Setting boundaries with dark tetrad parents (or anyone) is not what most people think it is

 Hi friends. Today I'm exploring a critical step in healing CPTSD from dark tetrad (narcissist, exploitative, psychopathic and cruel) parents. And that is setting boundaries with them. But boundary setting is not what a lot of people think it is. It's actually not setting boundaries with other people at all. It's putting in place protective boundaries around ourselves that we maintain. It's also instituting consequences (or just allowing logical ones to occur when the narcissists (or anyone) crosses them. 

What most people think of when they think about boundaries is that they are restrictions you put on other people that they have to respect and abide by. Which is kind of narcissistic and control freaky in itself. We cannot police others' behavior or expect them to police themselves around us. Operative word being EXPECT. For one thing, it's useless. You can expect in one hand and pick berries with the other and guess which will fill up first. It's also a hypocritical power play, you know like that person who exercises no self-control while being overly controlling of others. 

Because power and control are what it's about. Owning your own power and controlling yourself. Setting boundaries means identifying what you will tolerate and allow to be done to you and what you won't. And what you will do when intolerable things occur. It's making choices for yourself that are best for you. It's about you doing you, not letting other people rule you or your behavior. It's about policing yourself. 

Does that sound a little like victim shaming? Am I saying, like my dark tetrad dad used to say to me, that it doesn't matter what anyone else does, you just have to do the right thing. No way. Because context matters with our actions. Provocation matters. If someone is hitting you and raise your hand to protect yourself (like what happened to me with my narcissistic mother) that's a whole other scenario than you just lashing out for shits and giggles the way my mom spun the story. But I am saying that you have to do YOU no matter what anyone else is doing and you  have to protect yourself. 

And that's why boundaries, especially with narcissists are so important. Those of us who have been victims of dark tetrad parents do not know where they end and we begin. We have no lines of demarcation between them and us. Nor do the narcissists. They see no end to themselves and no beginning of other people. It's ALL about them. They invade borders, enmesh with and take over everything. They firmly believe their rights don't end where ours begin. It's all theirs. 

And we have to comply as kids to stay relatively safe. Not safe, actually, just to survive. We had to let them take whatever they wanted and they wanted a lot. We had to let them hurt us. We had to smile through our pain. And then be told we were showing off for our troubles. We had no tools, options, support or way out. But that was when we were kids. Now as adults, we have options. We have a voice even though it may be rusty from lack of use. 

They will not acknowledge that however. They will continue to absorb, expect, take and boundary crash. So we have to delineate for them where they end and we begin. How far we will allow them into our territory. What we will put up with and what we won't. But again, we can't control them. And they certainly aren't going to give up any of this delusional control they feel they are owed. They aren't going to back off on the demands. So we have to take control of ourselves from them and give it back to whom it belongs to. Us. 

We do that by removing ourselves from situations in which they are hurting us. We do that by reporting their actionable behavior. By filing restraining orders, suing them or calling in the police if we have to. We do that by ceasing to kowtow to their demands. By disobeying their unethical, immoral rules. By refusing to accept unacceptable treatment of us. And we do that not so much by punishing but by negative reinforcement (removing positive reinforcement) and withholding privileges such as contact with us, they previously enjoyed from us. We build walls to keep invaders out. We cut off the funding. We stop giving till it hurts. Maybe stop giving altogether. We stop rolling over to be kicked. We have to walk away and walk out. We have to stand up for ourselves because we've been falling for everything they dished out for too long. 

They will say that this is punishment. They will cry victim. They'll say that we are the aggressors, we're being vindictive, spiteful, hateful, yada yada. But don't let them dictate terms. They're great at flipping the script back and forth to suit their narcissistic fantasy. And don't be gaslit. We aren't hurting them we're just not allowing them to hurt us. We're just getting our own selves, identity and space back. We're meeting our own needs, setting our own goals being guided by our own preferences for a change. We're making healthier safer choices. They're just pissed that they aren't getting their way. And if our choices make them feel bad, well, maybe they need to look at why they need us to be unhealthy and unsafe to feel good. Maybe they've gotten too accustomed to getting their own selfish way at our expense. Maybe they need to get their own boundaries straight and learn that they end. But they never will do that so we have to show them where we begin. 

Healing CPTSD by sorting out what we owe and who we owe it to (and what and who we don't)

Hi friends. Yesterday I wrote about healing CPTSD by debunking lies our narcissistic parents told us about what we owed them. I said that basically we owed no one anything that we hadn't voluntarily and contractually agreed to. And I realized that I missed a big piece of the puzzle. So today I'm exploring what we do owe and who we owe it to vs what and who we don't. 

Traumatized children are taught by narcissistic parents that we owe anyone and everyone anything and everything they demand of us. That we came into this world with a huge debt hung rough our necks that we will never pay off no matter how much we put into. AND hypocritically (because everything selfish parents say is hypocritical) they owe us nothing. We have to earn everything. It's all conditional on our being perfect. Which we aren't and so we never meet the conditions and go without necessities. 

So that's a lot of generalizations: everything, nothing, never, always. And my use of them is intentional. Because dark tetrad (arrogant, selfish, psychopathic, manipulative, cruel) parents deal only in generalizations. They allow no margin for error in other people. It's all and nothing: they expect all from others and give nothing themselves. They tolerate no gray area in their kids while their lives are 5,555 shades of muddy, dirty, messed up gray. They excuse nothing in their kids and everything in themselves. 

And when I say they demand everything of us kids, I mean everything. Dogged loyalty, unwavering respect, endless service, allegiance, devotion, adoration, worship, obedience, enslavement, perfection and all kinds of other unattainable bullshit. AND conversely they give none of those. It's a one-sided transaction, which is no transaction at all. Because we're receiving  nothing good in return. The thanks we get for working our asses off to meet their demands are more demands. 

We will never be able to please dark tetrads because they won't allow it. Seriously. Because they speak with forked tongues: they demand the moon but don't want us to actually get it for them because then they'd have no excuse to keep demanding. They would be satisfied. If we actually reached the bar they set for us, what would they  have to browbeat us with? So they keep moving the target  higher. Sometimes they just toss the damn thing out, set new tasks and don't tell us. This way they keep us in that blind fog of FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) hopping through hoops that are constantly shifting. 

The operative word being OBLIGATION. And oh do they weaponize it. They bullshit us into believing that we are obliged to them because we had the misfortune to be born to them. They use an arsenal of carefully crafted lies, distortions, deceptions, blame shifting and manipulations plus those constantly moving hoops to exhaust, confuse and wear us down so that we don't have the energy to think clearly let alone resist. Because they've taught us that resistance to them is sinful and wicked. They groom us to believe that self-care is SELFISH. And that care of them is our sole job. They put us into a tiny cages, on display for all to laugh at from which there is no escape nor corner to hide in. 

They steal our identity, our self, our being and feed it into the juggernaut of their own greed. They strip us bare. They pressgang us into their little cultish army whose entire work is to ever expand their control. And boom, we are well and truly fubared. We are nothing, just little empty spirits, used up and worn out. BUT still expected to serve. Oh, the endless expectations and obligations...

And the church, psychology, society, most of the rest of the world participates in gaslighting us. They remind us that it's our duty to serve, obey, be loyal to, our parents. They take our parents' part. They make excuses for our parents' evil behavior. They shame us on the rare occasions we might actually speak up. They cherry pick  Bible verses, taken completely out of context, to perpetuate the fear-obligation-guilt cycle.  They, who don't live in a dark tetrad's regime, who don't understand how abused we are, place their normal expectations on our abnormal. And we are well and try destroyed. 

So why the long explanation? I'm trying to answer pre-emptively, your question "why do you feel such fear, obligation and guilt? Why don't you just step out of the corner?" And let me just say, that if you are asking that, thank you. You get what's wrong with it. What you don't get is that we could no more stop these feelings than we could our own heartbeat. They were implanted in us and are as much a part of us as our DNA. The fear, obligation and guilt are circular and there is no way out. 

The best thing we can do is fake it and hope to some day sort of make it. AND (we're actually now getting to the point of this article, yay!) as soon as we recognize this, we can begin to sort out who and what we owe and who we don't. We can start to reteach ourselves correctly. That we do not now and never did owe them anything. That we could choose to be obedient to reasonable rules, loving to people who loved us and respectful to people who were first respectful of us. But we are under no obligation to do so. AND the love, respect, care and obedience, begins with them, not us. They, as our parents did owe us love, care, support, nurturing. The only thing we had to do to earn it was to be born to them. 

Now, what we do owe is all this to ourselves. And to all our younger selves too. We owe ourselves respect, love, care, nurturing, support, affirmation, validation, encouragement, loyalty, allegiance, and all the good stuff we never got nor learned. We need to serve ourselves first. So, you might be wondering, doesn't all this self-focus make you a bit of narcissist yourself? No because narcissists don't just serve themselves, they expect everyone else to serve them to the exclusion and deprivation of themselves. They demand what they want at others' expense. Someone has to suffer to meet their unquenchable thirst for control. They don't do for themselves they force others to. They don't meet their own needs. That's what they have kids for. 

So the next step is to take away their power. And we do that by setting boundaries around ourselves that when crossed have negative consequences to the narcissists. And that's material for the next post. 

Debunking lies narcissist parents told about our obligation to them: clearing the FOG (fear, obligation and guilt)

Hi friends. I've been thinking a lot about what's wrong with the notion of obligation, especially what's wrong about this obligation we've been told that we have to parents. Or that our kids have to us. So as you know, I'm frequently the dissident voice. And I'm going to clarify how the idea of obligation has led so many of us to so much unmerited shame and pain. My goal is to clear away the gaslighting fog of FOG (fear, obligation and guilt). And warning, this may be very triggering. 

I'll just start as I mean to continue by saying flat out that we don't owe anyone anything unless it is a contractual agreement we freely agreed to. I owe my employer my labor because I agreed to do the job  AND he also owes me payment and agreed upon in the terms of employment. I owe my husband love, support and fidelity because I agreed to in in a marriage contract. And he owes me. I owe payment for items I've purchased. And the seller owes me the items in the condition agreed upon. I owe my children love, care and support because I brought them into the world. They owe me nothing because they didn't sign up for anything. They had no part in the decision of their birth. Period. 

Now, the problem comes in for children of narcissistic dark tetrad parents who get this completely backwards. They flip the script so that the child is made to feel obligated to provide them whatever they demand WHILE they don't provide the child what is actually owed to her. They play this weird game of double dealing, lying to and deceiving the kid into thinking she endlessly owes them and they owe her nothing. They go about with their begging bowls fully expecting goodies to be dropped in them. They shamelessly steal and cheat her. 

They shame and guilt her with nonsense about all the loyalty, physical and financial support, endless help to do things they are perfectly capable of and should be doing themselves. They demand hours or exhausting service, endless time patiently listening to their tirades, back breaking labor doing for them. They terrify her with all sorts of threats if she fails to provide. They couldn't think of enough duties, expectation and burdens to saddle me with. And YET they have provided NONE of this for her. It's so bassackwards it makes me sick. And nervous, fearful, depressed, anxious and suicidal. 

Nothing is ever enough. Nothing is ever good enough. All they think about is what they deserve (which based on what they gave me is nothing but bills for all I did for them).They will publicly shame her for not spending enough on their precious babies while they give her nothing for her birthday. They come around for the free meal and then leave at cleaning up time. There's just not enough in the universe for them. They are always angry, resentful, bitter, covetous and greedy. And so as a tiny child, the little girl feels unspeakable guilt at not being able to please. And all that putrefies into sickening shame. And self-anger if that's a thing. I have hit and bitten myself in sheer frustration. I have bashed myself in the head trying to get the hurt and voices and ugliness out. 

But I have some good news too. I finally get it ( if I don't yet fully feel it). I OWE THEM NOTHING. I NEVER DID. My kids owe me nothing and I owe my parents nothing. Let me sing that refrain again. The problem isn't me. It's the fault of the selfish, self-indulgent, self-centered, narcissistic, arrogant, entitled, bullying, irresponsible, neglectful, abusive, manipulative, lazy, scapegoating, vindictive people I was born to. They messed my head up with all this nonsense. They broke me. 

But oh frabjuous day, not completely. Because I get it with my own family. I know how to treat them. I love them. I expect nothing of them and because of that and because they are just generally great people, they love me. Not because I demand it but because I loved them first. They don't love me out of fear, obligation or guilt.  They don't love me out of some misguided sense of loyalty or because it's the "right" thing to do. They love me because they know I love them. 

I've always pondered that line in "The Wizard of Oz" in which Oz tells the Tin Man (my favorite character) that a heart isn't measured by how much you love but by how much others love you. And I kind of disagree. People can only really love you if you first loved them. It is reciprocal. Just like respect. It is a two way street. It is transactional because it has to be. If only one party is doing the loving and the work, like it was with my parents, it's not real love. It's servitude. Love that is not returned, love with strings attached is not love. It's toxic. It's a mockery of love. 

All my life I've been told I had to earn things like love. And I tried so hard. I made payment after payment but never seemed to pay it off. I cleaned and cared for a home that I was mine. I invested in family that rejected me unless they wanted something from me. They withheld love and took everything from me, including my identity, my personhood and my childhood. I have existed somehow in shadows, eating the scraps under the table. I have had to be invisible until commanded to do something. I got crooked from making myself too small. They expected me to keep working toward a prize they constantly moved. And I just kept feeling like a foolish failure who couldn't get anything right, not even family. 

But the good news is that I'm beginning to see that I was never the problem. They were. I wasn't wrong, they were. I wasn't failing them, they were failing me. And this is surprisingly helpful if belated. At least if I didn't get the love and care I needed I don't have to feel like I caused it. And I can feel free now to determine for myself what my obligations are. And aren't. 

Ways to heal CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse we've been told are wrong

Hi friends, I just realized that a lot of what I do on this blog is to bust myths about childhood trauma and narcissistic parent abuse. Today I'm sharing more critical ways to heal CPTSD by doing things we've been told are wrong. These might be bad for some but for abused children, they are essential. And they fly against all conventional wisdom, Christian, psychological, etc. Some will undoubtedly sound "sinful" or unkind. And they would be but for the fact that we who lived in a dark tetrad parent regime are dealing in a whole different world than other people. We have to do things differently because all our lives we've lived with different, contradictory, hypocritical double standards. We didn't get the luxury of fair play. We were subjected unfair, cruel rules that no one else was. So that said, the rules for us now have to be different, too. Sometimes we have to make it up as we go, till we learn healthier ways. 

Blame the guilty party. We heard so much about the dangers of blaming people and because we abused kids are conscientious little beings, we would never blame mommy or daddy even if it was blatantly their fault. But if blaming is so wrong, why are mommy and daddy blaming us for their problems? Why are they making us fix what they broke? Well, a child cannot juxtapose all that with her idea of what good parents are supposed to do. She just assumes she's the problem and her parents are doing the best they can with their rotten kid. She blames herself because she's learned to. So in order to heal, we have to start blaming the ones at fault and stop blaming our innocent selves. But don't' worry, we've been so conditioned to blame everyone but ourselves, that we'll never really be able to hold them as accountable as we should. 

Resent our parents. Yep I just said that. In order to stop resenting ourselves, we have to get order of operations right. We've always heard that resentment is wrong. And us poor shell-shocked victims of narcissistic parent abuse worried ourselves sick that we might be wrongfully resenting. Just like we always worry that we're doing wrong. That it's not okay to be angry. But what we don't realize is that THEY are the angry, resentful, malicious, spiteful, vindictive ones. They've been resentful of us all our lives. We just think that their gaslighting is right. They're fine and we're just being disobedient, rebellious etc. if we don't like the mean way our parents are treating us. So the bottom line is that we take on ourselves all their anger, resentment, viciousness, maliciousness, spite, manipulation and cruelty (and dark tetrad parents have these in abundance.) And all that shame, stress and anxiety quietly kills us. The suicide rate among abused kids is shockingly high. Resenting in this case means seeing how they've harmed us and never forgetting it. This is how we get to a healthier place where we do not take their cruelty on ourselves nor allow them to hurt us anymore. 

Two wrongs sometimes make it right. How often I heard that me reacting in any way to wrongs done to me was doing wrong. My selfish parents gaslit me right into a corner with that. There was no right I could do. I couldn't get angry, defend myself, feel sad, show disappointment, cry, be hurt or God forbid retaliate. Like I would even think of doing that. I just had to smile, like it and power thru. They didn't even like that and said I was "showing off" ?!?! because, I now see, it showed up how bad they were behaving toward me. The thought of upsetting them terrified me. Still does. Problem is I didn't know then but see now that everything I did upset them. Because they were always upset and easily set off. So by that illogical logic, I have to now do what I was told was wrong, to make it a little better for me. I have to feel and express the rage, sorrow, frustration and pain. And maybe even retaliate (or what they would call retaliate) a bit, just for awhile. 

Get even. Yanno, I always wonder how it is that these self-righteous people who preach that vengeance is God's are so bloody vindictive themselves? Well that is a ruling trait of dark tetrads: hypocritical. They who are always out to get someone, by scamming, conniving and lies, cry foul if someone pays them back. In my case, they were repaying evil toward me who had never done them an evil except I guess to be born. And the little "evil" they got repaid by those they'd hurt was but a tiny down payment against all they'd done. The horrible knowledge that my parents hated me has been incapacitating at times. So what I mean by getting even is getting myself to an even keel where instead of punishing myself for them hating me,  I consider that the source were hateful, spiteful nasty people that I just had the misfortune to be born to. 

Don't forgive too quickly or maybe not at all. I would say that you'll never have to worry about this because narcissists don't apologize or admit wrong. But they can play you and they will. The funny thing with arrogant narcissists is that they speak from both sides of their mouth and always for the middle. Mine actually said they never did any wrong BUT also that I had to forgive them. Which of course is complete nonsensical hypocrisy. Why would I need to forgive if you did no wrong? And why would I if you haven't apologized. (Whew their mental gymnastics are exhausting.) How about this? I don't forgive even if you do apologize because what you expect isn't forgiveness, it's exoneration. You want to be told all the wrong you did is right. You never admit to wrong, you lie and blame-shift, you aren't sorry for anyone but yourself, you show no remorse and feel fully entitled to do exactly as you've always done. 

Hold grudges. Never forget what they did. Abused kids have never learned self-care. I was taught that self-care was selfish. I took on everyone else's wrong as my own. So we never learned that it was healthy to get righteously angry about wrong that was done to us. We were punished for having survival skills. Our  rights were consistently trampled on. Our parents threw us at hurtful people. They looked on approvingly while outrageously abusive things happened. They did outrageously abusive things. They taught me that this was God's will for me. No amount of belated, eleventh hour apologies will make up for that. If I would even ever hear them. You can forgive all you want but you must not let them keep hurting you. The only way to protect ourself from our narcissistic parents' gaslighting abuse is to keep the memory of it in our head so that when we encounter them, we will remember to get out of their path. 

Don't trust them. There are some sins which must be retained for sanity sake. And child abuse is one of them. Remember what they did and how it hurt and how they will always do that. Even if they suddenly decide that they have turned over a new leaf, approach with caution. Make them prove themselves over a long period of time, as long as the abuse went on at least. Even then, keep them at arm's length and grow long arms.  Rattlesnakes don't suddenly stop biting. Dark tetrads don't start being nice unless it gets them something. And the longer a narcissist lives among her own lies, deceit, hypocrisy, double standards, manipulations, machinations, hatefulness, remorselessness and bullying, the less likely she is to give it up. 

Confession of sin privately or to a priest only is unscriptural and it's not why you think

Okay so having written this title, let me just clarify. I am a Catholic Christian convert (raised in a variety of fundamentalists churches). The sacrament of confession (reconciliation, penance) is essential to our faith. And I just realized why I've had such a problem with it over the years since converting. Actually there are several reasons. And it's not what you think. And protestant "private confession" in your heart is an even worse problem. And it's also not for the reasons you think. I will go so far as to say that confession it's unBiblical done the way most Christians do it. 

The agreed upon reasons for not confessing sin which we're told by ministers and priests is that we are arrogant and proud. Which is kind of hypocritical because the most arrogant people I've known have been priests, ministers and clergy. They tell us we don't want to bend our stiff necks and so we believe them. We think we are always the problem and if we would just do it their way, God will be pleased. Which it leads those of us with already overactive consciences even deeper into shame and further from healing. It leads to be even more harmed by harmful people who weaponize scripture to their own ends. 

My arrogant narcissist parents loved to attack and gaslight me with all my "arrogance" "conceit" and "pride" and lack of humility.  They would humiliate me with my "sins" which were actually mistakes or things that reminded them how awful their own behavior was. They would exaggerate little things like not wanting to constantly care for their kids into huge acts of rebellion against God. They did this I now see, to shift attention off from their irresponsibility and onto me. "We're not neglecting our parental duties, no, no Mary's the one failing by not catering enough to us."  

They loudly demanded that I confess publicly all I supposedly did wrong. They took smug satisfaction in mocking and humiliating me over things that I either didn't do or that I did accidentally because they made me so nervous. Mind you they never confessed anything they did that was wrong. This is important and we'll come back to it. So hearing shame about pride from the pulpit just added to my list of sins. But in my case nothing could be further from the truth. I was always confessing my sin. Because I was told I was at fault for pretty much everything. I took the blame for everyone's bad choices even those in which I was the only one hurt by them. 

I poured out my sins to God as a good little protestant girl. I grieved over them. I gravel for forgiveness. My parents would browbeat me with all the ways I was letting them, their new partners and kids, down. So I had a lot to confess, I assumed. Although funnily enough I was never sure exactly what I had done or failed to do.  That part has always been shrouded in the confusion of gaslighting. I was already working to earn my keep, letting them take anything they wanted, putting up with all their weird, icky, dysfunctional and abusive behavior and doing all their work. But gaslighting is convincing. So I just begged God to make me a better person so I could somehow do all they expected of me. Not so they'd love me, mind. I always knew I was pathetically unlovable. 

Initially upon conversion to Catholicism, I loved the sacrament of reconciliation. I confessed all kinds of things I hadn't done that others said I did. I never gave myself the benefit of the doubt or acknowledged that most of the "wrong" I did was after unbearably antagonizing provocation. I  was afraid it would sound like I'm afraid it will sound to you, and what I was told I was doing, just making excuses. I never got any help dealing with those unbearable circumstances. I was just told to do the right thing and take it all in myself and not to worry about what others did to me. That it didn't matter if there was provocation. Which is the definition of shame and I was very very proficient at absorbing shame.

My dad would actually say "it doesn't matter what anyone does to you. You have to be perfect. The Bible says so." If I said someone else started it, they'd just say "two wrongs don't make a right" and carry on in their arrogant, irresponsible ways and letting others hurt me. No pressure there. They never once that I can recall actually helped me deal with the hurt that was being done to me.  As I look back, they were the ones drawing first blood persecuting me, expecting outrageously impossible things of me that they never did themselves and then punishing me if I wasn't complying to their unpleasable standards.  

And they themselves set terrible examples holding grudges, blaming everyone else for their choices, claiming forgiveness for sins they'd never confessed and viciously punishing anyone who crossed them.  While I just kept screwing up because I couldn't be perfect (though I will say I did a pretty damn good job trying). And I got more and more suicidal in the frustration of taking it all on myself. If I'm honest, priests and ministers have often just perpetuated the gaslighting of my narcissistic parents. They never acknowledged either that some sins come from provocation. And that needs to be dealt with first. 

And that would be bad enough. But then factor in a basic flaw with any kind of confession to someone other than the injured party or just "in private" as protestants call it. A flaw that goes against God's instruction. Simply put, we're doing it wrong if our sins have wronged another and we only tell God. And all sins hurt others. If they don't, they're mistakes or lifestyle choices. But no, instead of confessing to others we just. say we're sorry, get our absolution and go on our way "cleansed" and free. But we never CONFESS  TO THE PEOPLE WE HURT. That's not even built in to any denominational approach. But it should be. 

In fact, I've heard people say, "I don't have to tell anyone else what I did because (wait for it) I told God." If that's not a recipe for arrogant bullies to go on hurting unchecked, I don't know what is. It's also complete anathema to scripture which tells us to go and make it right with the person you wronged. HUMBLE yourself and admit the crap you put them through.  AND if all this wasn't bad enough they pompously claim to be excused carte blanche because "Jesus died for me" so how dare you question me?? Are you doubting God??

Now they have the upper hand, they believe. They can go on doing exactly as they do hurting others but it's all good because Jesus forgives sin. Some actually think that their sins are a part of God's will that they are actually obeying him with their disobedience.  No one can touch them especially not the people they have wronged. All they have to do is say they are forgiven and you have to also. They don't have to mend their ways or even actually apologize. No one can prove they didn't, they think. But we don't have to. They have proved it by their self-righteous, hypocritical entitled and wrong claim of exoneration. And by their complete disobedience to God's command to "confess to one another what you did wrong" and to "leave your gift and go confess to them." And to "go and sin no more."

Yes, Jesus died for us but we have to do our part--repenting, showing remorse, mending our ways-- or it will be in vain. Jesus has not forgiven them because they have not repented. Even just admitting you did something wrong (and arrogant people won't even do that) is only a start. Without contrition, sorrow, a statement of resolve to stop, actions to do so and making amends (penance) it's not confession. It's a joke. Jesus can forgive the penitent  but not the arrogant. And He doesn't guarantee to remove all consequences, just eternal damnation. If you stole money you'll still be arrested and charged with theft. If you committed adultery, you still will face anger, divorce, etc., confession or not. Jesus may forgive you but that doesn't mean your spouse has to or maybe even should. Especially when you don't admit, apologize and change your ways. Even then, I would be very wary of forgiving adulterous people. 

Because God doesn't even remove the consequences OTHERS suffer from our bad behavior. In the case of the "repentant" cheating husband, the wife doesn't magically feel better because he said sorry. She faces public humiliation, shame, anger, blame from family, her kids. She might even end up with STDs thanks to his messing around. Look at those pathetic-excuse-for-parents Duggars and how they blamed their daughter-in-law when their precious baby boy cheated on her! Talk about shit and shoved in it. 

My parents ill-treated me all my life and I have the scars to prove it. I trauma nightmare every single night. I have concomitant health issues: CPTSD, chronic anxiety and fear, shame, structural damage and brain damage from unmanageable stress cortisol, constant triggering of trauma responses and a host of others. None of that was taken away. And they waltz away scot free, feeling completely absolved of sin yet they never once even admitted all the wrong they did to me. Even if they did, even if I "forgave" them (whatever that means) it doesn't heal the scars. I think that's what's meant by "the sins of the fathers (and mothers) being passed down to other generations." 

They talk like it's only God they hurt. So it's only to Him they have to confess. God Himself disagrees. We hurt Him by the way we treat each other. That's why the majority of commandments, injunctions, laws, beatitudes and fruits of the spirit focus on our treatment of people. Actually, name me one that doesn't hurt others. God says that whatever we do to others we do to Him. He wants us to humble ourselves, change our hard hearts and be kind So confession to God without confession to others especially our victims is playing God for our own ends.  

Catholic confession is better, but still misses the boat if the penitent doesn't address the people he hurt. And all too often, that's not even mentioned. Even the penance doesn't address it.  It's like we who were hurt have to just accept whatever was done (and continues to be done) like it's all good because they went to confession. Or worse yet got "down on their knees before God in their little prayer closet." Neato you told God but you never told the victim.  Or you just said you told God which I think is more often the case. But you probably did is made excuses and justified your own behavior while whining about how others did you wrong. But no one will ever know because you did it secretly. Now you feel so much better, hurrah. Meanwhile I'm left with all the suffering and knowing you'll probably do it again because you have so many times before. And I'm supposed to keep hoping you'll try harder when you've just been basically told you're good to go.

Confession actually harms the victim more because now they're supposed to forgive like God when they never had even the satisfaction of the guilty party humbling himself and acknowledged how he hurt her. So still, all the work falls to the victim. She has to repeatedly suffer the consequences of others' bad choices, pretend it's not happening, keep rolling over, hoping against hope, trusting unreliable people, giving a million and one chances to someone who has proved a million and one times that they have no intention of changing. And why should they? God forgives them and has forgotten it.. So they can feel free to do likewise evidently. Funny though they can recall in vivid living color every little thing that was ever done to them. They forgive nothing.

The victim doesn't even get the respect and courtesy of being admitted to that the harm was done to her. She's told it's God that was hurt. Well, if that's the case, she wonders, why am I feeling so bad? He doesn't even have to say what he confessed and she has no to right to ask because of some "seal of the confessional" gaslighting nonsense.  

Privacy doesn't extend to the victims however and that's as per God. The sinner is supposed to confess to the injured party or it's not a valid confession.  And anyone that would use privacy as an excuse to avoid confessing to the ones they hurt, is not humble or contrite. The Bible says these acts were committed publicly (as in involving other people) so they must be confessed publicly. But again, these arrogant people don't  humble themselves. They weaponize everything to their advantage: scripture, God's law, everything is twisted to keep them on their high horse.  

They just want the absolution without the work. And then very often, because that person is already arrogant and ungrateful, they are also very unforgiving themselves. They blame other people for their bad choices. I think that's a lot of power to give someone who has not earned it and proved himself a malicious, exploitative person. 

To do the sacrament of reconciliation correctly, the priest should tell the penitent that absolution is conditional on her going to the people she hurt and confessing, apologizing and making amends to them. None of this three Hail Marys business. No disrespect to the Blessed Mother but it wasn't her that was harmed either. And I think Our Lady agrees.  She takes the part of the victims. She tells us to pay attention to her son and his Father. God says he doesn't want our sacrifices and burnt offerings, but a contrite heart. 

I know that if I  have wronged someone, you can be darn sure I won't just tell it to a priest or the wall. I go to the one I wronged because I feel sorrow for hurting them. I certainly wouldn't smugly tell them they have to forgive me if I haven't even admitted what I did to them. Actually I would never tell anyone they had to forgive me. I give them the respect of making their own choices.  Anything else is mockery of God and God will not be mocked. 

 

Why I drink too much (it's not what you think)

 Hello my friends. Today in my healing from CPTSD work, I'm exploring a bad habit I have of occasionally getting drunk. Here's why I drink too much and it's not what you think. So if you consume too much alcohol, even if you're the nicest, sweetest drunk in the world (like I am) you will very likely get scolded and probably shamed for it. Even just drinking alcohol can earn you disapproval.  There are a surprising number of people who, though keeping their mouths shut on other bad habits (especially their own), feel no qualms about telling you off for drinking, particularly getting "drunk."  It's like drinking is in a protected class from "minding your own business." 

I'm not talking about drinking and driving. That's obviously everyone's business. I'm not talking about ugly drunks who hurt people. I'm not even talking about people who say something because they genuinely care and are worried. (Though even that is a slippery slope. ) I'm talking about people just feeling entitled to comment on a kindly person having what they deem to be too much alcohol. 

You will often hear this censure from Christians because alcohol is their pet sin. They who are violence-loving, TV addicts, adulterous, gossipy, arrogant, power addicts, selfish narcissists, lying, cheating, shopaholics, overspending and in debt, thieving, hypocritical, slothful or any other of the sins listed in the Bible, will pontificate ad nauseum about the evils of drink as if that's the only sin. More often than not, they struggle with sins of gluttony or some other addiction themselves and are obese, prescription pain addicts or weed heads.  They do this because this is the one sin they don't struggle with. They love to preach against it because it keeps the focus off their sins. Which arguably drinking isn't even a sin but more of an unhealthy habit. 

And that is what my dark tetrad (narcissistic, haughty, entitled, remorseless and cruel) parents did to me all my life. They picked apart everything I did while never admitting the egregiously wrong things they did. They lied about me and said I did things I didn't. They called me lazy, selfish and arrogant when this was actually how they acted. They made be believe everything I did was wrong. BUT THEN they were also freakishly controlling of my actions, harshly punitive all while setting terrible examples. 

So I got used to being under their rigid and hypocritical thumbs. And continued doggedly trying to please them and always failing. Which is a further hypocrisy on their part. If they were ordering me around and I was doing all they said, I couldn't also be a failure. The person issuing the instructions would be in the wrong. But I never saw that and fell for their gaslighting double standards every time. 

So how did this lead to over imbibing on the booze? Because it is something I can control. If I'm always going to be accused of sinning, I may as well at least do something I enjoy. And I like wine. And what I enjoy never hurts anyone unlike their horrible addictions to power, control and bullying. My parents sins hurt me and pretty much only me. Oh they'd be quick to say they were the injured parties. But they aren't. 

I got the brunt of everything: their divorce, neglect, physical abuse, refusing to hold down jobs and still making me do all the housework, remarriage, abandoning me, having more kids and then expecting me to take care of all of them (including all the parents), infidelity, cheating, stealing, lying, slander, two-facedness, backstabbing and a host of other wretched actions. I'm very damaged, physically and emotionally, because of it. 

Since I can't make sense of all this cruelty, I try to quell the memories.  I can't wrap my head around how parents could treat their child like this. I dream about it all night long. So a part of why I drink is also to quieten down the stress and horror . To make their nasty, shaming voices a little less "loud." I've tried the antidepressant Paxil and that just make things worse. I'm not saying alcohol is the answer but I do need less pain. It's out of control and I can't manage it. 

I believe that getting some healing is the important thing here. And that's one of many things that the fault-finders don't take into consideration. WHY is a person drinking so much? It's hurting only me in the occasional headache. Perhaps some other physical issues, too. Even in my choice of bad habits, I'm still picking one with consequences only for me. Actually my mom should be grateful as it gives her (in her mind) more to be self-righteous and smug about.  Shouldn't we be more concerned about the pain that led her to it, instead of just wagging their fingers at her? 

Am I saying it's my parents fault I drink too much?  Yeah, in a way. If they'd raised me in a kinder, less self-centered way, if they'd not pinned all their faults on me, if they'd not blame-shifted and made me suicidal with shame, I might not need to shut out these hurtful behaviors. And sometimes it's just because I'm having fun and not feeling miserable for a little while. 

Am I defending my right to drink? Naww, I've never defending much of anything I did wrong even if I hadn't done it. I've been everyone's scapegoat all my life. But I am trying to put it in perspective. For those of you who are truly concerned about me, please, get the right end of the stick. Me having occasionally too much to drink is only the tip of the iceberg. The alcohol may be dangerous but it's the chronic CPTSD that is killing me. 

Different Rules for children vs. adults in relationships with narcissists

 Hello friends. In my quest to heal CPTSD from narcissistic dark tetrad parent abuse, I find a lot of info for adults in relationships with narcissists but very little written for adult children of narcissists (ACON). So I'm trying to correct that. Because rules for helpless children in these toxic and dysfunctional relationships are somewhat different than those for adults who enter willingly into them. No blame or judgement to anyone. Just fact. 

First thing, pretty much all advice on relationships with narcissists is predicated on the idea that adults have control over who they choose to be with. Children, of course, do not. So adults have tools and resources available to them that kids don't. In fact some of the actions recommended to adults would be dangerous let alone pretty much impossible for children to do. 

We can't just walk out. Where would we go? We can't tell anyone because they have gaslit us into thinking that all the vindictive, selfish, controlling, manipulative and cruel things they do are normal. Or that no one would believe us if we did tell. Which of course is a contradiction: if they are doing nothing wrong, why would our story not be accepted? However we don't get that till we're adults and the window for help has closed.

Pity that. It would have only taken one caring, responsive adult. They might not have saved us from it but they could have shaved off years of CPTSD recovery helping us see that it wasn't our fault. That this was NOT normal, healthy loving parenting but dark tetrad exploitation and abuse. But then no one talks to kids about the neglect and harm they are experiencing. No one wants to know. And everyone defends the parents: they didn't know better, didn't want to interfere, were helpless, yada yada. So grownups with resources to help left a  truly helpless kid to deal alone. 

So I digress. But it does underscore my point that adults have options kids don't. They can call out wrong that they see. They have options if they choose to stay. They can do things like grey rocking (ignoring, playing dumb).  If a child ignored or disengaged from the dark tetrad parent there would be hell to pay. If the child even knew she could which most of us didn't. Adults can separate and divorce  from each other. Kids can't. 

And actually my narcissistic parents' divorce made life 2x worse for me. They left me to deal with this alone and waltzed off only to pick up with equally selfish people whom they parentified me to and made me slave for as well. But if you don't know that parents are supposed to be loving not hateful, you certainly don't know that "stepparents" are supposed to be as well. You just accept that now you have four bullying bossy control freaks to deal with instead of just two. 

Some other bits of advice that kids easily misunderstand and get wrong because parents twist them, is 1) not to personalize the narcissists' attacks and 2) don't JADE (justify, answer, defend or explain). That sounds good in theory but dark tetrad parents completely eff this up for kids. They WANT their kids to personalize their attacks. They call their self-righteous, hypocritical, self-serving bullying "discipline" and woe to any child who doesn't heed his parent's correction, right? In fact, if you don't take their chastisement personally they call you disobedient and they up their game, making attacks more insidious, vicious and personal. If you cry, you're being too sensitive and can't take criticism. But if you don't grovel and fawn, you're being arrogant and proud. There is no fucking winning with these shitty people. 

And about the JADE. This actually works well for adults in  narcissistic relationships but for kids, it's impossible and dangerous. Just like narcissistic parents demand you take their criticisms personally, they demand justification and explanation. They stand you in a corner and fire accusations and lies at will. If you do defend yourself, they then fault, shame, blame shift and punish you. But you'd better offer it just the same or you're not taking them seriously. If you stay quiet, you're "showing off" and being "arrogant" and if you answer you're "talking back" or "sassing" or (my  mother's favorite) "being lippy." ( I can't hear that phrase without wanting to retch. Or hit something.). It's a Catch-22 that kids like me have been in so often that we are brain damaged from all the stress, gaslighting and abuse cortisol. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't. 

Advice to get counseling may work  great for an adult but good luck to children. A narcissistic parent is not going to pay someone to tell her child that she is being abused. And then there are the flying monkey "counselors" (often "Christian") who aid the parent's gaslighting by telling the child  that what the parent is doing is fine and that God calls the child to obey them.

My dad and his wife did get counseling for me. But only to prove what a bad child I was. These venomously angry people who hated each other, said that I needed anger management. Like that was  going to fix the mess they  made of their lives. They sent me to a minister so he would shame me into what I don't know. I was so overly subservient, obedient and even  obsequious already. I already felt worthless and suicidal.  I let them scapegoat me into taking all their problems on myself. So I don't know what further shame he could have wreaked on me. 

It's funny, I don't have a clear recollection of what we talked about or what he said. I have a vague notion it was something like me not acting like this rebellious kid I was painted to be. And maybe even something about me being the injured party. But I wouldn't have heard that through their FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) fog. And the parents would have made sure I didn't hear of it if  he'd confronted them. I do know I wasn't taken back. And he probably did give them a talking to because they only got worse after my visit. Still, I hope he did chew them out. It didn't do me any good but it gives me great pleasure to imagine their machinations coming back to bite them. Is that vindictive? AF and proud of it. 

Because that's another rule that doesn't apply to kids of narcissists. Adults are told not to be vindictive, that somehow the universe will sort them in the end. Umm, not sure about that but I know from a child's perspective, you have to be vindictive. Not that you punish or hurt them. That won't make you feel better BUT you do have vindicate yourself. They will define your self-care as punishing them because they want to keep you sick and enslaved to them. So you have to define for yourself what vindictive means. To me, it's putting the blame and responsibility for their behavior back where it belongs, on them. You have to stop shielding them from consequences of their choices and taking the guilt on yourself. If that means they are arrested for child abuse or neglect, well, that's logical consequences. 

So what should children do who live under the tyranny of narcissistic dark tetrad parents? Find a trusted person and tell them. If you're not sure it's abuse, ask someone. Look at how other kids around you live. You may not know all that goes on behind closed doors but you can see if their parents love them or use them. 

My parents' and their partners' behavior put up SOOOOO many red flags I was stumbling over them. It was patently obvious to everyone but me that my life was very broken. My one grandmother tried to help but the rest buried their heads in the sand. For being so ultrareligious they didn't  have the courage to confront or help me. Which is probably a big part of how my parents got so entitled and irresponsible and above it all. Unchecked arrogance is a wildfire that destroys everything in its path. Especially the poor little kids. 

And to adults who witness kids being treated like this, you may not be able to fix it for them but that shouldn't stop you at least reaching out in love. Acknowledge their feelings and admit that you see the problems too. Remind them it's not their fault and that you love them. As I've said before, it would have only taken one supportive person to make a difference in my life.