. But I ask myself now, what  kind of parent wants her child to fail? What kind of parent lies about her child to humiliate her and make it look like she's failing and then laughs? What kind of parent wants people to see his child as a failure and shame her? A sociopathic narcissist parent who is using their child to cover their own failings, that's who. 

3) Sociopathic narcissist parents exploit their child's vulnerability for self-serving ends or just for shits and giggles. My dad knew that I was empathetic and he took advantage of it. He knew I'd cry and beg to be told how I could help make him feel better. Funny thing was, though I threw my energy into fixing, he never got better, only  more entitled. When he remarried (a very whiny, selfish lazy narcissist) he put me in  her employ too. He wanted the perks of being married without the work. And he hated her the moment the novelty wore off and he saw she was always going to take and never give. And he had never given and wasn't about to now, so of course, that job would fall to me. My mother and her husband exploited my vulnerability because it made them laugh to see me squirm. It made them feel cool and special that they had so much power over me. 

4) Sociopathic malignant narcissist parents mask their ragingly arrogant sense of superiority with a feigned inferiority complex. My mother crafted her role as victim-martyr-princess to perfection. She would deepen her voice, sigh ostentatiously, with weary hand to forehead, over all the ways people have let her down. She manages to be aggrieved, put upon, sanctimonious and supercilious but still nobly magnanimous in forgiving our of weaknesses. But for all her "forgiveness" she makes sure to highlight the wrong to suck maximum shame from it. She makes a point of letting everyone know what failures people around her are. She draws attention to "failings" that no one else sees. She thinks this is because she is a truth teller (that's another of her roles). What she is, is a conniving, backstabbing liar. I used to fall for her La Regina act. Now I just feel like slow clapping when she gives one of her performances. 

5) Sociopathic narcissist parents think they're pulling a fast one but are patently obvious in their sham. You just have to watch for the mask slipping because it always does. If you ignore the theatrics and watch their faces, you'll see that infamous narcissistic smirk. And the RBF behind the sneer-smile. You'll hear how they permit themselves to be just a teensy bit irritated, well who wouldn't be, with all they have to endure. But and this is important, it is a smug, self-satisfied mock irritation geared to extract pity while  never actually saying how the other person let them down. That's another way you know she's a fraud. She hints at supposed sins of others. She dramatizes and uses vague, imprecise language to give the impression rather than the expression of what they did. And she seizes on obvious things, such as a person's lack of education or her daughter's puberty baby fat and twists them into shaming offenses which she then openly mocks. She got such a kick out of it when her husband would call me "blisters" in reference to my breast size at 11. 

6) Sociopathic narcissists know their audience but sometimes forget to costume correctly. This one gives me great delight to watch, NGL, when my mother forgets which scene she's playing and dons the wrong mask. She has many roles all of them archetypal: the ingenue, buffoon, pretty baby, vamp, church lady, evangelist, victim-martyr, doting mother, mean girl, estranged parent, good-time girl, whew, it's exhausting. And they are all faker than $3 bills. I don't honestly know the real Nancy and I don't think anyone does including Nancy. I didn't see it then, but now, I think it's funny when she goofs up. Like when she misread the crowd at her work picnic and threw a pie in my face and no one laughed except her whack job husband. Everyone just looked disdainfully at her. She forgot that she had styled herself the good Christian at work. Oopsie. 

7) Sociopathic narcissist parents give loaded back-handed compliments. So first thing to know is that narcissists never give genuine compliments. There is always a price tag or an expectation attached. They only give to receive narcissistic supply. Either by complimenting you so you'll compliment them. That's the least insidious. They also backhandedly dress insults as compliments. "Nice dress but it would look better on (golden child) sister." Or complaint compliments: "Must be nice to be able to afford a new car." (when they cheated you out of your college fund to buy themselves new cars and left you to buy a junker and you are only just being able to afford a new one at 55.) They also compliment to get you to give them things. "Nice house you got. When can we move in?" 

8) Sociopathic narcissist parents twist everything. Right is wrong for you. Wrong is right for them to do to you. They disguise their wants as needs. And they are one big greedy vacuum of want. And your needs (like a home, food or a bed) they gaslight, are just selfish whims. It's just "helping out of family" when you cater to and do for them what they should be doing themselves. But you're insanely selfish if you need help from them. In fact, "family" is manipulated too. They are your family with all the rights, expectations, privileges, and special exceptions they demand but you aren't their family when it comes to your most basic needs. This may sound exaggerated but  in fact, it's downplayed. It's really a lot worse than I've described. 

9) Sociopathic narcissist parents marry equally if not worse sociopathic narcissists and harness the child to them. I've written previously that I have constant pervasive nightmares (symptomatic of CPTSD) in which I'm caring for dozens of children in chaotic, dangerous places and expected to cook, clean, do laundry for everyone. These aren't just dreams, they're memories. In one of last night's dreams, my stepmother's child began crying as she was busy planning her birthday party. She just looked irritably at me and "someone's got to carry him and I have a bad back." I, on kneejerk, began to lift her child but couldn't because my own back was screaming in pain (it really was, chronic pain is another CPTSD symptom). So I led the child off to our shared room where I slept with all the babies and kids. She didn't even have to say anything. I was on it with all the guilt and shame I always felt for not anticipating quicker. The parentification in my life was horrendous and a big reason why I don't sleep well now. Constant, shifting demands and expectations that were not explained just expected of me. 

(side note) I know I'm starting to heal because in last night's dream, I "woke up" as it were and realized that I am 61 years old with adult children and grandkids of my own. And I'm still dreaming I'm my parents' live in servant-nanny. I told her I was calling my husband for a ride and leaving and if she wanted something done she could get up off her fat ass and do it herself. Then I told my dad just how he'd failed me, marrying this leech and leaving me to do all their work. The funny part is that in the dream she had hired the Mouseketeers to perform for her birthday and she and my dad expected me to pay them. She was mad that I wouldn't. I began to feel chronic guilt and then started laughing. I said to the band "you can play if you want but they won't be paying you." The sadly funny part was the troop of mouse-costumed players dejected trooping out, wah-wah-wah. Tell me this isn't CPTSD. You cannot make this up. 

10) Sociopathic narcissist parents weaponize everything against their scapegoat child to make her dance attendance on them. Both my mom's husband and my dad's wife were terrifying to live with. They were even worse to sleep around. She in a bitchy, passive-aggressive way and him in full-on raging werewolf attack mode. And both were worst in the morning. They both stayed up watching TV and disturbing my rest. My dad only saw it when he was home and it disturbed him. Yet he gave no effs about how hard it was for me, ESPECIALLY as I was always made to sleep on a youth bed in the corner of the baby's room to care for them at night while she had a suite of a room with waterbed. Anyhoo. If I accidentally woke them like when I was trying to calm their crying child, oh was there hell to pay. Stepdaddy dearest has screamed violent threats at me and attacked me. 

Stepmom Ginny was sullen and haughty. She made sure everyone knew she needed her "space" in the morning. Because she stayed up too damn late. And she had the choicest room far from her children. If anyone should have been cranky in the AM it would be me. I was literally locked in with him. But no one even asked how the baby or I slept. And I recall the sick stomach from walking on eggshells around her majesty's waspish rage. I had to fawn in this sickening way, silently bringing her coffee and tippy-toeing out of the room so as not to upset her. Fuck that. I should turned "Black Dog" on blast and put Ex-Lax in her coffee. What pisses me off most was the way my dad shackled me in her service and called it "helping mummy." Jerry Wise calls this "tethering" of a child and that is spot on  how it felt. Like I had a shock ankle bracelet that went off every time she wanted her slave-scapegoat. 

11) Sociopathic narcissist parents refuse you simple things and then pirate your entire self. You are nothing without them, they gaslight you. And the bizarre part is that this is true, but not the way they mean it. As children, we obviously rely on our parents. We need them for survival. But our sociopathic narcissist parents have no intention of loving or caring for us. They manipulate and exploit that need to leave us vulnerable and helpless. And then they  give it an extra twist to make us think that what we need is their approval, their permission to be. And to earn that we are obligated to endless amounts of back-breaking, soul-destroying service. But the truth is, and this is important to note if you are still in your narcissistic parents home: they will never give you their love, care, approval or permission to be. You will hop through their every hoop and they will move the hoops. The only way out is to stop hopping. But that can be really dangerous and I understand why you would continue.  Because...

12) Normal parents protect their children. Sociopathic narcissist parents terrorize theirs. THEY are the monster under the bed, the nightmare in the closet. They hold them hostage for ransoms no one can pay. They terrify children with their unspeakable betrayal, abandonment, cruelty and endangerment. And then gaslight her that she's "too sensitive" "showing off" or exaggerating. They crucify their children to expiate their own horrible sins and then they keep on sinning, gleefully, as if it never happened. 

13) Sociopathic narcissist parents engage in egregiously immoral behavior while proclaiming themselves morally superior and in a position to instruct others. They preach a lot of shoulds and should nots but then do those very things and no one may call them out. There really is no low that is too low for them to stoop yet they preach from a moral high ground. While finger-pointing and accusing people of the very things they are blatantly doing. When they are younger they may fool some gullible people with their double standard but as they age it becomes more apparent. Or so I believe. I fell for my parents' shite because they were all I knew of parents. And they weaponized this. 

14) Normal parents support and foster a child. Sociopathic narcissist parents betray a child at every step. They exploit her trust in them. They take advantage of her natural naivete. They pervert her innocence by planting nasty, ugly images and ideas in her head and baffling the hell out of her. They shit on and ruin everything good in the child's life. 

15) Sociopathic narcissist parents are weirdly too pure to be believed and also outlandishly risqué. My mother fancies herself a "gawdly" woman yet is seductive especially with younger men and boys who she vamps, playing their hormones for narcissistic supply. And with older men, she plays the baby doll, looking for a sugar daddy. But she's also the prim and proper church lady. Dana Carvey could have patterned this SNL caricature on my mom. She feigns innocent ignorance when asking the doctor for sex advice. At 79 years old. Why, you're asking, am I in with her at the doctor for sex advice. Because she sprung it on me and then irritably scolded me for "not wanting to hear this." Which I have been hearing all my life but no, I didn't want to. But I was afraid I'd look uncaring if I left the room. That's how they sucker you in with manufactured creepy, repulsive fake obligation and guilt. I could go on for weeks about all her gross sexual hypocrisy. But none of us has the stomach for it. 

16) Sociopathic narcissist parents flip roles to leverage as much discomfort in their kids as possible. They blame others for their own risky foolish choices. My mother is the shallow thrill seeker, giggling maniacally and rushing my kids out to go sledding when everyone is saying hold up and wait till we're all done eating. She's plays the cool grama who does fun stuff when fuddy duddy parents won't. (Mind, she has never sledded once before or after that). Then she gets them all hurt because she's too stupid to know to use the safer hill. Or maybe not? She does love herself a good factitious disorder and has no  problem endangering my children. Then when she gets an owie, she's the frail and needy victim and I overlook the kids to help in her manufactured crisis. And then I'm at fault for "letting her" take the kids sledding. I wish I'd seen that sooner and I'm sorry that I didn't tend to my kids and let her make it all about her. Then she feigns helplessness and must be helped to walk by three people at her brother's funeral while at the service she was shouting and carrying on laughing and then rushes up the buffet afterward, miraculously cured. It's so exhausting I can't keep up. 

17) Sociopathic narcissist parents lie like their native tongue but are quick to ferret out "lying" in others. They call out people they want to target as liars. They make a too big deal of essentially innocent things, pointing fingers and ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh-ing like chimps to call attention to it. They smirk and sneer gleefully that they "caught" someone in an untruth. Truth is, they set them up and twisted what the person said into something it wasn't. And narcissists HATE truth tellers, people who don't fall for their nonsense and see them for what they are. Oh will they launch smear campaigns then. My mother loves to find fault but don't you dare speak truth about her. They will use every tactic to undermine them so that you as their child, don't see how accurate the truth teller is. 

18) Sociopathic narcissists are always pratting about maturity but are the most immature people you could meet. My mother loves to call out immaturity, or what she deems immaturity in others. She really fancies this as her God-given task, to expose sinners. Funny the people she's calling out are really immature in that they are children. And ironic as she's has lived a more sinful life that anyone she's called out. I know. I was there. She'll lie about it now but be sure that it happened. 

19) Sociopathic narcissists are oddly disdainful but also angered by others' disdain. It took me a long time (six decades) and a truth teller husband pointing out just how disdainful, haughty, scornful, self-righteous and holier than thou my parents are. I'm not sure how I missed it but I do know that gaslighting of children is powerful. I remember her sneering at people, never showing compassion. Always looking for an angle to profit on their misfortune. And then she would sneer at so and so who "thinks she's above everyone." It was like a playground bully except that she is an adult and no kid I've ever known, and I've known thousands, as a child myself and a teacher, acts that bad. I never understood what she was getting at. The people she targeted where usually just normal people bumping along as best they could.

20) Sociopathic narcissist parents triangulate and pit people against each other for fun. Like gladiators.  My mother made all kinds of accusations against both sets of grandparents. Nasty icky shit. She did this to show me that they I couldn't trust them either. She tried to cut me off from all support and make me feel vulnerable and dependent on her. She said my paternal grandfather hit on her. She so incensed her boyfriend that he attacked my grandparents at their own home. My grandma would have called the police but my granddad said not to. I could cane her boyfriend for that alone. 

21) Sociopathic narcissist parents are both unappreciative and overly demanding. They don't ask for things. They create facades of FOG, fear and obligation and guilt. They set up fake narratives in which the child supposedly owes them so much. But they give the child nothing of what they actually owe her. The child pours herself into caring for them but it's never good enough. They give the child cruel stupid joke gifts and brag how they got the golden child a computer. And expect lavish presents in return. They then exchange the gifts and tell you that they were broken or insufficient.  Or they get you nothing, and yet tell you not to come empty-handed to their golden kids' birthdays or Christmas. And they make it clear if your gift wasn't expensive enough. My dad humiliated me at his son's birthday because I, a college student, brought a homemade gift. He actually scolded me. And then didn't even wish me happy birthday on mine. 

22) Sociopathic narcissist parents play one endless game of bait and switch and switch again. They move targets to confuse a child. They say and do things and the lie and say they never did. They do hurtful things and gaslight the child that it was a good thing. They twist words and use them against the child. They baffle, frustrate and exhaust the child who never knows what's coming. They play on the child's weaknesses. They zap her strength in cunning ways. The only consistency is inconsistency. And the only predictable is chaos. It's all a big ego trip. The only thing the child knows is trauma response. 

23) Sociopathic narcissist parents who claim to be Christians, mock God. They will say that what they do is fine because "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven." Only they're not Christians and they're not sorry so can't be forgiven and that's false doctrine and Jesus never promised carte blanche forgiveness only to his followers. And all this mercy they claim for themselves they withhold from others, especially their children. They are more harsh than any god in history. They make up lies about people to smear them and to show their own "holiness" in contrast. But they are not holy, they are unholy demons. Real Christians know Jesus's voice and follow it. They try to keep his commands and don't make up bullshit excuses when they don't.  They don't weaponize and exploit forgiveness to shelter their sin. They don't hold people to burdens they won't carry. If that isn't hypocrisy I don't know what is.  Jesus had a term for people like this: white-washed sepulchers full of dead men's bones. And let us never forget. God will not be mocked. Their day of reckoning is coming. 

Healing CPTSD from sociopathic narcissist parent abuse requires one essential

 Hello my friends. A few weeks ago I promised that I would share an essential tool needed for healing CPTSD from sociopathic narcissist parent abuse. Today I'm keeping that promise. This one thing is, I believe, a gift from God. But a gift that it may take years or decades to open or understand. It may even take that long to receive the gift. But once opened and seen, so much falls into place, bringing with it a peace that passes all understanding. 

That thing is a whistle-blower, in the form of a person (or persons, more is better, lol). These are the truth tellers who articulate the abuse and neglect that sociopathic narcissists (dark tetrad) parents have been subjecting you to all along but which you didn't see. In contrast to the flying monkeys who enable the abuse, they speak out against it. They label your parents behavior correctly, as cruelty, negligence, endangerment, scapegoating, abandonment, manipulation, triangulation (pitting people against you), backstabbing, exclusion, favoritism of other siblings, rejection, invalidation, humiliation, exploitation. 

They tell the real version of your story, using the right words not the spun, hypocritical, double standard, fake version your sociopathic narcissist parents told. They put things in perspective for you. They shine true light on the gaslighting. They call out the your parents nastiness as just that. Your truth tellers use actual terms instead of the minimizing, reductionist or lying bullshitty ones your sociopathic narcissist parents used. The whistle blower enlightens you. They tell it like it is. And thank God for them. 

So narcissist parents' euphemistic "discipline" and "God's will for you" is said correctly as "abuse" and "beating" and "demonic evil." Your truth teller explains that you having to do all the housework with hours of heavy and hard labor is not the nice-sounding "chores" but slavery. It's not "helping around the house" or "what is means to be part of the family." The truth teller says, no, this is doing everyone's work for them because no one else works that hard or works at all. They point out how your stepparents and siblings sit on their asses as you do the dishes, fold the clothes and iron. They identify the illegality of you being locked in a room with the baby. 

Truth tellers explain that it's not your "duty" to wait hand and foot on you parents, their new families or anyone as if you were a minion. And it's not "family" because 1) not everyone is doing it and 2) they don't treat you like family. They treat you like unpaid staff, the live-in nanny, their housekeeper, butler, footman, chief cook and bottle washer, laundress and scullery maid. They make you earn everything including love, which you never get. They keep charging you exorbitant fees with usurious interest which you keep paying and then they move the target and you never get the things. Things that you need for survival. . 

You never realized until he explained it. You lived in a cloud of FOG, fear, obligation and guilt. Your poor brain was so damaged by their conflicting, chaotic, shifting, debilitating demands that you could not think, feel, see or hear clearly. Your sleep was always and is still disturbed by it all. You are shell-shocked with a complex PTSD that never gets any better. It gets worse. 

And then you hear or read something that cuts through the fog. Your truth teller says something that flips a switch and illuminates it all. It takes your breath away, in its simplicity, clarity and shocking revelation. You think, AHA! It makes perfect sense. Why did I not see that all along! Of course that's what they were doing. She's right! But you couldn't have heard them because the dark tetrad sociopathic narcissist parents were screaming the truth teller down. They instituted smear campaigns against him before he even said anything to you. 

BECAUSE THEY RECOGNIZED HIM AS YOUR SALVATION AND THEY HATED HIM FOR IT!! They knew she spoke the gospel words of truth. They knew God was speaking to you through him. And they knew that God's message was that they were not doers of good but of wickedness. They were leading you astray, putting a millstone around your neck and pushing you over the edge. They were leading you to frustration and despair with their sick, deceitful, selfish, disgusting arrogant, entitled self-righteous, unholy, hypocritical demands. 

They do not speak the language of God but of the father of lies. And they are afraid you will see that and then their reign of terror over you will be over. God will use the truth tellers to break your shackles that keep them enmeshed in you and you in bondage to them. This, for abused children of sociopathic narcissists, is what scripture means when it promises that those in darkness will see a great light and that a day of liberty from captivity is coming. 

I have several truth tellers in my family, my husband being the one who sees it most clearly. He's been seeing for a long time and helping me to understand. He's showed up and held space for me. He patiently kept speaking the truth against their lies, till, when I was almost 60, I began to be able to hear it. I've also received immeasurably helpful truth from Youtube podcasters (in no particular order). 

Dr. Ramani

Patrick Teahan

Dr. Les Carter

Jerry Wise

Danish Bashir 

I thank God for their assistance and guidance in steering me to healing CPTSD from sociopathic narcissist parent abuse. I've got a long ways to go but it's always easier when you can see the path and recognize the pitfalls as pitfalls. When you can listen to the right people, the healers, for directions instead of the dangerous, deceitful, gaslighting liars, who would lead you over the edge and into the abyss and laugh as you fall. 

Sociopathic narcissist parents gaslight and undermine their kids to destabilize them

 Hello my friends. Today I'm looking at ways sociopathic narcissist (dark tetrad) parents systematically destabilize and destroy their children. Yes, it's that dire. They don't just mess them around a bit. Sociopathic parents set about to undermine and sabotage every good thing for their kids: innocence, childhood, security, safety, needs, wants, goals, hopes, dreams, stability, trust, self-care, health and wellbeing, faith, family, friends, peace of mind, confidence, everything. The sociopathic narcissist parent damages the child brain with gaslighting, deception and deceit. 

The sociopathic narcissist parent puts the child in constant chaos and stress, causing adrenaline and cortisol bursts that erode the child's resistance. The sociopathic narcissist parent dismantles the child's reality into something dark and dangerous. The sociopathic narcissist parent renders the child unable to even think clearly, to understand danger signals or know what she needs. And because children are young and vulnerable, they are clay in the hands of the sociopathic narcissist parent. It's as if the universe handed the sociopathic narcissist parent a set of torture instruments and said "have at this kid." 

And when I say that the sociopathic narcissist parent systematically trashes the child, it's no conspiracy theory. The dark tetrad sociopathic narcissist campaigns against the child. She weaponizes the child's innate trust. She strategizes and plans her attacks with miliary precision. She's playing a long game of revenge against the child for daring to be. She is jealous of the child's light and joy and transparency, contrasted to her own very dark, angry, devious nature. It's no exaggeration to say that the sociopathic narcissist parent is bent on damaging, dismantling, destabilizing and disarming the child's resources. Because the child represents all the parent can never be: honest, genuine, creative, decent, generous and kind. 

The child creates beauty and harmony and the sociopathic narcissist parent destroys it, in overt and covert ways. What she can't steal, the sociopathic narcissist parent ruins, like a petulant child whose drawing didn't turn out so she scribbles on someone else's. The sociopathic narcissist turns happy events into awkward miserable nightmares. She does everything in her power to make sure all eyes are on her. If that means wearing a nightgown to her great grand-daughter's baptism or going dancing and drinking at a bar while pregnant. Or faking a fall to grab attention at a wedding or screeching with laughter at a funeral. Or waving her arms and yelling in church. Or throwing a pie in her adult daughter face at her work picnic. 

Other things she does clandestinely, like setting up and triangulating her daughter and son-in-law to buy her junk car for $990 and then lying and saying each told her separately that she could have their nice car for $100. Or things come up missing like her grandson's cool new shoes which suddenly her golden child is in possession of. The sociopathic narcissist steals and cashes in her daughter's college savings bonds. Her daughter at 9, has a Canadian money collection that mysteriously disappears and mother blames the daughter's friend who never had access to it.. And mom, who was broke and unemployed suddenly now has money to lavish on herself and her live-in boyfriend. I could go on and on and on...

And what does this do to the child/teen/adult of the sociopathic narcissist parent? All kinds of things, none of them good. A lot I'm still unpacking but five that leap to the mind are indoctrination, brainwashing (gaslighting), grooming, undermining and destabilization. The sociopathic narcissist parent lies, distorts and rewrites stories which she implants in the child's mind like truth. And these fake versions become her daughter's truth. Everything nice or normal or positive is busted up and replaced with icky, dirty, nasty, gross, humiliating, disgusting crap. And the sociopathic narcissist parent then rubs this in her child's face. It's no accident. She wants her daughter to know that she is being humiliated.

My cousin whom I thought I just met in adulthood says we used to hang out at family picnics that my grandparents took me to. I have no memory of him or the picnics. Not one. And he says there were many. It's like the memories were erased. I know he is telling the truth because he is a loving person and these memories are happy for him. And they would have been for me too. He did say that I always looked so miserable that he and his brother thought I was a snob who didn't want to associate with them. That would not have been the case. If anything, I was a people pleaser and would have gone out of my way to be nice. 

I think what happened is that my sociopathic narcissistic mother and father and their new spouses had me so shell-shocked that I was frozen in fear. I was like that haunted WWI solder who can never go anywhere or do anything without his traumatized memories ruining it. They cloud and obliterate everything else. Memories of their hateful, hurtful shaming, mocking, attacking voices never go away. And I think there was no room in my memory for any good thing. Because as I recollect, the only really nice memories are with grandparents WITHOUT parents. I can't call up any really happy memories for most of childhood with parents. There are just some that are less bad. 

That's the destabilization. Everything is uncertain and chaotic. Everything good can be and often is taken away at a moment's notice for no reason and then the child is gaslit that she caused it to be taken by some awful thing she did that she can't remember. Alarmingly bad things happen randomly, without warning.  People are enraged at you, hurling horrible insults and terrifying threats and you have no idea why. Parents up and abandon you for shits and giggles. They leave you alone to fend when you're not even in school yet. They leave you to the mercy of scary people in scary places. And all this lives in your brain. 

I think the best I can do is to make new memories with my now people. My real family. Those that love me and want what's best for me. So my cousin, husband, kids and I have our own picnics. The trauma is still there. The Big Berthas still go off in my head and scare the shit out of me, from time to time. The Stukas still attack. But my now loved ones are patient and they sit with me and hold space till I can get to a better place. 

Shaming and Gaslighting tactics dark tetrad narcissists use on scapegoat kids

Hello my friends. I've been writing a lot about my life under the regimen of four dark tetrad sociopathic narcissistic parents. Are you wondering if maybe someone you live with is a narcissist? Well, here's a list of things they do to help you determine if you are. I got the general list from a podcast by Dr. Les Carter and I've added my own indicators and personal experiences with them. 

They question and make you question the "legitimacy of being you." Do you actually deserve to call yourself a person, an individual? They don't think you do and they make no bones about it. You exist for them. You are their shadow, their right hand man, a prop, part of their entourage. 

They future fake, making all kinds of unspecified promises they never keep. Then if you inquire about a promise they made they will sneer their smug narcissistic smirk and ask what you're talking about. They declare they never said that. Then they get this pouty, wounded, huffy and haughty (yes they manage all that in one)  expression and scold you for being so selfish ( to expect they'd actually keep their word).

They baffle you with gaslighting crap about how they couldn't possibly do what you're "demanding" and  how awful you are to even think it. Don't you realize they are "prostrate with exhaustion" (from all the work they don't do and put on you). They are sick and in pain. (they're not. It's factitious and weaponized for pity and to get out of responsibility but you feel guilty nonetheless because you are a caring person. These aren't big things. And they are things that the narcissist promised to you. Stuff like doing the dishes, cooking supper or take you to the park.  Stuff you do all the time for them, with no thanks or appreciation. But they make you feel that you just expected them to find a cure for cancer while holding the world in orbit. 

They are constantly tardy or absent but have a good excuse. Or an excuse that, the first few times, sounded plausible but starts to ring hollow on the 33rd time. Stuff like "I'm sick." (pity, pity) They fail to bring things they promised to bring, lie and say they never promised and are offended that you as "family" would expect them to. They leave early just at cleanup time, taking plates of leftovers for their golden child who was too lazy to attend but still wants dinner. 

They expect when they come over that you will throw the doors wide, roll out the red carpet and wait on them like palace flunkies. My mother has actually stood in the street yelling at the top of her lungs 'I'M HERE!! WHERE IS THE WELCOMING COMMITTEE?" (she wasn't joking. scared the shit out of my neighbor who thought she was a lunatic.) And THEN when you go to their house, LOL, they expect the same thing. My  mother always gets a tummyache when it's time to do dishes at my house, after stuffing her face on enormous spread I made myself.  She says things like "well, I'm the guest." Or "I'd offer to help but I know you wouldn't let me.( try me). And when I'm at her house, I clean her entire kitchen, mopping the floor, scrubbing down the stove (which is filthy), dusting and arranging cupboards. While she and her bunch sit and watch TV. 

They snap up offers of free things and then bail when they get all they came for. I used to do Christmas cookie baking, providing all the ingredients at no small expense to myself, often when I couldn't afford it. She comes, sits around, bends my ear with all her woes, uses me as a sex therapist (yes, gross) and takes home boxes of goodies. One year, I thought I'd make it a party with a few friends. I invited her and she gladly accepted and invited golden child along. . Day of, only one friend shows up (the other called with regrets she had to work) Radio silence from mother till I call her and she irritably says she "doesn't feel well." I was left with cupboards full of baking supplies I never got around to using. I never invited her again. 

They exclude you from things you would normally be included in, when they feel like it.  AND  let you know you weren't included. They make a point of bragging about it. So they don't just want you to know they did it, you need to know it was done without you. On purpose. So that you'll think not just they but other people were excluding you. The other people were probably lied to as well and told you didn't want to come. (triangulate) If you say you'd have liked to go, they smirk and lie and say they had no idea you'd have enjoyed it or that you'd want to be included.  

One year, I had to take my mom to the doctor on her birthday. I had to take time off work which cost me dearly. She was asked what she was doing for her birthday and she said "my family (her husband and other daughter) is taking me out to dinner." Knowing full well I had no idea about this and certainly wasn't invited. Let alone inviting my husband or her grandchildren who live right near and who have paid for her meals and done her car work pro bono. She wanted me to know they were leaving us out. Then she told me we could take her out for her birthday and give her her presents later as she had to get ready. (She always sends me a Dollar tree piece of junk for my birthday while expecting big gifts for herself. Once for Christmas she gave me a rag of a shirt from Goodwill she hadn't even washed. And told me she'd like me to buy her lingerie and a new vacuum.) 

So anyway, when she told me I could take her out, I called her bluff and said "oh are you inviting me to your party? She stuttered (it was hilarious) and said "oh, um, uh yes." So I dolled up, brought her a nice present, went out to eat with them. When the check came, she looked pointedly at me to pay but her husband refused saying it was his treat and I was a guest. She got pissed. She always expects I will because I'm generous. She's not happy unless it comes out of our pocket. I'm the peon who has to pay for the privilege of being in HRH's presence. She'll even invite other people and expect me to pay. Everyone was miserable and I knew it wasn't because of me. It was because she was mad that I came and they were embarrassed and sick of her. It was pathetic.  I smiled and charmed my way through the meal and cried myself all the way home. But I'd be damned if I let them know. The next year, I sent a happy birthday text and that was it. 

Everything they say about you is designed to make you feel uncomfortable. They make passive-aggressive, back-handed "compliments" designed to humiliate rather than make you feel good. Innocent but private details such as when you first begin to show pubic hair as a child are broadcasted at family gatherings. They announce your details about your body which you are embarrassed about. "Are you putting on weight again?" 

They insult you to your face in front of people. They make rude, personal body-shaming comments and then say you shouldn't take things so personally (?!). My mother said loudly (nothing from her is quiet or discreet) "What in the world did you do to your hair?" (in this snotty sarcastic voice). When her daughter called her out she sneered and smirked (yes, both) , knowing she'd got her dig in. If I were to call her out, she would get huffy angry and say "it was just a joke, my you're thin-skinned." This from the non-existent skinned woman who has never gotten over a single thing anyone has ever done to her. If I had asked her "why are you wearing that nightgown in public?" (yes she does that) I would have gotten a self-righteous chiding for embarrassing her.  

If you bring up something they did or said that was cruel and made you miserable (and boy is there a lot of that) that other people were there to witness, they respond with annoyed, perplexed and haughty denial. It's perfectly fine for them to do them to do the cruel, nasty thing and collect the narcissistic supply payout (it's disgusting the things that feed their supply). But you can't remind them that they did it because then you are holding a grudge. Which is ridiculous contradiction. Which is it: it didn't happen or it did and shame on you for remembering? And they never said they were sorry, so holding a grudge, as in not forgetting, is your only choice. Either that or sweep it under the rug. I've done that so much that I can't walk for all the crap under the rug. 

They ask loaded questions that undermine you. They aren't asking to get answers but to set you up. Then they do this "AHA! gotcha thing" which is supposed to make you think they caught you in some lie. They didn't catch you in anything. It's just gaslighting. But because they've changed the story and rewritten history so much, you're baffled. And too much chaotic confusions damages your brain so you can't think let alone remember clearly. Also, most of the shit they do is so painful that your brain tries to ameliorate it as best as possible. So you go into smooth over mode. And they know it. They know they've effed up  your brain. And they set about spinning yarns to reinvent what really happened. They  play their DARVO games, painting you as the bad guy and themselves the victim. My parents, all four, have twisted stories and said that I did things they actually did.  You just sort of believe them because your mind is too befuddled to think clearly.  

They do this by getting their skewed version in first before you have a chance to tell your side. And as you didn't know you'd be required to explain something, because it was completely innocent, you don't have one ready. But the narcissist has hers all cooked up and plated. She was laying for you and tells a tall tale painting you as the villain and herself, Sweet Polly Purebread. And as we know, defending your side, no matter how messed up theirs is, is much harder because theirs was the first story people heard.

And we tend to believe the first version and distrust the second as the fake. So no matter what you say in your defense, theirs is the one that sticks. That's how rumor works which is what a lot of their stories are: rumor mongering and smear campaigns.  No matter how ridiculous it is, folks somehow accept it and the victim of the smear campaign plays hell trying to reverse it. A lot of innocent people have been punished for crimes they didn't commit because someone pointed the finger of blame at them.  Narcissists know this and use it. 

Narcissists are masters at role reversal, bait and switch and jumping sides. My mother plays the victim, martyr and savior to shield the fact that she is always the perpetrator. It's the smoking gun principle. She'll fire the shot, exit stage left for a quick costume change, leaving someone else to pick up the smoking gun. Then she'll enter stage right aghast with righteous indignation and start accusing the poor dupe holding the pistol. Even if you've seen her pull the trigger, she'll have you convinced she's the innocent. If anyone accuses her, hey presto, another lightning quick change and she's the aggrieved martyr and you're the big mean bully. 

She has triangulated people right and left. She's pitted people against each other. She's sicced her rabid dog of husband on me so many times. She has made up garbage about me and egged him on to attack me. He would scream violent abuse at me, threats and spittle flying. Because all through the years, I was the schlemiel to her schlimazel. And he was her patsy and thug. He would cackle uproariously every time they set me up to play the fool. And then rage when she yanked his chain. And she could  just sit by demurely and say "I have to obey him. He's muh husband." Obey wah-hah-hah now is the time we throw our heads back and laugh. She was always the one pulling our strings. Well, as they say, why have a dog and bark yourself? 

Until one day, I guess the oaf finally got it that the dominatrix was in charge and he was just her minion. He didn't like that. And, further more, he realized that if she was backstabbing and manipulating and setting up other people, oh wait was she doing it to him too? Duh. Suddenly it wasn't so funny anymore. I would have paid money to see the look on his mug when he finally confronted her and realized that he'd been had. All those years of dogged service and she was mocking him too. 

She told me he flew into a rage and started accusing her. And she pulled out all her gaslighting tricks, lying, evasions, denying, reinventing. She told me how she just kept telling him calmly "I just don't remember. (lie) I don't know what you're talking about (lie) I would never have done that (gaslighting) I can just see her, eyes wide open, sotto voce, slowly, patiently, patronizing, denying every single thing he said. She even said, rubbing salt in the wounds, "I'll apologize if you want but I don't know what for. Oooh how that must have stung. And him frothing at the mouth because he, her loyal henchman, she'd played him too. 

I'm not his biggest paparazzi but I know one thing for sure. Every single thing he accused of  doing, she did. She called me to "verify" some of the milder ones. The ones she had misrepresented to me, and so thought I would back her up on. The bigger ones of which I'm sure infidelity, theft, child abuse, entanglements with the law,  figure larger I'd never be told about. See when you lie a lot, you have to keep track of who you told what lie to. Otherwise, your house of cards fall down. As my husband put it so well: she wasn't verifying the accuracy she was checking to see who remembered what to know what lies to tell whom. 

So she asked me about a few things, which in the grand scheme of what they did, were little, but true nevertheless. Some I'd forgotten until I heard them again. She purposely went out to a bar, dancing and drinking while pregnant with their son. She thought it would be "funny." (actually she's a highly impulsive raging attention seeking, sociopathic exhibitionist with zero empathy. She did it because she knew some guys find pregnant women hot and she wanted a piece of that. Sick but as I recall, true.) 

 She claims no recollection. Well of course she would. It doesn't quite fit the good church lady image she's plays. Even I'd forgotten till a family member they asked confirmed it. The little boy, my brother, died at 5 through their negligence. So I'm sure it's awkward to recall. She said "I'd never have done that to little BJ." Correction. You didn't want people to know you'd done that to little BJ. And if she'd known how it would end, maybe she might not have. But it didn't stop her at the time. She got what she wanted. Even a fetus takes a back seat when the narcissist decides to howl.  It's really quite heartbreaking to recall. I'm glad he never knew.  

So she got called on a few small things but she still keeps the upper hand. Because how can you argue with someone who doesn't remember? Even her "admissions" aren't genuine because she doesn't recall it. I almost feel a little sorry for her sadder-wiser-Tigger ex-husband. Guess he knows now what it felt like to be her cat's paw all these years. And the frustration of being gaslit. Well, he was never any match for her anyway. None of us can hold a candle to her level of gaming. Gaslighting is her métier. Humiliating others is her stock and trade. She was born for this, baby. But I still would have loved to watch the shitshow play out. Petty? Oh hell yes! I'm not nearly a big enough person not to take satisfaction from that.

So this ends part one. There's more so stay tuned.