Degrading fawn responses narcissist parent abuse condition in scapegoat eldest daughters

 Hello my friends. I'm on a path toward coming to terms with narcissist parent abuse from four narcissists, two biological parents and two step parents. Today I'm exploring the humiliating fawn responses that narcissist parent groom in their children, particularly eldest daughters. And particularly if that oldest daughter happened to be the oldest and only child of divorced parents, as I was. It is the ultimate gaslighting and resembles cult indoctrination or emotional waterboarding more than anything resembling childhood. 

This subjugating of girls more prevalent in the time I grew up (1960s-1970s) than it is now, thankfully. But even then, I saw few other girls so degraded and demanded of by their parents. I had far more chores and expectations than anyone else I knew. Most of them constituted parentification, being made to raise their other children, co-sleep with them and do for them what were their parents' jobs. I was loaded down with heavy housework too young. I wasn't even given proper tools that if my parents were doing it, would have been provided: mopping floors on hands and knees, lugging a huge vacuum, scaling snow piles to take frozen diapers off the line. Being made to be sounding board to all my parents' inappropriate over-sharing, dumping and guilting. While being stuck in dangerous, unhealthy, unsanitary situations and being deprived of food, rest, comfort medical help, etc. These are just fragments of the many, disturbing things I was made to do. 

If you need a more complete picture, check out some of my other posts. But what I'm focusing on today is how all this enslavement, abuse, neglect and invalidation trained me in very debilitating fawn responses. These trauma responses are core, muscle memory reactions that I've brought with me unconsciously into what passes for adulthood. Parentified children do not grow up normal and are lacking most of the essential transition skills. In short we look and often act too adult but we do it with damaged child brain. These trauma responses learned in our narcissist family cults do not transition well to real life. They make us look foolish and inept and pathetic.  

1) Auto deferment to others. If anyone anywhere tells me to do something one way and I do it another, I feel intense shame and anxiety. If I say one thing and they say another I always feel wrong. It's knee-jerk. What made me aware of this was last night when my husband suggested to me how he cuts pizza and I didn't follow that. He wasn't ordering me around at all. But I immediately went into defend-apology fawn mode for "disobeying." I instantly felt like I'd failed basic pizza cutting. It wasn't about the pizza. It was about the fact that at 61, I'm still deferring to others on everything. 

2) Pervasive shame-based self-subjugation, even in dreams. I have endless trauma dreams and nightmares every single night. Very frequently, I'm in a strange situation with unfamiliar people usually children, in which I'm expected to do impossible tasks, preparing mountains of food, cleaning filthy places while caring for dozens of kids in dangerous places, alone. I'm having to teach groups of kids with chaos. And someone is always angry or scolding on how I'm doing it, while not lifting a finger to help. They are actually making the situation unsafe. Even at 61 years old, I am always the learner, the servant who, while having to do these impossible tasks with no help or instruction. And who is then always faulted for not doing it "right." Even though I'm doing an amazing job considering. But all I feel is shame and failure. These are memories.  

3) Fear-based silence and compliance. I go along with things I don't agree with, feel up to, or even can do, out of fear of reprisal. I go along to get along. Making waves terrifies me because I was terrorized by arrogant narcissist parents into thinking that "disobedience" to them was the ultimate in mortal sins. So I let them get away with all manner of egregious, outrageously wrong things. 

4) I cannot say no. The thought of refusing sickens me. I choke on the word. I feel my stomach clenching just considering not doing what I am told. No matter how awful it makes me feel or how bad it is for me or how stupid the thing is. 

5) Struggles with authority. Not the rebellious kind. I've never rebelled even when I should have. I am overly humble to it. Even the person is not in authority over me. Even if they're just an arrogant blowhard. I react like a cowed, frightened child. I'm a grown adult.  I've raised a family, taught many children and cared for a baker's dozen of grandkids. I've been married for almost 40 years. But I still think a lot like a child who has been traumatized by manipulative, cruel bullies. Because I was. 

6) Perma-grin. Also called the childhood trauma grimace, this is an instinctual placatory smile I pull. I've caught myself in my phone camera doing it. I flinch at any sound. I jump to ingratiate anything anyone says. I laugh at jokes that aren't funny so feelings won't be hurt. I humor and soothe and defend and do for even if I've nothing to give. I'm hypervigilant, over protective and always willing to body block anyone from harm. Because I always had to. 

7) Emotional leprosy. I've been burned and cut and kicked and shocked so many times that I don't have normal self-protection skills. My nerve endings are damaged and don't register suffering until it is too late. A therapist once told me that I have a "scary high and dangerous pain tolerance." 

8) Constant self-austerity. I make sure everyone has what they need or want and by the time I get around to myself there's nothing left. That happened quite frequently at home. As a kid, I was so busy serving selfish demanding people that by the time I went to get my own dinner there was none left. Because my narcissist parents didn't even provide enough. So I went hungry. I do without warmth so someone can have the blanket. I sleep on the edge of the bed. I give my coat away and then get sick from being soaked in the rain. I go short on sleep so others can have theirs. I don't say when something is so painful to me that I can't walk. I've sat in hard church pews, that back conditions created by child abuse, make uncomfortable and then limped away. I once went to a conference and after about an hour I was crippled  with pain. I sat there all day long and didn't dare get up or walk around. It was only when a friend asked how my back was that I finally admitted to myself it was screaming with pain. It took till 3am for it to calm down. Because learned in childhood to power past pain and not tell the adults who were causing it. 

9) Existing on the edge. I live in the leftover scraps of cookie dough so others can have the choice center section. I take the pieces that fell on the floor. I eat garbage so others can feast. I keep giving long after I've run out of things to give. I am hungry, cold, exhausted, burned out and still oppressed by guilt for not giving enough. 

What happens to a child when narcissist parents trauma dump and weaponize depression and suicide

Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm looking at how these self-centered, entitled people use "depression" and guilt feelings to control their scapegoat child. I'll explore how narcissist parents dump their feelings on the child, make her feel responsible and then exploit and manipulate the child's empathy and compassion. 

First, we know that narcissists feel very entitled, arrogant and above normal rules, while holding others' to rigid expectations they themselves don't follow. They are demanding and their only concern is how anything affects them. They are also emotionally shallow, remorseless, show little empathy, vain and too aware of themselves. This self-absorption makes them behave awkwardly, especially the vulnerable "pouty" narcissists. 

They don't like not being the center of attention. They are jealous and competitive. This makes them do other odd things to get noticed. They are also quick to take offense at perceived slights,  such as being treated like one of the group rather than the star attraction. Their sense of superiority makes them bombastic, loud, scornful, pompous, theatrical and just too much. 

They are bottomless pits that can never be filled. So because no one can ever give them all they demand, they are continually hurt, angry and disappointed. They expect preferential treatment, and to have their opinions heard above everyone else's. They act like everyone is watching them at every moment. They're always "on." And if someone should check them or just give them a kind of funny look, or simply ignore them, they overreact. Because they are also hyper sensitive to criticism. So they want attention but only how and when they want it. 

So they're either flying on a narcissistic supply high or enraged at some narcissistic injury. This is not a real injury. It's either the perceived slight or the logical consequences of their ridiculous posturing or hurtful thing they did in their entitlement. And if you think it's confusing as an adult to figure them out, try being their scapegoat or truth teller child. Narcissistic parents are the most bewildering and exhausting people to deal with. They never just are. It's a constant three ring circus.

As you might imagine, this inflated ego behavior, paranoia and exaggeration doesn't fit well in society. People don't line up with their crazy expectations. And some outright tell the narcissist off.  But since narcissists also believe they are invincible, they have to go somewhere with the discomfort, embarrassment, shame, guilt, humiliation they feel. And guess who they dump on? Yep, the most vulnerable person, their child. They rage at, blame, counter-shame, gaslight, lie, distort, shame dump, humiliate, mock and do all the things they believe have been done to them. Hell hath no fury like a vulnerable narcissist. And they are all vulnerable when things don't go their way.

And if it's bad for a child, it's torment for an empathic child. The narcissist parent utilizes the child to stroke her bruised ego and prop her up. She uses child as a punching bag and the empath child allows this because it all she knows and because mom or dad "needs" her. So this still developing kid, with no tools or wherewithal, is expected to fix by magic what her narcissist parents broke. They literally whine, like toddlers. They piss and moan and sulk and tantrum. And the guilt-ridden, burdened child rushes to soothe them. Before the child can read, she's been carrying mommy and daddy as if she is the parent. But yet, they still retain this notion that they are her moral authority. But they are very "eclectic" shall we say, in how they use it. 

They make up rules and then change them. They don't follow them because they are above that. If they're Christian narcissist parents, oh God help you. Everything is twisted, convoluted and muddied. To them, morality, rules, mores, Biblical teaching, just plain common sense, is all optional, like a buffet. They pick and choose for themselves, taking the bits they like, the convenient parts and then heaping the child's plate to  overflowing with demands, rules, thou-shalt-nots. And they DO NOT MODEL anything but chaos and hypocrisy.  

So the child they are supposed to protect, is not only not protected, she is landed with all this adult "goo" which she has no idea what to do with. And because they have not cared for, protected, nurtured or even given bare minimum to the child, she has limited resources and NO self-care skills. Remember the narcissist parent mantra. Self-care for the child is selfish. Needs, wants, feelings, are "showing off" and "attention seeking." Being unable is being unwilling, disobedient, disloyal, etc. They have a comeback for everything and pretty soon, she's painted in a corner. 

As you might imagine, all this abuse, neglect, exploitation, abandonment, endangerment, parentification, invalidation and gaslighting takes its toll on the child. In so many ways. Her health suffers. She's clumsy, disoriented, confused, tired, hungry, lonely, cold, ashamed. She can't resist if she even knew how or that she could. And that's exactly where the narcissist parent wants the child, helpless and hopeless, beaten down, run down, cowed and exhausted. And then they say she's "showing off" or throwing a pity party when she hits bottom. 

And they strategically dump and dump all their earned and deserved guilt, shame, censure on her who has not earned them and does not deserve them. When a narcissist parent is depressed, does he seek help? NO. He traumatizes his child with threats of suicide and then waltzes off leaving her, literally, for months at a time, alone. Mother dumps all her sexual immorality, cheating, affairs, boyfriends, sex life exploits on her 8 year old. They both use her not only as therapist but toxic waste dump, whipping girl and sacrificial lamb. 

My dad was continually unloading on to me about feeling depressed and guilty. And he should have. He was negligent and abusive. He refused to work and I went without. Not anyone else, just me. He used me as live-in free nanny, servant to his wife and kids, chief cook and bottle washer. He raged at me when he was angry with them. He never asked about me or I felt. Never defended me against my mom and her abusive husband. Nor did they with  him. 

But he was always very loudly demanding and arrogant. He didn't act depressed or anxious at all. Just vengeful and resentful when he didn't get his way. And then after raging, he'd switch tacks and moaned about how no one understood him. How Gram and Gramp were "too critical" of him. But the only I ever remember being criticized was me.by him. He showed no sympathy or compassion, just harsh judgement over the most ridiculous things. And he never apologized or admitted to any wrong. He kept the focus entirely on himself. And used his supposed depression as leverage to keep me subservient to him. He just dumped.  

And what's a kid supposed to do with that? Well, I know what I did. I absorbed it all. I felt all the compassion for them, and they showed none for me. It physically hurt me to think my daddy felt sad. And he weaponized that for all he was worth. I thought it was my duty to them. I owed them just for the privilege of being born. Hmm, some privilege. It felt more like a curse. Or that I was cursed or was the curse. I never told anyone about my very real deep depression, I mean how could I when daddy was so "sad"?  And ironically, the few times I could not hide it, he got angry and said I was just showing off and looking for pity. 

I never told a living soul about the crippling guilt I felt at being unable to please unpleasable parents. How sorry I was for being such a let down. No matter how hard I tried I never seemed to do anything right. And they were quick to affirm that I really was the source of all their combined and separate problems. The church teaches that despair is a sin. But what do you do as a child when you are forced to despair and told you're worthless? What do you do when they make you believe you are in the way, a burden a nuisance. They don't say it but they sure make you know they'd be better off with you dead. 

I can't to describe how close I came so many times, to making that happen for them. Where my dad just threatened me with ending it all, I contemplated it and told no one. The fact that I am still here today says something given the amount of despair heaped on me. So I guess I have accomplished something.  Even if it's just keeping myself alive. 

Christian teaching on forgiveness DARVO's children of narcissist parents

 Hi friends. So I've discussed this before but it sadly needs repeating. How Christian teaching on forgiveness DARVO's children of narcissist parents. And maybe everyone. What I mean is that forgiveness as preached by the church is often completely contraindicated in what is a dangerous relationship. Because it DARVO's--denies responsibility, then attacks the real victim while also reversing victim offender roles. And I will take it one step farther. Jesus never intended or even said we should forgive the way most Christians say we should. 

So you know the drill on forgiveness. We who have been hurt are supposed to extend it to those who have hurt us. Sounds great in theory. Kind of. But does it? To me it sounds like a recipe for repeat offending with no accountability, remorse, repentance, reconciliation, restitution or change. And to a narcissist parent, being forgiven is nothing more than a free pass to keep on hurting unchecked. They believe it is their right to do as they wish and always being exonerated. 

Because the church actually does the DARVOing for the entitled narcissist. With the heavy emphasis on forgiveness, it puts the responsibility on the victim of abuse for fixing what they did not break. And behaviors the offender has no intention of changing. The offender doesn't even admit they did anything wrong. In fact, they usually lie and twist it around to make themselves the victim. By omitting the necessary requirements for forgiveness, it gives them permission to keep up their bad behavior. 

So you might argue, well, that isn't the intention of the church. But again, I question, is it? Are they softly turning a blind eye to sin by guilting the victim into feeling obliged to forgive despite no sign of remorse or change in the perpetrator's actions? Yes, I think they are. Because victims are already vulnerable and are an easy target for one thing. We are already too cowed by ruthless people. So we line right up for hurt thinking that this is God's will for us. 

Now why is that? It's the way the church approaches sin committed against people. And the order of operations which they get wrong. Almost complete emphasis is put on forgiveness while curiously little is said about how we hurt each other. In the Catholic church for example (and protestants are the same just with a different game plan), there's a lot of talk about confessing your sins to God or the priest or whatever, but almost none about confessing TO THE PERSON YOU HURT. They just overlook the part of reconciliation where we must reconcile with the injured party. It's just not built into the teaching the way Jesus did it. 

Confession the way the church presents it, is touted as being so good for the person confessing. But then the biggest part, which the Bible commands, is completely ignored. The conditions of forgiveness, and yes there are  conditions, are ADMISSION OF CULPABILITY, REPENTANCE, REFORMATION, AND CONTRITION PLUS RESTITUTION TO THE PERSON HURT. Yes forgiveness even by God is conditional. It is not an expectation, right or free gift or any of the nonsense mainline churches put out. It must be earned. 

It's so out of balance that it has become verboten almost to even mention this part. We're forbidden to ask each other about confession like its contents are sealed. They are not. The seal of the confessional does not extend to the victims. We have a right to know what exoneration our perpetrators were given. WE are the ones who were primarily affected by it. Sinning against God really only involves sin against each other. As he says, whatever you do to the littlest, the most vulnerable, you do to me. 

It's like there's a group gaslighting to keep this part hush hush. And the biggest victim of this gaslighting, by the perpetrator and by the church is the victim of the sin.  If you think about this, it's really hellish. Everyone acts as if it's fine for her to repeatedly victimized by arrogant entitled people. That whatever they do is fine because they told God they were sorry. They don't owe her anything. IT IS NOT and THEY DO. 

Think how much deadly power this puts in the hands of arrogant people. They already feel entitled to things they aren't. These disrespectful people feel they are owed respect they didn't earn because they are special. They're owed absolution, special dispensation, diplomatic immunity just because of their self-styled importance. They claim all kinds of things for themselves which they withhold from the truly deserving. They bind people up to burdens they don't carry. And they do not acknowledge or repent from their sins. They just take forgiveness as their right without doing anything God said to do. They are not sorry. They are proud and haughty and unbending. 

And the poor victim lets herself be beaten down and made to feel responsible for her own persecution. And she can forgive all she wants and they are just going to keep doing it. So actually, forgiveness as is excusing, exonerating, overlooking is bad for them and her. I personally don't think that any of these were what God had in mind. But people do love to pick and choose and pervert for their own ends. 

I consider myself a Christian but I see the problems with Christianity as preached today. And not gonna lie, especially with so many ministers caught in grievous mortal sin, it looks like religion is covering for a lot of abusive people and giving them the green light to keep on abusing. The church needs to take a hard look at what Jesus is actually saying about forgiveness and repentance. Because the way it's being done now, by all denominations, it's verging on apostacy. 

How narcissist parents destroy their child with divorce, dating, live-ins and remarriage

Hi my friends. Today in my attempt to heal CPTSD from narcissist parent abuse, I'm returning to the subject of how narcissist parents destroy their child with divorce, dating, live-ins and remarriage. My biological parents were already very neglectful, arrogantly entitled, irresponsible, exploitative and invalidating. This was devastating to me as a child. But then they started messing around with other people, separated (for no good reason) divorced (yes in that order), "dating" and  finally remarrying and having more kids which they excluded me in favor of. This did unspeakable damage. 

And you know, as I think about it, the adultery, divorce, hook-up/remarriage trifecta might be narcissist parents' most destructive weapon they use against their OG child or children. It is the most insidious, cloaked as it is in euphemism and gaslighting. But make no mistake. This is not them "finding love" or "living their best lives." It's malicious, deceitful, undermining and back-stabbing the child, meant to destabilize her. 

Am I exaggerating and/or making this all about me? Well, that's what I was told, for sure. Despite me saying nothing and making no protest to their sexually off, immoral and unethical lifestyles, they attacked me as if I had. It was my fault, I was "too critical" and "jealous." Of two immature adults acting like horny teenagers? Gross, not likely. And it mattered not that I just rolled over, accepted and even defended them. They knew they were doing wrong and felt ashamed but as narcissist parents do, they blame the child. They DARVO, so she's the problem and they are the innocent victims. 

Which was another nail in my coffin. Now I not only had to put up with all their weird, disgusting, humiliating behavior, I had to endure all kinds of confusing, word salad-y shaming and blaming. AND guilt that I was somehow envious of, not supportive of them.  Like their child was somehow raining on their parades. However, and this is critical, these were parades I was excluded from enjoying. For me, because of my position in the family, were nothing but torture. 

Narcissist parents who divorce and remarry rewrite rules, mores, facts to suit themselves. They arrogantly edit out anything that inconveniently impedes their narcissistic fantasy. And that impediment was me. I was the piece that didn't fit in their shiny new relationships and families. The reminder of the fact that they were already married and that they had bombed out my world entirely. And what do you do with painful reminders? Do you listen? Do you accept correction? Not if you're a narcissist. Narcissists stomp on them till they shut up. 

Not that I even said anything. That fact that I existed was reminder enough that they could not revise other people's lives to their satisfaction. That by "living their best lives" they were destroying mine. You might say, oh well they didn't mean that. They just got a little carried away. Umm, no. Narcissist parents aren't impulsive and short-sighted. They knew what they were doing. Because by the time they told me, they had a line of BS a mile long prepared. And most of it involved blaming and scapegoating me. I've lived with that unearned guilt all my life. They knew they were wrong but instead of admitting it, they dumped all the shame on me. They never once answered any questions or even allowed me to ask. At 6, I was shouldering burden for having my family imploded out from under me as if I was the one who lit the fuse. 

So when I say destroyed my family, am I exaggerating? Don't parents have a right to end relationships and start new ones? Ehh, I think it's more a matter of right rather than rights. As in what is right and healthy for everyone. And it is not right for a child to have the rug under her, pulled out with no help or support. So no, they do not once they become parents. Because now it's not just a relationship between two people. It is a family with other people involved. 

And one thing you can count on narcissist parents to do is make it all about themselves. To neglect their responsibilities to their child but to weaponize their failings to leverage THE CHILD'S pity. My parents had me so brainwashed that I actually felt sorry for them as they ignoring me to cheat on each other. And me. I was literally free range all over the many strange places we squatted in, while they went looking for themselves and found other people. Most were just a few nights' stands. Oh and add to that, they were "missionaries" preaching the good news of Jesus while abandoning me and sleeping around. It's no wonder that sex is complicated, for me. 

So how did they do this without censure of other adults. Well, to start with, they moved me far away from any loving family. And then they constructed false scenarios where they are poor, helpless victims whom the child must rescue. While also painting the child as the bad guy. So the child is both problem and parent, scapegoat and servant-savior. They shell-shocked me with shockingly betrayal. They twisted healthy, safe words and ideas into dangerous ones. Words like family and parents. They made care contingent. They denied me basics. They sawed through supports. They messed with my head till I didn't recognize anything. 

While in Alaska (3K miles from home), we lived (or squatted in) 10 different places over one year. Neither were ever around. I don't know where they were. I recall few meals together. Just a lot of playing alone. To say they did their own thing is an understatement. I was left at 6, at a completely unfamiliar camp with strangers for a week. Then I was left again with strangers on a remote island. The effect was bogglingly terrifying for me. When they decided to call it quits, no effort was made to explain or help me. I didn't understand what it meant. My mom just said they were separating, end of. And not to cry about it because I was lucky theirs was a "good divorce." 

And that was all just in the "separation-sleeping around" phase. We haven't even gotten to the divorce mess. Or the dating (yuck) or second marriages. They finally divorced (it took longer in those days) but they'd been living the swinging single life a long time. My mom had moved us back to Michigan from Alaska where my dad stayed to continue "missioning" (running around with a bunch of teenagers). He'd been absent for most of my life anyway. 

She just picked up where she left off, with the revolving door of men, while ironically still preaching against it. For everyone else. Same with  my dad. It's hilarious their level of audacity. I can't describe to you how awkward and embarrassing it is to have two adult parents dating. Maybe now it's not so odd. But in 1971, it was. And by dating, I mean I had to go through all the icky adolescent idiocy with them. I had to listen to their drama about sex and crushes like they were middle schoolers. I had to watch them make out. My mom went for older married men while my 36-y/o dad dated a 17 y/o he met roller-skating with me. I sat in her little girl room as she showed me her dolls. The wife of one of  my mother's partners knocked her down the stairs. I felt angry on her behalf, and embarrassed and powerless and guilty for not doing anything to protect her. She just sent me off to school, telling me to say nothing. And so I did, with all that in my head. And we never have discussed it, 53 years and counting.  

Then she just moved on to someone else equally toxic and I was just sort of along for the ride. She dated men who were violent, aggressive, creepy, sexually off with me and then married one. They weren't with her. And she went right along with their mocking, assaults and violence towards me, approving and applauding. And my dad moved on, too. Again with me sort of tagging along. They let anyone they brought into my life treat me any way they wanted. And being all narcissists, it was pretty bad. I don't know if other kids' parents who were divorced and dating were as careless of their kids. Because I knew of no other kid in a situation remotely like mine. 

Which brings me to the most mind-damaging part of the equation. Narcissists make it all about themselves. To the child!  Oh poor them their ex's (you mean my dad?) was so awful to me, blah blah blah. They cry on the child's shoulder but NEVER let the child shed her tears. They complain about being the put upon single parent while keeping the other parent out so they can pocket the child support. They don't involve the other parent and the other parent, being equally self-centered, doesn't bother to involve himself. I've never had both parents' unified support in anything in my life. They were just there to get what they could out of me. Oh but they're the victim here. Even though they've just waltzed on to their new relationships like nothing happened. 

Because all my parents thought of was themselves. Always have. How anything will affect them and later their new people. Neither parent ever asked how I was through it all. Neither cared. All they talk about is what they feel, need, want etc. But it's the CHILD's family that was destroyed. And in my case, I was the only one. So even more alone and left out. It's the child who's left essentially orphaned. Who is she anymore now that the nucleus she came from is gone? 

When my mom glibly told me she was leaving my dad, I felt very dissociated. But she was completely unconcerned about me. More irritated actually. And my dad was so wrapped up in himself that everything was only about Jack. He wasn't even there when she told me. He was off on one of his self-aggrandized non-existent mission trips.  I didn't know and so asked if my grandparents would still be my grandparents. And my mother got angry when I asked. She snapped "is that all you're worried about? You and how it will affect you? What about me?" Well, what else am I supposed to think, mom? You dumped this on me with no more concern than you would announcing that I was getting a new bedspread. So you clearly didn't care. And now you're going to guilt me, a 6 y/o? They didn't even let me grieve. 

But yeah it is about me. You're the adults. You have options, resources, support groups, singles groups.  I don't have a choice. You're the ones that decided to destroy this family. You brought new people in when you felt like it. You call all the shots. And I don't have resources unless you provide them. No support system unless you help me find it. And you have no concern about doing that. What am I supposed to do, start a divorced kids group at six years old? I was powerless and at  your mercy. And you wanted me to know that I was alone. So while they call it parents divorce, it's actually parents divorcing themselves, or trying to separate themselves from the child. From the obligations to her. They make her feel cut off and left adrift. I've begun to see that this was a form of grooming. Preparing me to feel alone, exhausted, in shock, vulnerable, ashamed and afraid. So I would be more malleable. 

Kids don't seek help from other family members because they don't know how or that they can. The adults must care enough to reach out to the child and let her know that they care. That she matters and has a say. Otherwise she just feels the pawn that she is. My parents saw to it that I never asked for help. They made me know that I was just showing off, seeking attention or a nuisance and that no one cared. So I never asked or told. 

And then, after the narcissist parents shatter the child's family just for shits and giggles and with about as much thought, they shove other people at the child without involving the child in any of it. Without even waiting for the sheets to cool. The child hasn't even come to grips with the divorce when these narcissist parents are bringing strange people into her inner space. And being malignant narcissists, they don't vet the new people. They don't care if they're hurtful. In fact, hurtful is fine. Because they can join the parent in the bullying. They do what they want at the time, damn the consequences to the child. 

Narcissist parents don't prepare the child for these new people. They don't take her into consideration when they go new family shopping.  I'd barely met the people my parents ended up marrying. I was just told, "here's your new boss" basically and then I was instructed to treat them as I would a parent with respect, obedience, loyalty, dutiful and dogged servitude. I was essentially coerced into agreeing to THEIR marriage vows. Because I'm the only one who actually honored anyone in that mess. I was the surrogate spouse, parent (to them and their children) servant and scapegoat. They carried on with their irresponsible ways (big surprise) while I carried the can. 

And don't forget the narcissist mantra. Everyone is responsible to me and I'm responsible to no one. They made in clear that no of the four of them had any obligation to me. They made me believe that I was a burden and that providing me a home was optional. That basic necessities (meals, a place to sleep) were some major inconvenience to them that I was lucky to have. That I owed them for the simplest things that ALL parents are required to give their children. The level of hypocritical double standards is boggling. 

So we've established that abusive narcissist parents don't bring in safe folks. They are terrible judges of character and think more with their genit-lia than with their brains or hearts. And they don't care that the people they bring in are equally selfish, entitled, arrogant, demanding and Machiavellian. Because they never had any intention of actually obeying their marriage vows. Their long game was always for the scapegoat child to do all the heavy lifting. They're just there for the perks. 

We've also determined that narcissists foist these new people onto their kids without any preparation or inclusion or input from the child. Does the child have a say in who the parent dates? Yeah, I think they do. I think they should be taken into account, at least. Especially if parents are going to force the kid to treat the new person like a parent. Which I have a problem with to start with. Because all too often the new person is disrespectful, unloving, unparental and unkind to the child. They exclude and have to be convinced to "let" the child live with them as if it's something they have a damn choice over. 

They do not help the child deal with their new spouse's bad behavior. They gang up on the kid. They berate, belittle and humiliate her. They, as my husband says, threw me to the wolves to win brownie points with the new people. This is a form of child prostitution. It goes beyond endangering to something so awful I don't have a word for it. And I've heard that claptrap that oh well they were probably abused by these new people and trying to stay safe. BY THROWING THEIR CHILD at the toxic person which THEY brought into our family?? That's a big bullshit sundae with nuts, whipped cream and a cherry on top. 

It's taken me all my life to even acknowledge how really terrible it all really was. I'm still coming to terms. All their gaslighting lies, cover-ups, distortions and betrayals served to put me in an impossible place where there where dissociation was all there was. As I look back, the dissociation wasn't temporary. These experiences made me live in a state disconnection and semi-fugue all my life. 

Weird fawn responses bullying narcissist parents force on their scapegoat kid

 Hi friends. In my  last post, I explained how bullying narcissist parents force weird fawn responses on their scapegoat child. Now I'm going to explain what some of those weird fawn responses are. I call them weird because they don't translate well into normal society. They only function to maintain the dysfunctional parent's narcissistic fantasy of grandeur, entitlement, lordliness and exalted ubermensch status which they believe puts them above rules. Fawning gives us traumatized kids a tool to try to navigate the crazy our narcissist parents put us in. But in everyday life, these fawn responses have the opposite effect of making us vulnerable and exposed. 

Trauma-o-meter scanning Traumatized kids aren't called traumatized for nothing. We have endlessly been subjected to torture, neglect, terrorizing, scary people, danger, humiliation, chaos and confusion. This has developed a trauma-o-meter in us which is constantly scanning for potential threat. We continually assess and reassess, amending ourselves to be whatever might ward off the blow. We treat simple situations like war zones we have to keep a village safe in. Which looks pretty awkward at trivia night at the pub. But we've had to be on alert for too long to stop now.

Effusively (giving, being) too much. Traumatized kids who've had to give, surrender and provide too much, become too much. We don't dare leave our self-effacing subservience at our effed up family door. We feel compelled to be for everyone whatever they want. And it's not by choice as much as habit. We were conditioned like vestal virgins, to serve. And serve we do, with gusto. We anticipate and rush to provide. We can't not respond to texts in case someone's feeling are hurt. We do and do. And it never feels enough because we were told it wasn't enough. It is. And if the people we do for now don't think so, they can do without our giving. We have that choice now to do what we want and feel comfortable with. But old habits die hard. 

Thinking only of others not ourselves.  I mentioned before that we were conditioned to anticipate. My dad, who served no one but himself actually told me that I should "leap joyfully to serve with no thought of reward." Even good job was withheld lest I get "vain." And did I ever. Now, a form of this is in the Bible. But what he neglected to say is that we ALL should serve. The version he implanted in me was that this applied only to Marilisa. So I now do not know how to think for myself. Or should I say I don't give myself permission to because Jack didn't. And none of my parents did. This doesn't work well in daily life because people sometimes feel off put or patronized when someone attempts to "think for them." I get that. What we're doing is more thinking of, being too considerate at our own expense. 

Unable to think for ourselves. Like the previous one, we also weren't allowed to have feelings, needs, opinions, wants, ideas or successes. We got used to parroting which weirdly makes us the butt of jokes to people who shoot their mouths off on everything, predominantly subjects they know nothing about. I've been mocked for this because supposedly this meant I didn't know. Oh I know all right and a hell of a lot more than you. It just wasn't safe for me to say it. 

Shape-shifting to humor. Another scripture my dad loved to wallop me with was "be all things to all people." Except that 1) he was piss poor at modeling it. 2) It sounds good in theory but doesn't work in reality. So yes, it's good to weep with those who weep. And help where we can. The problem comes in where we pretzel-ize ourselves to placate disagreeable people because we think it's our job. I realized I did this all the time when, confronted by yet another example of toxic masculinity, I immediately fawned when he lashed out at me. And then when his spleen was vented, he went on as if he hadn't just publicly screamed at me.  So now was the time when I would normally shape shift from groveling apology to gratitude that he had forgiven me. In short I would have laughed it off and acted all friendly-happy normal to make him not feel so stupid for being a jerk. I do this all the time. Apologize for things I didn't do, to bullies who then exploit it. To salve their pride. I was proud of myself in this instance I did not kowtow when he said "you're alright." I said yes, I am but you are not. You are aggressive and out of line and I'm going to report your behavior." (Yes it feels weird, I'm new to this confidence thing.) 

Tripping, falling We literally become clumsy and accident prone because we're so used to bending. We are out of balance because don't walk fully on our feet. We tiptoe and tread as lightly as possible. We're terrified of waking our dad who has no problem waking us out of a sound sleep to yell at us. When people barge past us we jump out of the way. We stumble along the edge of the path so folks can hog the sidewalk. And then apologize. I'm actually practicing not moving and not gonna lie it doesn't feel bad. 

Fawn smile.  We're afraid a lot. We've had to be. So we developed this ingratiating, placatory smile that says "I'm so sorry for being. Please don't hurt me." Now what's weird is that this has the opposite affect on the arrogant bullies. It makes them more aggressive. Fawning brings out their wolf. And they will sneer and say mutter nasty things, never out loud because bullies are cowards. But loud enough so you know they  have you in their sites. What's funny is how not smiling works much better. I've been practicing my dead pan, non-dodging walk. If a guy walking toward me is glaring (you know the kind that think the entire aisle is for their fat asses). I just glare back and I don't move or look away. And they always look away first and sometimes even give me the fawn smile 😆😆And I still don't smile back! No nastiness, no words. Just no smile. 

Panic Attack. Traumatized kids were indoctrinated into the narcissistic cult of fear. Everything was exaggerated, particularly the many ways we were told we failed. Innocent childhood things were turned into federal offenses. Dad didn't just get annoyed, he raged. Over nothing. His wife sulked and pouted. Mom was the queen to be obeyed and there was hell to pay if you didn't give her what she wanted.. She blatantly neglected her child for her own convenience. She smiled fondly at abuse. Outrageous shit happened. So we learned to overreact and rush about frantically at the slightest thing. We look ridiculous because we are constantly anxious and hypervigilant. But don't judge. Just be glad if you don't get us because it means you didn't have to go through what we did. 

Short circuiting. Traumatized kids get their wires crossed a lot. Because someone was always messing with our circuit boards, flipping switches, making it lightning, shutting out the lights and scaring us. We are confused and bewildered a lot. We can't concentrate or think clearly for all the gaslighting we've experienced. We live in fritz mode. We've tried and failed to keep up with their every lighting change. And now we babble incoherently a lot because the switch is stuck on. 

Never turning off. Traumatized kids are on call 24-7-365. Added to being expected to be everything to everyone, we're always in uniform and in character, as the human dispenser of all good. We check in with everyone, asking continually "are you okay?" What can I do? What do you need?" We can't sleep till everyone else is asleep. We rise before and go to bed after everyone. We awake at the slightest sound. We have to hit a wall before we stop. And even then we often don't. We just keep spinning our wheels, backing up and crashing ourselves into the wall, like a motorized toy car stuck on. 

Foundering. So this one is a result of too much fawn plus flight (a trauma response where you try t outrun danger). Some of us have broken our trauma-o-meters or had them broken for us, from overuse. We feel responsible for everyone and are exhausted. We've been trying to rescue swim us all out of the rip tide. Like an opossum with her babies on her back. We're taking on water, getting more battered and barmy. Sometimes we find a spar and are able to get respite to keep swimming. But we never sort out why we're in the riptide and why we're carrying everyone. We may actually even be safe. But we can't see it. We feel stuck in a nightmarish trauma loop. 

Mask becomes the face. And there is no us behind it. For us, life imitates art. We've gotten used to amending our faces to sad with the sad, soundboarding for the angry, active (exhausted) listening to the boring drone, patiently supporting the ranter's rant, crying and begging to be forgiven for whatever thing they're pissed about, soothing the petulant, rejoicing with the winner, comforting the loser. But our  facial muscles forgot how to be sad, happy, angry, for ourselves. We've confused them with all this masquerading. We're always the cheerleader, the student, the assistant, the booster, the provider, the carer. And they are all just acts in our one-woman band. But behind our masks is just another mask. 

Trauma grimace. We've held in tears and shame, we've bit our tongues to prevent saying something that will anger someone, we clamp our jaws to keep from screaming. We worn so many masks that those facial muscles I mentioned have become an overstretched rubber band. We laugh when we're hurt. We cry uncontrollably because we've been too controlled. Our face is a mishmash of exhausted, confused expressions. I used to have a facial expression chart in my classroom to help children understand what they are feeling. But it's too late for me. I could only feel what I was expected to. And for our pains we now have...

Cartoon face. We look fake because no one ever allowed us to show real emotion. We were told what to feel. We struggle to be genuine because we genuinely don't know how and because none of the emotions we were made to register were genuinely ours. We were clowns painted with weird exaggerated smiles or frowns. And THEN to top it all, my parents found a way to humiliate and shame me for the clown face they created. When I struggled to find the correct one, my dad would say I was showing off. If I couldn't stop myself crying, he'd say I was looking for attention. When I'd clamp my jaw shut to keep from saying anything to upset him, he'd say I had an attitude or was rebellious.  REBELLIOUS, ARE YOU KIDDING ME!! I do every blessed thing you demand of me. I wait on you hand and foot. Much more cheerfully than I should be. Much more cheerfully than YOU ever do anything. The one with the attitude problem is you. You pout and sulk and rage at me more than you talk to me. No wonder my poor face is confused. And the result of that is the saddest one of all. 

Dysregulating. I won't sugar coat. This one is terrifying to witness. No one should have to. But no one should have to dysregulate either. If you think that's bad, try living it. I get a sick stomach remembering. It's nothing short of full on emotional nuclear meltdown when we get pushed too far. I have screamed, sobbed, hit myself, bit myself, lashed out, hit others, wet myself, broken things. I'm rightly very ashamed. Though I have worked very hard to master it, I wish I'd been able to sooner before anyone had to see and be traumatized themselves.  But I will say, it doesn't come without a lot of provocation. And most of the hurt I did to myself.  I stayed glued surprisingly well for all I've lived. And sadly, it happens with people who are safer and who will love me through it, never at the ones who caused it. And often even the "safe" ones will provoke, though not with the same weaponization as my parents.

 It comes from having had to humor and please unpleasable people. You can only hear so much shaming, antagonizing, baiting, provoking, criticism and you snap.. You can only feel so much shame, failure, guilt and bafflement without spilling over. Which is really bad. But what's worse is the people who are supposed to love you, putting on you all their crap. It's hard enough to deal with wrong I have done. Having to fix other people's wrongs, that I cannot control and didn't break, sends me over the edge. This is what the Bible means by instructing parents not to provoke their children to wrath. And yet they somehow conveniently forget that scripture. 

THAT is what malignant, arrogant, malicious coercively controlling narcissist parents do to their children. It is their legacy. It's what I think the Bible means by the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children. Not that we repeat what they do. We suffer the consequences of their sins. 

In my next piece, I'll talk about ways to overcome these fawn responses. 

Love ya'll,

mar

 

How narcissist parents force weird fawn responses on their scapegoat kids

 Hello my friends. Today on my quest to heal from narcissist parent abuse, I'm looking at weird, disturbing fawn responses that narcissist parents hardwire into their scapegoat kids. For the first 60 years of my life, I didn't understand them. I knew they were strange. I felt stupid and angry with myself.  I was afraid of and hated them. But I had no way to conceptualize or stop doing them. Because I couldn't see "into" them if that  makes sense. I had no frame of reference to source them. But learning that these were in fact trauma responses born of chronic childhood trauma brought on by four narcissist parents, provides a viewing window into their makeup. 

Okay so what is the fawn response? It's one of the 4 F trauma responses: fight, flight, fawn and freeze. I add one more: fix. It's what we who have been abused, especially as kids, learn to do to avoid further harm. I won't say to stay safe. There is no safe place with a narcissist parent, especially the malignant dark tetrads I lived with. Fawning is my go to and also the most debilitating of the lot. Freezing so you stay small, running away from, even fighting back, ain't great. But fawning is deadly. 

In the fawn response, the child, in the presence of danger, goes into people pleaser mode. Her only thought is subservience, groveling, kowtowing, humoring, placating, offering herself up to be kicked. Letting people use and abuse her, walk on her and trample her boundaries. In fact, the child does not set boundaries because she's learned that to do so will merit punishment from parents. Yes, they literally teach her NOT to take care of herself. Which is a complete heresy to good parenting. 

The demanding all-consuming parents take everything from the child. They deny her the right to feel, think, want, need, to BE. Everything must be done by that child and only that child, for the good of others. She is to think only of what they want. She must be hypervigilant, awaiting the next command. She must anticipate and have ready whatever they demand. She abandons any idea that she exists outside them. She lives only to please others and very often that is at her own expense. It's not enough that they win, she must also lose. 

If they are angry, it will always be her fault. They have to make it up as they go to preserve this narcissistic fantasy that they reign supreme and are above all rules and expectations. They are deities who must be obeyed. They are so far up their own asses that they look our their own mouths. And the poor child caught up in this is in the invidious position of constantly playing guess what we want now. 

And then the rules change. Because, from my experience, I don't think it's so much about getting what they want as it is the narcissist power jolt they get from watching her confusedly trying to keep time with their constantly changing tune. So often I've been forced into baffling situations with my narcissist parents, in which one of them was sullen or passive-aggressively angry and I was clueless as to why. But it was all just somehow my fault. And then there were the times in which all was well. Everyone happy and WHAM!! A switch flipped and suddenly someone is pouting or livid with me and I have no idea why. It's the curve ball that comes from out of leftfield. 

So I think it's malicious. Weaponized. Malignant. Done just to keep me on my toes. Or to see me fall. There were so many bewildering "gotcha" moments when one of my parents would suddenly "catch" me doing something. Like they were lying in wait, looking for problems. Because they were. I don't get it but they seemed to get satisfaction from seeing me fail. Problem is, I wasn't failing. I wasn't doing anything but innocently going about my work. I cannot remember ever having an nasty, rebellious, or spiteful thought against anyone least of all them. I kept my head down. 

I think they had to orchestrate shit to make me feel like I was screwing up. To justify their vicious rage. Or something. Because narcissists never take responsibility for their own actions. It has to be someone else's fault. And who better than a trusting, loving, kind-hearted child. She's raw meat. She's vulnerable because she is a little girl with no self care skills. She has to mind read what they want. And she usually gets it wrong, not for lack of trying, but because the get their kicks off from moving the target. Playing mind games. Setting her up to fail. Actually I'm surprised at  how well I did keeping those households going for those lazy, useless, incompetent, screw-ups. 

This sounds screwy and a bit paranoid. But then, parents parentifying a child, making her care for them, setting her up to fail is pretty messed up. And there are paranoid people in this equation but one ain't me. I've been conditioned to be ultra-cautious but that's not paranoia. That's common sense. Children don't grow fearful for no reason. I was groomed to be afraid, very afraid. Terrified. Because I was terrorized by their out of nowhere, pointless, egregious, gratuitous, nonsensical wrathful vengeful, spiteful sneak attacks. And I was intentionally punished if I didn't demonstrate enough fear. That's how they kept me in line. That and with constant chaos and stress and shame. And invalidation. And gaslighting and abuse and neglect and deprivation. Yes it was that bad. 

But all this proves I'm neither making it up nor exaggerating. It was all such unnecessary overkill. I never gave them any trouble. I never questioned all the vile things they did. The deceit, hypocrisy, adultery, theft, child abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, forging doctors prescriptions and selling the Vicodin. You name it. I just did my best to survive. And I loved them, through it all. I stood up for and covered for them. I lied for them. I took their punishment and body blocked them. 

I don't know why they made my life a living hell. But they did. And the reason I'm writing so much about it over the last few years is that I'm finally sorting out why I've been so miserably confused and alarmed. They were alarming. And they developed in me some very strange fawn responses that don't translate well elsewhere. 

Keeping secrets and privacy violation in children of narcissist parents (RAW)

Hello my friends. If you follow this blog you know that I'm on a journey to heal from narcissist parent abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, coercion, scapegoating, toxic invalidation and gaslighting about it all. And today I want to focus on a very powerful and dangerous double-pronged tool that narcissist parents wield, to keep their abused kids in line. And these are the dual weapons of forcing secret keeping on kids while simultaneously violating the child's privacy (telling her secrets). 

The danger of this weapon lies both in the hypocritical, double standard duality and the manipulative, Machiavellian cruelty with which the narcissist parent enslaves her child. The narcissist parent passive-aggressively, and sometimes aggressively, forces the child, by shaming and blaming, to keep the parent's own dirty, ugly secrets while at the same time, breaking the child's innocent and realistic confidences. 

And by a narcissist parent's dirty secrets, I don't mean little indiscretions. I mean filthy, hurtful, purposeful, blatant, often illegal, always immoral and unethical behaviors which the parent is engaging in. Frequently, these involve the parent endangering or harming the child in some way. The parent uses an insidious combination of shame, blame-shifting, DARVO (deny attack reverse victim and offender) subtle attacks, deprivation of essentials, terrorizing, bullying, bringing in other people to strong arm,  evasions, lies, isolating her from help, gaslighting and other thug tactics to coerce the child into compliance and silence.  

Interestingly, the parent may not actually keep her own behaviors that secret. My mother was pretty, in yo face about her own misdeeds. She moved her boyfriend into our foster care home, knowing she could lose her license.  She left me to tend them for days at a time. She left me to wander streets alone from around age 4. She openly carried on affairs with married men. And continued, to proudly preach the "good news" to people and to play the organ in church. 

She stole from people and scammed them. She stole from me. And then freely lied and invented stories when it suited. She made up all kinds of nonsense to keep me quiet and biddable, a lot of it framing me as responsible for her bad behavior. I have felt a heavy pervasive guilt all my life and lately I realize a lot of it is for stuff she actually did. She also reinvents herself as the Godly heroine savior. She told me that she was "ministering" to her married boyfriend because his wife was "mean." And being 8 and loving and her child, I fell for it. She was vocally and sneeringly contemptuous of anyone else's infidelity, however. She who paraded around in bikini and mini skirts would loudly decry other women dressing. She bragged about sleeping naked even in other people's homes. She would dress me in silly clothes and get me ridiculous haircuts, to keep me looking and feeling fat and funny looking.  I see now that she was jealous, competitive and hypocritical. 

I've never been quite sure how she managed to juggle this openly double life, to con other people into going along with it or at least turning blind eyes, to do all this without getting caught. I think she wove a web of lies in which she told different versions to different people, depending what served her purpose best. I see now that her lack of compunction or shame made her oddly convincing.  I've heard it said that narcissists feel a lot of inward shame. I can tell you from experience, my mother never did and never has. I don't know whether she felt any remorse but I never saw any. I think she was just really good an knowing how to avoid getting caught. BUT remorse or not, I KNOW she'd have come unglued if I'd told my grandparents for example that she and her boyfriend made out in our kitchen before I went to school. Or any one of the other inappropriate, irresponsible and uncomfortable things she did. 

And looking back with grownup eyes, I see that she probably did get into trouble. I was just given the sanitized version. The state revoked her foster license and I was shunted off to live with my dad. When their son was killed in a neglectful situation, I never heard but I'm guessing there was some investigation. And they moved out of state immediately afterward. But be that as it may, I knew only what I was gaslighted with a kid. 

I walked this tightrope thin existence in which I had to juxtapose all the chaos in the various homes I lived, the revolving door of people in and out, the upheaval, the constant moves, the shifting scenarios, with the mostly normal, consistent, traditional families around me. I had no space, no privacy, no safe place to call my own. I don't even recall a bedroom or meals together for the first seven or eight years of life. I don't know what my parents did or if they worked. I don't recall doing much of anything with them and as an only child, that meant lots of time alone. 

I remember my parents and I squatting in a lot of places. And living off the kindness of strangers. I don't recall holidays with them, just some with grandparents. I have giant gaping holes in my memory I think from all the stress-caused brain damage. It boggles my mind still at how utterly and gratuitously weird my family life was. I say gratuitous because neither one of my parents needed to move as often as they did, married, single and dating or remarried. It wasn't job related. They just did as they pleased and dragged me along for the ride. 

I remember my grandparents chiding them for being so irresponsible, saying that it wasn't good for me to be shunted from pillar to post. That they needed to settle down, get a job and create a proper homelife. They had to get after my parents to even get me basic health care, always way too late and which has caused a lot of problems now. If my parents were two wayward teenagers instead of grown adults, I couldn't have had a worse life. Because they also exploited the fact that they were "adults" to whom I owed obedience, loyalty, respect. Even though they gave me none of those. 

So when I say my "normal" looked nothing like anyone else's normal, it's not exaggeration.  All my immediate family groups and I had several iterations were unimaginably crazy and people have told me so. I hear a lot of "what kind of parent does that??" Mine. Always. Mom and dad married. Mom and dad married but dad wandering around in Alaska and mom going through a string of men. Then them divorced, single and dating. Dad disappearing for a few years. Mom with boyfriends. Mom with new husband, Dad with girlfriend and then remarried. And then with new families of which I was allowed to be part of but only as a unpaid staff. It was never safe or healthy and always dysfunctional. The only consistency was inconsistency. And the only "family" was whatever my parents decided was flavor of the month.  And home was never mine. It was me "living with" them. As if they had a choice. That's what I grew up thinking. That they owed me nothing while I owed them everything. 

Back and forth, and back again. I was what I now have a term for: hidden homeless. No one I (or anyone I've talked to) lived anything like such a chaotic, unpredictable upheaval I called life. The only thing predictable was unpredictability. I'd come home from school to find my dad or mom packing up to move. No warning. Sometimes it was just me they were moving out. At last count (because I keep recalling more) I'd lived, between them all, in 34 places by age 20. I don't even know where I lived when my mom and I came back from Alaska. I have no memory until a year later. With family maybe? Who knows. And not just being pushed around but being made to feel like I was the cause of the chaos. Like it was my fault they had to move me. 

All malignant narcissist nonsense, I see now. Sort of. I still hear a cacophony of old blaming shaming voices. And it breaks my mind still that the double standard of trying to maintain normalcy in what was literally utter bedlam. Because again, no one had the faintest clue about chaos on this level. Not family, friends, school mates, neighbors. No one. Of any age, socio-economic background, religion, cultural group. Not one single person. No one ever asked so I assumed I deserved no better. Even though I saw others with homes and family. Which makes it bitterly lonely. And coupled with several facts that made it so much worse. 

First, my life was so abusively stressful and awful that people would have had difficulty believing my stories if I had told them. They still do now. I get a lot of toxic positivity nonsense about how well, they are your family. We're sure they loved you and did the best they could. To the people who say that, I say, you cannot have been listening to what I've said. Because if you had, you would have also had to admit you've never heard a story like this. And if you can defend the needless, weaponized, malignant hell they put me through, then I don't want to know you. 

Am I trying to compete for a Craziest Childhood Award? I know, you my readers probably aren't accusing me of that. BUT this is another part of what makes trying to heal so difficult. People really do accuse you of nonsense like this. They go right into victim shaming and defending the narcissist parent. It sickens me that the few times I've reached out for help. Or just didn't cover for my parents and told the truth, I've met with such condescending scorn and criticism. Like I should be ashamed of having been mistreated as a child? Like I should just put up and shut up. Been there done that all my life!!! And that is why I'm so shell-shocked by CPTSD now. Oh and if you're gonna gaslight me with your sententious claptrap, just move along. I've been gaslit all my life by people much better at it than you. And I now know it for what it is. 

I don't know why people do this. What end does it serve them to make excuses for abusers? But they do, time and again. And this used to keep me silent. Because the narcissist parent KNOWS people will do this. They know their behavior is so egregiously awful that most people will not believe the child. And they coerce the child with threats like this. That she'll look like a fool. Or be betraying the family. And they have also bullied, deprived and beaten the child down for so long that she has no resistance or strength. They keep her in an exhausted, ill, in pain, cold, hungry and ergo confused state. It's like living in a cage. 

I recall being tired all the time as a child. Pictures show me half asleep. I could never keep up with sports because I had chronic ENT issues and trouble breathing. I had undiagnosed sleep apnea which my mom and her boyfriend made fun of and my dad and his wife ignored while making me co-sleep with their babies. They gave cast off mattresses or made me sleep on the floor on unheated porches. I have always had chronic nightmares which again, no one cared about. They just cared that they didn't have to be bothered with their other children. I was always left in charge of kids, even overnight. I had early onset arthritic conditions for untreated scoliosis, spina bifida and congenital hip dysplasia. 

I had a constant sore throat that went untreated by my neglectful parents (who took very good care of themselves). I had multiple reinfections of strep throat each year. Strep throat can be deadly, just saying. Many of the conditions I have now were caused by lack of basic care then. And so, the toxically positive person might say, oh well you're family probably couldn't afford better. Oh snap, silly me, why didn't I think of that. Because they were not poor. I was. They are well fed, well rested and had all they needed and more. They all have expensive hobbies, new cars, nice homes. None of them went without and they did this at my expense. 

So by depriving a child and keeping her sick and tired, they also keep her too exhausted to fight back. It's similar to the POW camp mentality of wearing people down. And meanwhile they are full of narcissistic energy. They can keep this up indefinitely. While the child is prematurely aging they are getting more and more immature as time goes by and they get away with their crap. It's fucking mental how sick and deviant these egomaniacs are. They go from strength to strength by feeding off their child's soul.  

And how do they fly all this under society's radar? They break her down with terrorist tactics. They use explosive and sullen anger, violence, rage, undermining, smear campaigns, ganging up, backstabbing, set ups, triangulation, scapegoating, humiliation, gaslighting, ambushes, deceit, DARVO, isolation, overwork and deprivation. They keep her in constant state of fear, obligation and guilt. They use her own natural empathy against her, dumping all their ick on her and forcing inappropriate confidences that make her uncomfortable. They throw themselves endless pity parties at which mandatory attendance is required. 

And then they gull a child into keeping quiet about this. They use that arsenal I listed in the previous paragraph, to coerce her into silence. How often did I hear who will believe you? (well, since I've never said anything, why are  you asking? Because you know you're wrong.) I heard: You're making it up. You're exaggerating. You brought it on yourself (which is it, it didn't happen and I'm lying or I brought it on myself. Cant' have both). You're the problem. You owe us. You're our child. We don't owe you. You have to  obey my boyfriend.  It's your fault. You're just jealous (of you and your creepy boyfriend, mom, mmm nope)   You're too sensitive. You are too critical (when I didn't say a damn thing). You can't take criticism (meaning our spiteful, below the belt digs). On and on. 

Which brings me to the second prong of that secret weapon that narcissist parents use to keep their scapegoat in line. As I've outlined, it's incredibly risky to make a child keep secrets. Especially if it involves the adult endangering the child in some way. Which so often, parents who bind their kids to silence are doing. Healthy parents do not require their children "not to tell" this or that. We don't even have phrases like "what happens here, stays here" in our repertoire. Now, having said that, I think there are some things kids just know by common sense are private. 

But a parent making the home some kind maximum security unit and the family some kind of secret society is a big red flag that something is wrong. The child wouldn't be made to hide something if there wasn't something the parent was ashamed of. And they wouldn't insist on secrecy unless they knew it was something illegal, immoral, dangerous or in some way actionable. And that the people the child would tell would question, confront or even report the parent on. The fact that the parent is only concerned with exposure and not with the child's well-being, tells me that is a person who should not be trusted. Which just screams that the secret is something the kid needs help with.  

But having said that, children also need to know that they have a right to keep some things private and they should be respected by grownups. The distinction is whether the child's secret could be hurtful to her to keep or whether it is something she needs parental help dealing with. The fact that she wet her pants at school is something about which a good parent would want to find out details, to help her. Was it an accident or maybe a bladder infection? It is NOT something that random people need to know. 

A good parent explains to the child why she is for example, seeking medical advice for her daughter on bedwetting. The parent also takes responsibility for anything she might do or have let others do, to cause the bedwetting. Like letting her deadbeat, abusive watch TV all night and then scream at her child whenever he wants. But a child should not be taken into an adult's confidence on things she is too young  to understand or do anything about. Am I saying there are two sets of rules for kids and parents? Yes. Because children do not weaponize secrets while adults can and do.

An example. I was sexually harassed and then assaulted, several times once by a teen boy my mother had brought into her foster care (against a lot of good advice I might add) He had a history of sexual assault and she knew it. She then left him alone with me to "make friends." He acted so creepy that my friends' parents told her to make him knock it off. So she sent us inside while she and her boyfriend went to their room in the basement. He tried to rape me on the bed but I managed to get out. Needless to say I was horrified and disgusted. Something in me warned me not to tell my mom as she had made things worse at others times like this. 

Well, I should have listened. Because my mother was not angry with him. She was mad at me. Because he would now have to go back to Child Haven. I see now what I didn't see then, that with him leaving she'd have to explain why or lie. Either way, some of the other illegal things going on in our home would come to light. First of all that she had her unvetted boyfriend and her brother and his girlfriend living with us. Anyway, she told me not to tell anyone. Not as I see now, to protect me. But because she didn't want to get called out. I readily agreed. God, I didn't want to think of it let alone speak of it.  

I guess I assumed she'd keep my secret. But no, she weaponized it for her own sick, twisted agenda. She announced AT THE DINNER TABLE IN FRONT OF EVERYONE what had happened. And that she was proud of her boyfriend (!!) for how HE had handled me being sexually abused! All he had done was to tell the kid he had to go. She praised him like he'd fucking liberated Dunkirk. He who did not belong there in the first place and who was sexually abusive himself. I've never felt so much like dying as I did then. And indeed, went into a pretty dark fugue after that. And no one who could help, ever knew. How could I ever tell them? A child has no words for this. And what if, they, like mommy dearest, blamed me?

These kinds of shockingly horrible cruelty (and this is only one of many) are why I call these people malignant. You cannot  make up trauma like this. There is no precedent for it. Even the Bible hails a mother's love as the last hope. So what do you do when your mother not only doesn't protect you but brings the abuser into your inner sanctum and then stabs you in the back and exploits in to win favor with her boyfriend? There's no reason for it save spiteful evil. And yet, AND YET, she managed to make me believe it was all my fault. 

It's shit like this that slowly but surely sucks the life out of child. Over and over again, they make and break promises and then say they never said that and you are lying. They future fake. They flip everything cockeyed and then do it again till you don't know which end is up. They play pity cards to make you feel sorry for them and want to protect them. They make it clear they have no responsibility to protect you. They make you feel lucky by bread crumbing you with shit that isn't even nourishing. It's sickening. They "confide" all kinds of disgusting, inappropriate, dirty stuff because poor them, they have no one to talk to but you. It makes you sick and you can never unhear or unknow it again. It ruins intimacy and childhood and innocence for you. It feels a lot like being prostituted out by your pimp mom. 

Some of it is illegal but now that you know, you're stuck, damned if you tell, damned if you don't. They beat you and the younger children and tell you that it's not abuse. They make you complicit. They cheat and steal and leave in the middle of the night. She dumps on you how her husband is so cruel. You're afraid, not for yourself as you should be but for them. You spend the rest of your life, until and hopefully, you get out, worrying only for her. It's ALL ONLY and EVER about what Nancy, Jack, Ginny and Bill want. You pay with resources you don't have because they have stolen all from you. You give blood and self and lifeforce. 

And they take and take and like Wendigos are never satisfied. The child becomes only a worker bee in the hive with no personhood of her own. Everything must be sacrificed at the narcissist parent's altar.  And if they are all narcissists, the child has no ally. She just gives up on herself and throws everything she has into dancing to their tune. Nothing is ever enough. The child keeps giving long after everything she has has run out. She's so burned out she doesn't even know. I was moving and breathing but I had died on the inside. I was a mask with two empty eye sockets. 

AND because all this is so diametrically opposed to normal, healthy parenting and childhood, that no one expects it. My husband still tries to figure out why and how my parents could have done these outrageous things. I think it's because he's trying to think like a malignant narcissist with the brain of a caring, loving person. And that is impossible. There is no excuse for them or their behavior. The only way I can frame it is to say that everything is flip-flopped. Good that the child does is labeled bad. Parents' bad, dangerous, unethical behavior is called good. And right and godly. God help the child of the religious malignant narcissist. We are well and truly screwed. 

We have no where to turn. Because even GOD was broken for us. We learned our parents were God. And so their nasty, hypocritical, self-serving, Machiavellian cruelty was our version of God. I can and have read the Bible till I'm weary and I can't erase the image of my angry, selfish, demanding, mind-fuck of a father was and is God. That my manipulative, underhanded, two-faced mother is God. That sounds blasphemous because it is. But it wasn't me preaching the blasphemy. I just had the dumb luck to be born into it. 

But to get even a fraction of this, I don't even know what to call it, garbage out of us, would be impossible. A surgeon couldn't do it with the tiniest of instruments. Because trauma is embedded at the cellular level in us. The surgeon would end up cutting out any good to get at the malignancy.  It's diffuse. Have you even seen that computer cleaning gel stuff? It's a clear polymer that collects yuck and absorbs it into itself. You cannot remove the yuck once it's inside because it's part of the gel mass now. That's how childhood trauma events are for us. Stuck.

The gel at some point will not longer be able to pick up yuck because it is saturated and no longer sticky. That's what life is for traumatized children. The constant traumatizing and retraumatizing of the childhood brain zaps its plasticity. As we age it becomes more and more set. I try to make progress healing. But I am aware that at least 70% of the yuck is stuck for good. 

And that makes me sad.