How traumatized daughters of narcissist parents carry the holiday mental load

 Hello my friends. My most recent post was about how traumatized daughters of narcissist parents grow up carrying the mental load. Today I'll give some examples, related to the holidays and other situations in which we daughters take on everyone else's burdens, into adulthood. Actually, I say situations, but it's not situational. It's constant. We can't not get out of the fix-it role. 

Take Christmas for example. How many years I coordinated it all: decorations, cookies, homeschooling activities, food prep, gift buying, wrapping, party planning, hosting, getting to church, planning the church pageant, delivering cookie trays, caroling, going to the nursing home, getting kids' costumes, navigating guests, juggling, making cards, prepare food baskets, get Giving Tree gifts, writing the letter, mailing, get up at the ass crack of dawn to open presents (while he laid in bed and complained about how early it was) set up, tear down. And all I heard was whining when it was time to take the tree down. That I did alone. He had one job and even that I didn't expect of him: get me a present. And he waited till the last minute and then had to go off "on his own" (meaning leaving all the kids with me, AGAIN) to get something I didn't even want. By Jan. 12 I was sick with exhaustion. 

And I don't even have a selfish husband. I have just taken on the mental load since day one of the relationship. I never put  my foot down except to go and do whatever thing I was expected to do. I felt guilty because in this Wonderland I created, one thing wasn't to specs. Because I have lived all my life jumping through narcissist parent hoops that always moved just when I got it right. 

And I taught my husband what to expect. When he can't find something in the house he has lived in for 25 years and which is not that big, he yells to ask me where it is. If I say I don't know, he gets mad. Because "things are always moving." On their own volition. It seems we have a poltergeist. When he can't find something in the fridge (because he has what I call layer blindness. He can only see the first row because  he is too lazy to actually look behind the ketchup bottle. So he calls me. To look at the same thing he's seeing. And the funny thing is, I always know where it is. Unless he has put it back wrong. 

And even then I can find it. I have to in order to, wait for it, keep that illusory peace. Which is no peace at all. Because he feels stupid (as well he should) but takes it out on me. If I suggest he look he accuses the foods of moving. If I say no, he gets mad. If I suggest he look, he accuses me of patronizing him. So one way or another, he gets me to do his work. This is the end game of weaponized incompetence. 

And we laugh but it's not really funny. It's debilitating to me. I have all these voices in my head already, that are memories of narcissistic parent nonsense about how I'm too selfish, lazy, sensitive, Should be more responsible, yada yada. So when I sense tension, I'm hypervigilant to stave it off. All my anxieties, placating, soothing and people pleasing goes into overdrive.  AND THEY KNOW THIS. That's why they do it. To trigger me into rushing to fix. They might as well come right out and say "you'd better give us what we want or you'll suffer." 

So the tricky part for me, is to call their collective bluff. To do the unthinkable and say "no." To ignore their demands of help with things they don't need help with. To not hear the pouting. To turn a deaf ear to their bleating complaints. And, the hardest part of all, for me, to not get activated when they get mad. To not accept the blame they are shifting onto me. To set boundaries for  myself and honor them. To not let them get to me. To stand firm so I don't fall for anything.  

To do this, I have to let myself imagine, what is the worst they can do? This part has been terrifying to the point of crippling for me. My narcissist parents and their narcissist new spouses had this way of inflicting nauseating fear into me, from childhood. They made me believe that the worst they could do was so bad that I shouldn't dare contemplate. Bullying cowards are like that. 

I have to laugh at this new aphorism thingy you read on people's T-shirt's about "Faith Over Fear." AS IF I could ever show no fear. Chance would be fine thing. All this "courage" would have gotten me was more kicking. And when you grow being so bullied that you don't dare not be afraid, you're pretty screwed in adulthood. 

But my husband, pointy-headed though he can be, at times, is not a bully. He is a decent, loving person  who struggles with a lot of shame and self-doubt. Which I probably trigger in him, just by being in his life. Not my fault. Just how it is. So I can actually talk back to the voices in my head and ask what's the worst he would do? Find the cheese for himself? Sure he might be annoyed. But chances are good that it's not me but himself he's annoyed with. 

And as for Christmas. What's the worst that can happen if I refuse to do this or that? It doesn't get done or someone else does it. What would happen if I told whomever was asking me about holiday plans, to ask my husband? They would or wouldn't. If they got angry, we'd all survive.  What if I said no, you can't go to the store at the last minute leaving me with everything. He'd pick a fight or he'd comply. Or the everything else wouldn't get done. 

But one thing for sure that will happen is that I will get healthier. Because I will not be at the mercy of someone else's demands. I will begin to feel less FOG (fear, obligation and guilt). I will begin to make choices about what I do and don't do, instead of letting others call the shots for me. If I makes mistakes or get it wrong, so what? Everyone does. And I'll have a much better chance at getting it right, listening to my own inner wisdom rather than someone else's self-serving domineering. 

How traumatized kids, particularly daughters, of narcissist parents end up carrying mental load

Hello my friends. I've just recently learned the term "mental load" but I realized I've carried it all my life. Before I knew the word or in fact there was a word. Before I understood how dangerous it was to carry it alone. And especially that it was NOT a child's responsibility to carry it for the adults called parents in her life. I'm also beginning to see how many of us traumatized kids of narcissist end up carrying everyone's load, all through our lives. Particularly the daughters, as we become wives and mothers. 

It all began with what B.F. Skinner called "operant conditioning." In this model, behaviors are shaped by removal of positive or punishment for undesirable acts while good ones are encouraged with positive reinforcement. In healthy families, the desired behaviors are good for child and parents. In families ruled by narcissist parents, the behaviors desired are only good for the parents. Well, good in the sense of self-serving, at the child's expense. Narcissist parents are condition their kids to take care of them and NOT to take care of themselves. Self-care, self-advocacy, healthy, normal kid behaviors are punished. 

They groom us from infancy to tend to them as if they were the children and we were the parents. They change positions with us. From childhood we act in loco parentis. Before we even know how, we are carrying what is rightfully their mental load as well as our own. We perform their duties, worry about things they should be concerned about and deal with all the things they don't want to. We cover for their irresponsible, immature, even unethical and immoral behavior. They guilt, shame and coerce us into feelings of obligation to them far beyond our years and well past anything we truly owe them. 

In adulthood (or what passes for adulthood in children of narcissists) we just continue these patterns. We care for everyone, adult and child. We stress over things that aren't our worry. We feel responsible to and for everyone in our sphere. We're the ones setting and getting up with alarms while the adults sleep through them. We get everyone to church on time, remember the birthday present for the classmate's party, bake the cookies for the Boy Scout troop and make sure there's toilet paper. We ignore our own pain so we can listen to and shoulder someone else's (who never, by the way, listen to ours in return). 

Our narcissist parents bread crumb us, stringing us along with tiny scraps of love, care and nurture, that barely sustain. If our self-centered parents deign to include us, or happen to say a not terrible thing, we bubble over, effusively pouring ourselves out for them, to feed their narcissistic supply. If they confide in us, no matter how icky or inappropriate the confidence (like my mother dumping her sex life woes on me), we rejoice that they've counted us worthy to share. We're grateful for the opportunity to "lighten poor dad's load." As they've taught us is our responsibility (it's not). And yet when we need them, for appropriate kid things, it's crickets from them. 

We get so used to no reciprocity of good, that when if it happens, it feels like a feast. It's not. It's picking shit with the chickens. Meanwhile we're expected to "see to it" things get done that the adults are supposed to see to. We don't have the faintest idea how to do many of the things they demand. Like co-sleeping with babies so parents can "get their sleep." A 10 y/o has no idea how to navigate a crying child. So she just worries herself sick. Lays awake waiting, checks for breathing, trauma nightmares from disturbed sleep. While the child's parents snooze blissfully.

We delve into their interests as if they were our own. We take on their beliefs and echo their opinions. We dutifully attend their rants, even if it is causing us ulcer flare-ups. We get used to them shooting down our ideas if they happen to deviate in any way. We feel massive shame for even thinking differently. Even if we're bloody well thinking and saying the same damn thing! Just not in the way the narcissist insists we must say it. 

We ignore and talk down our own ideas and pretty soon forget we ever had any. We support, encourage and fund their hobbies at our own expense.  We listen to them drone on about whatever their pet thing is. We accept their insults about how they're "not interested" in what we are and "it's boring." (It took me till 61 to realize that my interests were no more boring than my dad's. We bow in humiliation when they shame us for our passions. We let them tell us that this is or that thing we like is "of the devil." 

I once let a mom's group leader shame me for wanting my daughter to perform a ballet piece at the talent fair, saying "dance is evil because it shows the body." When I brought up her daughter playing basketball, she said "that's different because they do it for God." (!) Thanks Dad, for that toxic shame you planted in me, that made me keep quiet and not tell her just what I thought of her nasty comments about my daughter.  

And then begins phase 2 operant conditioning. We are so used to being and doing for everyone that we set up expectations in others by being too reliable. We absorb all their expectations and teach them to  demand from us. We never let anyone down, even people who routinely let us down. And by doing this we operantly condition them to demand too much of us and too little from themselves. We don't take care of ourselves when bullies like the homeschool mom, insult us. We peace keep when there's no peace to be kept. We auto-gaslight ourselves that things are our responsibility that aren't. That we have no choices. That whenever anyone tells us to do something we have to comply. We teach people to boss us around and walk on us. 

And pretty soon the entire mental load is on our shoulders and we're crumbling under it. We have to come up with answers, suggestions and solutions for problems we didn't cause. Everyone texts us to get info on stuff we have no authority over and then blames us when we can't magically make it happen. We let ourselves be made the middle woman, Shell Answer Lady, complaints and fix-it department, social events coordinator, inventory monitor, on and on. 

We defer to everyone and make excuses for them. Even though we're expected to plan something, we don't dare actually express a preference. Or do something without "running it by" someone else. Raise your hand if you've been in the invidious position of having to make something happen single-handedly, while still asking for input and THEN fielding complaints about the very thing you were left to plan alone?? They don't to do the work, just the bitching about it. 

The most bewildering, destabilizing and poisonous form of narcissist parent abuse, part 2

Hello my friends. Yesterday I wrote about the most baffling and cunning form of narcissist parent abuse. Which to me, is the betrayal. I then explained how this betrayal makes me feel: perpetually confused, nervous and fearful. Rereading, I see that I went on to describe the confusion this caused more than the actual forms this abusive betrayal takes.  So today, I'll discuss how malignant narcissist parents betray their children and how this is the most bewildering, destabilizing and poisonous form of narcissist parent abuse. 

Exploitation of parent role.  Parents care for their kids. The words are almost synonymous: parent=nurturing. Everyone knows this, including narcissists. They take advantage of their role as parents and the expectations that come with it. They know that parents are supposed to care for their children. But narcissist parents care only for themselves. They take, they don't give. But because hurting children is so alien to the concept of parent, narcissists are able to hide their abuse behind their understood role of caregiver. You'd be surprised at how many people are misled by these folks into thinking that because they hold the title of parent they must be doing the work. Narcissist are no more parents to their children than a person wearing a bear mask is a bear. So often, us poor children of narcissists are gaslit, not only by our parents but by society which tells us, "well she IS your mother. He IS your dad." No actually they're not. It's a fake ID. They wear the badge of parent only to get things FROM the child (loyalty, love, respect, caregiving, support, a scapegoat, a shield), most of which are not the child's job to provide. Some are even dangerous to the child to give. Meanwhile the parent deprives and denies the child basic things that actually ARE their responsibility to give and which the child needs to survive. I think this might be the most insidious form of narcissist parent betrayal.  

Double dealing parent-child role reversal (parentification) As narcissistic parents ditch their responsibilities to their children, they also twist the relationship again, teaching the child that she is actually responsible TO and FOR them. They groom her to think she owes them all kinds of weird inappropriate "duties" that they have preordained and which are completely out of line in normal parent-child relationships. And which they were never obligated to perform as children (at least in my parents lives). They had relatively normal childhoods while mine couldn't be any more odd. And then, as if it could get any worse, malignant narcissist parents twist again by infantilizing the child, shaming her for normal child behavior and exaggerating any mistake into a capital crime. Behavior, might I add, that they ROUTINELY ENGAGE IN as ADULTS!! So childish acts are fine for grownups but not for the actual child, the actual child learns. Children abused like this by malignant narcissist parents would not know normal childhood if it bit them in the butt. 

Purposely harming child. Narcissist parents play on their role as parents for their own selfish ends. It may or may not hurt the child. Malignant narcissist parents ALWAYS must hurt the child with their selfish behavior. They aren't satisfied with just getting their way. It HAS to come at the child's expense. And they go out of their way to hurt, when it would be easier not to. My mother purposely cheated me on a junk car which she suckered me into buying from her. And then triangulated and lied that my husband said she could have my good car. She told him the same things about me.  She knew perfectly well it was a lemon when they bought it. They didn't even want it and flipped the title selling it to me. Which I was fined for. Comparing notes, my husband and I see now that her sole purpose was steal my car and stick me and her grandkids with a dangerous one.  Again, a lot of people miss this abuse because what kind of parent does that?? It goes against all that parenting stands for. 

Sadistically scoring off the child. In the case with my mother,  it wasn't enough for her to rob me. She literally had to make me bleed to feel good. This is the cruel, sadistic part of malignant, sociopathic narcissist parents. They enjoy their child's pain. They get off on it. They set the child up to fall by denying basic necessities which strip resources and leave her vulnerable. They orchestrate scenarios to humiliate the child. They TAKE OTHER PEOPLE'S PART AGAINST THEIR OWN CHILD. They believe spiteful lies about her and perpetuate them. I can still feel the sucker punch, the nausea, the sharp pain and windedness from these ambushes. Which is of course, completely contrary to loving parents who treasure and uplift their child, not beat them down. They rejoice at their in their children. They aren't jealous of and constantly seeking to sabotage them. But again, the narcissist parent plays on this to gaslight the child that she's imagining it or too sensitive. If I had a dollar for every time I hear that...

Violating parent-child trust relationship and then doubling back on the child. This one is so bizarre. My malignant narcissist parents broke faith with me repeatedly. Actually they never were trustworthy at all. They willfully abandoned and endangered me. They left me with unsafe, predatory people. My mom and her boyfriend would jeer at me for my trauma responses that THEY had created. My dad and his wife would shame me for trying too hard to please and then rail at me for failing to please them.  And yet I trusted in them, because that's what kids do in normal relationships. And THEN they confiding highly inappropriate things in me: my mother shared intimate details of her sex life and my dad frequently told me, beginning at 5, how he was planning to commit suicide. I was their toxic waste dump. 

Breaking confidence So good parents know that secret keeping is unhealthy when it's a child keeping an adults secrets. But they also teach the child that it's perfectly alright to keep some things private and that adults have a duty to respect that privacy. If they do have to share secrets they explain why and they only tell people who can help, like a doctor. Narcissist parents tell a child's secrets, not to help them, but for personal gain. They backstab, invent lies and spread malicious gossip about their children, especially the scapegoat, for attention and because they enjoy the discomfort it causes the child. And again, they weaponize the parent role to gaslight the child. Because what kind of parent does that? No one will believe you, they say. You're just framing me. (DARVO). Well come to find out after 61 years of believing such nonsense, these nasty behaviors are EXACTLY what a narcissist parent does. It's as if they read from the  manual. 

Self-serving "snooping" Not only does the narcissist parent break confidences, she actively goes looking for private details. Diary reading, eavesdropping, going through a child's possessions looking for somethings to steal or manipulate. I caught my mother going through my purse several times. She doesn't do this to help the child but to hurt her and thereby help herself. Yes you read that correctly. Malignant narcissist parents get ahead by walking on their kids. They only "win" if someone else loses. 

Faking concern. This might be the most insidious form of weaponized parenting. Normal parents care about their children. When the child shares something, a good parent tries to help. With narcissist parents, it's completely the opposite. They mimic caring words but have no genuine concern. They only do this to elicit confidences from the child which they then exploit for their own use. They gather,  compile and store data to retrieve when they need it. They use it to blackmail, extort and coerce the child at their convenience. 

Giving a little, expecting a lot.  Piggy-backing on the feigned concern is weaponized giving narcissist parents do. They do not  do for the child because they're parents and that's what parents. They they tally these things up and then present the child with a bill, in form of ridiculous expectations and with usurious interest.  Narcissist parents have a very skewed bookkeeping system with heavy entries in the child's debt column and nil in the credits. They groom the child to believe that they owe her nothing while she owes them everything. However they don't outright tell the child that payment will be required for the things they provide. Which never amount to anything like what the child should just get because she is their child. The child did not know that she was entering into any transaction or that she should get anything from it. 

Company store conditions. I learned too late never to accept anything a narcissist has to give as it will come with invisible price tags. Gifts come back to bite. Living with these people is like working for a place with a company store in which all items must be purchased at unaffordable prices. You end up paying all your wages and the debt just rises. Because narcissist parents believe their children owe them not only their service but their lives and soul. 

These random acts of cruelty are just part of the nightmare of narcissist parents. For me, they were probably the most bewildering, destabilizing and poisonous. 

The most bewildering, exhausting and malignant form narcissist parent abuse

 Hi friends. I'm absolutely exhausted, physically and emotionally. I hurt everywhere. My back, hands, neck, shoulders, hips and feet ache. My mind aches. I spend a great deal of time in that rundown, uncomfortable state. I haven't had a super busy day. My nights are actually busier with the endless trauma nightmares. But just moving takes more energy than I have. I've been unable to keep my eyes open since about 5 pm. And this is just one component of CPTSD from narcissist parent abuse. Decades of dealing with it have worn me down. 

And do you want to know the most pernicious, bewildering, malignant and draining form of narcissist parent abuse? Among the many ways they hurt us, the betrayal is the worst. The set-ups, sucker punches, backstabbing, spiteful digs, unexpected ambushes and sneak attacks. They way they purposely behave toward us in hateful passive-aggressive, nasty ways, to corrode our sense of self and erode any confidence we may have is just mind-boggling. I would say that confusion, with its concomitant fear and anxiety, might be the most prevalent feeling. 

Malignant narcissist parents don't just inadvertently confuse their children. They go out of their way to. My four narcissist parents (two bio and two step) put me in needlessly chaotic situations on a regular basis. They left me with strangers not saying where they were going or when they would be back. They quit jobs on a whim without making financial provisions. They brought in a succession of new people into my life as parents and siblings. They moved very frequently and uprooting me. I've lived or stayed in 42 different places, 39 of which in the first 22 years of my life prior to marriage. At least 8 were squatting situations in which we lived with other people. I attended eight different schools. I come home from school only to be told to pack because we're moving. Or that I was being moved in with this or that family member. 

I was the only child of my parents and the only one that experienced this chaos. Their new families had consistency. I was just sort of an after thought. Except not even that, because I was very much expected to care for all these people as well. They only remembered I was there when they wanted something. and they demanded a lot. As if I was the adult and parent, not the child. And they were the selfish, willful, immature kids. I've spent a lot of time giving from resources I don't have. My parents made choices based on their new families' needs, never on mine. As my husband said I was shoved from pillar to post and then back to pillar. I never had a regular source of basic necessities like food, shelter, a bed or medical care. I had few possessions and those I had seemed to disappear without warning. 

This deprivation was not normal for the time nor places I lived. No one in my social or family group lived with anything like this. My PARENTS didn't do without. All four had plenty of nice things, food to eat, clothing, medical care, even hobbies. I always believed them when they said "we're poor." So I would do without, thinking that was helping "the family." It took me 50  years to realized the family had plenty of money, just not for me. Which made it even more impossible to explain. You just don't expect one kid to be singled out like this. This kicking to the curb, happens a lot unfortunately, in "blended" families to only child of first marriages. I don't really care for that word because so often they aren't blended and there's a lot of exclusion, favoritism and scapegoating. 

Even loving extended family misses it, sometimes. I never do. I can spot an excluded neglected "step kid" a mile away. Now. It's taken me a lifetime to see its effects in me. But looking back, I can see them now. They include:

Non-existent self-care skills. I remember, starting around 10, being invited places and never knowing to pack a suitcase because I didn't have a suitcase to pack. I wasn't used to being provided for. I only knew that if I needed something as simple as sunscreen, Midol for periods, sanitary pads, winter boots and gloves. I had to provide it for myself. And my part time job during school didn't cover those so I went without. I remember getting hives at a slumber party because my mom hadn't bothered to wash the new PJs I got for Christmas. Then she was off and a date and the girl's mother couldn't locate her so she could come and get me. That girl's mom was more concerned for me than my mom who was only concerned about being with her current boyfriend. And who knew where my dad was. 

Having to do for yourself too young and not knowing how. This is part of the confusion I spoke of. No parent helped me through any situation I encountered, as I recall. It wouldn't have occurred to me to ask, even the simplest of things all kids ask their parents for. Or don't even need to because the parent is involved. I, on the other hand, was taught that my only concern should be for my (their) family. Of which I wasn't even a part. I was just "allowed" to live with them as if parenting me was an option. 

Only knowing people pleasing and caring for others. Funnily enough, I knew very what other people needed. I've lived under a weight of obligation and expectation. I've known how to change a diaper since I was 9. I was potty training my mom's foster kids and cleaning up their accidents around age 10. I was rocking the babies to sleep. I've cooked, cleaned, bathed their kids, babysat, co-slept with their kids, washed dishes, ironed, vacuumed, dusted, mopped (on hands and knees) their things since around that age too. There wasn't much they had to do for themselves. And they did nothing for me. I was given cast offs including a pillow with a needle in it. No joke. I slept on an unheated porch through a Michigan winter because my welfare dependent mother bought her deadbeat husband a hobby farm with my child support and it wasn't big enough to house her children. 

Being easily taken advantage of. And on that note, back to the confusion. You don't know unless someone tells you, that this isn't childhood, it's child exploitation. And endangerment. Now years later, I trauma dream and have all kinds of chronic pain issues from sleeping cramped up on a cot in the baby's room. Or from doing mountains of  ironing. And having to scale snowbanks to take frozen diapers off the line in winter. None of this my stepmother did for herself or her children. Why would she when she had me to order around? 

Disabled. I started with early onset arthritis around age 21, from overwork and neglected follow up care of congenital hip dysplasia. Instead of taking me for check ups after being braced, they dragged me to Alaska and made me sleep on the floor. They didn't even see to it I was safe and left me to wander downtown in unfamiliar places. They didn't get treatment for my ongoing strep throat and it went septic. They didn't have my eyes checked till I was almost blind. I got frequent headaches from an untreated broken cheekbone and concussion. 

Destabilized and inept. As if adolescence isn't hard enough, having to care for four narcissist parents and their children made it hell on earth. I didn't know that what I was feeling was misery, shame, humiliation and guilt, but I do now. It shows in my pictures. That confusion, born of neglect and abuse, comes from not understanding why these people who call themselves your parents seem so angry with you all the time. When you are doing all their work? And why your life looks so different than everyone else's. You just never seem to get it right and your parents are the first to remind you of that. They nitpick and criticize everything. Pleasing them, an impossible task, becomes your only agenda. 

Too tired to think clearly. The confusion makes you tired. The deprivation drains you. The constant demands and tapping out of your resources makes it hard to process situations. I used to say I had dyslexia because I've had so much trouble just remembering  basic things or keeping things straight. My parents used to joke that I was "forgetful" and clumsy. Humph. I wish I could forget what they did to me. And I wasn't clumsy, I was bent and twisted from too much manual labor too young.  And my vision was shot to hell through lack of proper vision care. 

But I'm not confused anymore. I know what happened, that it did happen and why. Malignant narcissist parents purposely deprive you to keep you weak, to break down your resistance. They retard you, lie to you and gaslight you, to keep you bewildered. They render you useless for anything but service. Just trying to get a few minutes between chores which no one else has, to do your homework is almost impossible. Because they want you to fail at school so you'll never amount to anything and have to stay and care for them. They make you think you're a failure at relationships. They pot stir to break up your relationships. They set you up. They spread rumors and start smear campaigns. They flirt with your boyfriend to sow seeds of discontent. They lie and say your husband hit on them to triangulate, make you jealous, humiliate you and hopefully cause a divorce because that way they wont' feel so badly about getting one themselves. 

All this is self-serving and goal-oriented. They weaken your resistance, and damage your brain so you think you're dependent on them. They think you'll come crawling back, weak and exhausted and they'll have you where they want you. Just saying, I'd live on the street before I'd ever go back to them. That is not coming home. There never was a home. It's just re-upping for another tour of duty with them. 

One way out of this fog, is to know that it's not real. They've created it, not just with gaslighting but with gassing you. We aren't weak, or helpless, or dependent on them. Hell, they were never there for us!! They were dependent ON us! They just miss the free stuff we gave. Your parents called. They want their unpaid staff back! 

We are more than enough. We owe no one anything. We gave already, for more than we should have. They took more than we gave. What we need to do with give ourselves what we were deprived of: rest, nourishment, care. Once we have better resources, we'll see their chiaroscuro they've painted us in, for what it is, exaggerated, orchestrated and artificially created for effect. Essentially, all smoke and mirrors. 

Gaslighting holiday games narcissist parents play when you've gone no contact

Hello my friends. Recently I wrote about what inevitably happens to aging narcissist parents. And one biggee is that many people limit or cut contact because they are so toxic. Today in my quest to heal from narcissist parent abuse, I'll discuss gaslighting holiday games they'll play to suck you back in, if you go no contact. Yes I said holiday games. Because they specifically manipulate the holiday season, when people are more vulnerable. 

Gift-giving Gotcha. Beware of narcissists bearing gifts. Like the Trojan Horse, a narcissist's gift will have a double self-serving purpose. And the obvious nice part is nullified by the nasty surprise hidden inside. My mother gave me money for rent saying it was a gift. Later, she changed her tune saying it was a loan. She lied and said I'd agreed which I hadn't but that's gaslighting for you. She demanded not only repayment but also interest. 

Family Word Games. Malignant narcissist parents play fast and loose with the words like family, parents and siblings. They define them as it suits. Your mom's boyfriend is your stepdad but only for the bossing around and taking part, not the giving care. You're supposed to do for them because "we're family." But when they do for you, even as a little child, it's a transaction which you owe for. My dad called his wife my stepmother. She never cared for me but I was expected to wait on her. She, with my dad's approval, said they'd allow me to live with them (like it was optional) but under the condition that I do all kinds of ridiculous, inappropriate and harmful housework. My mom's jobless husband was on board for the free house over which he ruled, funded by my child support and job. Their new kids are your siblings that you are responsible for. Neither they nor your parents are responsible to or for you. 

Financial Flip-Flop Frolics. When narcissist parents give you things, it's a loan or has strings attached. When you give them money it's a gift. And they don't borrow, they demand or steal. Like how my mom stole my college savings from grandparents. Then she continued to pocket my child support to fund her shiny new family while I had to get a job at 15 to buy basic essentials Then they  kicked me out of the house. But any "gift" of money from them always has lots of strings. Like the rent which she twisted Which of course, if I'd known it was a loan, I'd have paid it back sooner so as not to accrue interest. Which is how I know she was scamming. She waited to collect so there would be more interest. 

Christmas present shuffleboard. Nothing is simple or genuine with narcissist parents. Especially at Christmas which seems to bring out the worst in them. It's a big exhausting guessing game. They give only to get. They give you a bunch of junk you don't want or need and didn't ask for. Then pout because you didn't get them what they wanted. They give you a $5 Christmas gift and demand a $100 one from you. Or they brag about the lavish gifts they gave themselves, making sure you see the contrast with yours. 

Ding dong ditch.  So you cut contact with your narcissist parent who has cut contact with you all your life. She doesn't answer your calls or respond to texts unless she want's something. She tells piteous stories about how she can't hear her phone. But hears your sisters' texts a miles. She makes She makes snide remarks about "people always on their phones" and then spends your lunch date on her phone (the phone YOU bought her and are paying for) with your sister. She orders food for "her family" on you dime. She accepts your invitations and then doesn't show up or call. Or she bails at the last minute leaving you in the lurch. Or she comes, eats and then conveniently gets sick at clean up time. She expects you to pay for everything. 

Dealer's Choice. Narcissists can deal crap but they can't take it. When you stop responding to her texts or calls, oh she doesn't like that! How dare you ignore me ignoring you! Or if you get her the same lame joke type gift she gets you, suddenly it's not so funny. Especially if  you  make a point of giving everyone else big gifts in front of her, like she always did to you. I'll be the one doing the humiliating, not you! 

Vengeance is mine saith the narcissist. One of the saddest parts when you finally cut contact with the narcissist parent is that she doesn't seem to notice or care. She notices but she acts like she doesn't because she wants you to feel her contemptuous disdain. She is punishing you for refusing to take her shit anymore. But she also reveals a lot about herself to you. She never cared about you and gets her jollies off making you feel worthless.  

The Long Game. When I cut contact, I didn't make any big announcement. I just stopped responding. So she knew, but being dismissive of anything that doesn't fit her fantasy, pretends not to notice. She'd cut her tongue out before admitting she missed me. Or God forbid did anything to cause me to cut contact. But that doesn't mean she'll go quietly. Oh no, she calls the shots her. She bides her time and keeps her cards close to her chest. But she has a plan, of that I have no doubt. I'll let you have your little hissy fit (which I'm sure she calls it) but just you wait. 

DARVOlympics When my narcissist mother deemed my trial separation had gone on long enough, she sent me the least sincere most gaslighty apology text you can imagine. You know the kind. Not "I'm sorry I did that" but "You never text me anymore. Did I do anything to offend you? So not admitting anything, just fishing for info and mind-reading. And minimizing: She doesn't do anything wrong or if she did it wasn't a big deal. I'm just choosing to be offended (even though she has no idea what it could possibly be) Which if you've read my back posts, you'll know. She knows too. But let's keep focus on the real victim here, which is always mother. 

Hook, Line and Sinker. I never responded to that text either. And apparently she's decided to continue ignoring the herd of elephants over-running the house. Now, she'll randomly sends me fakey, breezy texts as if nothing has happened. But they are only ever about her. I had a car accident, major surgery and Covid and nary a word. But she makes sure I know the progress of her non-existent ailments. Or about some relative of her husband's that neither of us know, who passed (while she blatantly ignored my own father's passing. She almost tricked me into responding to a text asking how our weather was. I was going to tell her how my husband was in a terrible accident. But then I stopped because I realized these are texts of concern. They're data gathering. She'd have probably tried to sell me some crap car they were trying to flip, like she did before. 

The Parent Trap. You have to be very cautious after going no contact with narcissist parents. Because traumatized kids are usually far too empathetic and used to giving their callous, self-centered, entitled parents whatever they want. Your parents know you're vulnerable and weaponize that. So you can cut contact with mom so long as it works for her.  But if she wants anything you'd better give it to her. And you very easily fall back into the trap of doing so because it's all you know. You've never had the luxury of having boundaries, needs, wants, opinions or a self. They stole all of it. Which is why you had to go no contact in the first place. 

Blame-shame game with word salad buffet. My dad and stepmom were masters at it. It's played like this. Daughter is finally able to distance herself from her neglectful, abusive, exploitative parents. She doesn't take revenge, just allows doors they closed to stay closed. She doesn't beg to be let in. And parent DARVO's and blames the CHILD for all the terrible things they did. My stepmother told me I was the the entire problem in their so perfect (heavy sarcasm) family. I who had been beaten by, screamed at, publicly humiliated, enslaved to them was "so angry". I cannot begin to tell you how insanely hypocritical and ridiculous it was. I wish I had at the time but she was good at this DARVO gaslighting game. And that is why you can't engage with them. They are way too skilled and you are way too gentle. You bring flowers to their gun fight. 

Word salad part: they know just what to say to trigger, guilt and antagonize you. They twist their abuse into some kind of quarrel between you. It's not it was only ever ambush on their part. And then say you should make peace. All you've ever done was to keep peace at any price with disagreeable, antagonistic, pot-stirring, rageomaniacs.  Or they'll say "truce?" in this snarky, patronizing way.  To which I've started saying "were we fighting? No one told me." They say "there are two sides to every story" by which I guess they mean there are reasons for abusing a child ?!? And yes there are but yours was the only one we ever heard. 

Religious Shell Game None of my parents that have passed ever admitted to anything. And I'm fairly certain the remaining two will follow that lead. Which is  hilarious because they are self-styled preachers, well, preaching to everyone else but themselves. They are firmly convinced of their own righteousness. You should read my mother's Facebook posts about what hell  holds for everyone but her. It boggles. They don't even attend church. It's just the Gospel according to St. Nancy. If my dad was ever confronted with anything he did, he'd shut it down with "it's covered by the blood." Translation, it's all good with God even though he never confessed anything. But boy, did he withhold mercy me. You see, God's blessing are for them and them only. The rest of us can just burn. 

Last minute epiphany. AKA deathbed confession. BEWARE of this one. My mother once "confessed" to me that she'd thrown a pie in my face. 25 years later. She didn't say she was wrong. I think she just wanted me to feel icky about it, again. And then she blamed me for making her do it (!) And then another time she called me to verify if she'd done something she'd lied over the years about doing. But when I brought up just one of the egregious things she'd done, she couldn't remember KICKING ME OUT OF THE HOUSE AT 16! 

And that's why you should watch out if the narcissist parent wants to unburden. Because that's all it will be. Them dumping. And usually they won't even fess up. They'll ask you to tell them what they did wrong. Which just proves they're aren't sorry. Sorry people soul search. And it's not genuine confession. They just want to know what you remember so they know which lies to tell. And they will then do one of several gaslighting tricks all of which will hurt. They will DARVO or say they forgot. They'll make you do all the work while they dictate terms and adjudicate what they will accept or not. And you'll have to relive all that pain again. And they want to see you suffer again. They aren't trying to help you. They're buying fire insurance. They want absolution without being least bit sorry. 

They will wait till the last possible moment savoring all the juiciness of their sins. And cuz they're old you have to forgive them. Their confession will not be contrite. It will be contrived to get you to confess to something. So they can feel superior. They want validation not reconciliation. Well, God may accept last minute plea bargaining but you don't have to. The best I've got by way of forgiveness is to acknowledge that yup, it happened. 

Unmasking ignorant advice about narcissist parent abuse for the poison it is

Hello my friends. Today on the road to recovery from childhood trauma, I'm going to share some ignorant advice about narcissist parent abuse we all should ignore. First, what constitutes ignorant. It's almost always unsolicited and it's not really advice. It's trite, nonsensical cliche dressed as wise or even prescient. But it's said without any pause for thought and usually has no bearing on what you said. They just pop out with it so you know they weren't listening. And you also know that if they say silly platitudes once, they do this all the time. And by all these, you know to avoid them as not helpful, but poisonous, insidious brain rot that derails your recovery. 

"Every family has problems." Said after you have just told them some horrific thing that your narcissist parent did, like my mom throwing a pie in my face at her company work party. It's not even advice but argumentative retort. As if they are making excuses for your parents' vile actions or like your story is up for debate? And you might feel ashamed for defending yourself or "dramatizing" because it is partially true. All families do have problems. But don't. Because the part that is true is a generalization and the more important part that's not is that all families DO NOT have problems like what you describe. Normal parents do NOT do shit like this. Your "friend" wants you to feel guilty or that you're overreacting. Or even lying or showing off. You're not. It's just her weird agenda.  Hear it for what it is: gaslighting, minimizing and invalidation. 

"Just don't think about it." A lifetime of abuse and neglect by narcissistic parents. Don't think (feel, remember) it?? Seriously? Well, that's actually impossible. There's a psychological theory outlining how impossible. Ironic processing theory or the "white bear problem." If told not to think of a white bear, that's immediately what we think of. Trying not to think of something makes you think of it more. And cutsey adages like this are hypocritical because these same people cling like barnacles on to wrongs done to them. AND, been there, been forced to not think or feel. And that's why I'm in the mess today. 

"Let go and let God." Love to. Problem is, it won't let me go. I've prayed to be released from endless, nightly trauma nightmares. And still they come. Does God have a plan? We're told He does. But me clicking my heels together and chanting this does about as much good as trying not to think of a white bear. And again, it's much easier preached than done. You let go and let God next time you're stuck in an abusive family system. Or any other impossible situation. What you seem not to get is that the damage was done from the womb. My mother thought it was funny to go out dancing and drinking at a bar when pregnant. For attention. And that was with her golden child. I can't imagine what she did when preggie with me. How is a fetus, infant or little child, groomed to serve her narcissist parents as God, supposed to differentiate between these evil deities and some benevolent one they are told loves them? 

"Let it go. Forget about it. You're stuck in the past. You're dwelling on it." And other such ridiculous comments. One big problem with these judgmental shaming sayings is that they are just that, nonsensical preachy prattle. But you might be surprised at how often people trot them out, especially, weirdly, after you have just told them some outrageous thing your parents did. And you might also be shocked that THERAPISTS say this shit. To people who are trying to do just that. But then when you say that you want to forget, to bury the memories and be done, they turn around and say "you can't do that." Ummm, am I missing something here? One minute you are accusing me of purposely clinging onto past hurts and the next that it's impossible not to? WTF? 

"You should just forgive." Oh, lovely. So now, you're accusing me of being unforgiving? Of cherishing some kind of resentment? What do you think I've been doing all these years but excusing, exonerating, covering for, blaming myself, taking responsibility for, their actions? If that's not forgiveness, please, tell me what is? AND THEY ARE NOT SORRY!! They've never even admitted to anything or they've just gaslit me that "it wasn't that bad. You're too sensitive. You're showing off. This is God's will that we abuse you." Even God doesn't forgive what hasn't been repented from. Yes, forgiveness is conditional not just a blanket to cover it up. So I have to give them what even God doesn't? Free license to keep abusing? Oh, you didn't meant that, huh? So tell me, what do you mean? Because if they aren't sorry, and you know what they did, it sounds to me like you're saying to turn a blind eye, pretend it didn't happen, say it's okay. And that is in direct contradiction to God's idea of forgiveness. AND I've always done that anyway. And look where it got me! Even more harmed. Because this, like all other toxic positivity, gets the order of operations wrong. It victim blames and shames and puts all the responsibility on them. Which is what our parents have always done to us. 

"You have to make peace, be the bigger person, rise above." Hell, lady, it took me almost 6 decades to realize any of what they did was wrong. But now, before I've even begun to process it, when I have no self-care skills beyond trauma responses. When I'm destroyed by CPTSD, I still have to fix it? I don't even fully understand the full extent of the damage. I don't even know what that means (and neither do you) But I know that I have been keeping schtum, making peace, rising above and being the bigger person all my life. These are THE VERY TRAUMA RESPONSES  that are killing me! But the priority, according to you, is not me healing but me tolerating more abuse. It's still and always about defending them at my expense. And, AND, after all their expectation, entitlement, manipulation, cruelty, I'm STILL the one who OWES THEM something? They stuck the dagger in and you're pushing it deeper telling me this. 

"You're not going to like this but I'm going to be brutally honest, as your friend." This shit is said after you have just shared something super sensitive. Or it comes out of the blue. And it is twistedly passive-aggressive. I can feel my stomach tensing for the blow, just writing this. She sets you up to feel ashamed by predicting you won't like it. As if you are naughty child resisting her wise reproof. But you can read her motives in the fact that she says it precisely when you are vulnerable. She's neither honest, nor your friend. She is a bully and knows it. So she plays DARVO to make you think you're the benighted idiot and she's the misunderstood voice of truth. Please run from this horse manure. 

"Cheer up." This might be the creepiest one of all for its insidiousness. It sounds affirmation-ish but it is actually imperative toxic positivity. The full statement is "you should cheer up." And what they also aren't saying is that they won't help you by doing kind things that might make you feel better. They're just scolding you. And who are they to dictate how you feel or should feel? No one knows what another person is feeling. Also, cheer is not a verb in this sentence. So it is nothing you can actually do. They don't care if you are depressed or not. You may not even be acting down. They just, for whatever bizarre motives of their own, want you think you're acting down and feel guilty for not being Rosie Sunshine at every moment. It is also insanely dismissive of your very real pain. Very likely the people saying it are the ones who've caused your pain. 

"Lighten up." This "cheer up" on crack. And again, what does it mean? I'm not the Lorax. I can't lift myself. It was said to me my dad, with his customary smug, supercilious finger-pointing. Ironically, after he had done or encouraged his wife or one of his shiny new kids to do yet another awful thing to me.  Like I was doing something wrong by being, what too serious? They punished me if I didn't take their cruel punishment serious enough!  And further, the "heaviest" more oversensitive,  easily enraged, melodramatic man I ever knew, who routinely, since I was 5, described to me how he was planning to commit suicide, telling me I'm over-sensitive??? Me, who absorbed all their shit so they didn't have to, should lighten up????  He could strain at a gnat but told me to swallow a camel. I'm so saturated with their ick, it would be impossible to lighten up. And he knew it. The translation is "put up, shut up, paste on a perma-grin, bend over for more and like it." God forbid Jack actually feel or admit to doing his daughter wrong. Much easier to DARVO and make her feel suicidal. 

So obviously, there's a lot wrong with each of these sayings. And with people who say them.  But they reveal themselves as the self-righteous, hypocrisy they are by several facts. If you ask what they mean, they can never tell you. They only recite, never explain. "Rise above" what does that look like? It's nonsense. Wait, no not just nonsense. These are, hurtful, undermining, invalidating, condescending covert attacks. The person saying them does not care for you. They're trying to make themselves feel important by belittling you. And they NEVER actually take their own advice. The same people who preach peace, patience and rainbow pony poop, will in the next breath, bitch and moan about the most inconsequential petty gripes they've hung on to for decades. But don't you dare preach their advice back at them. Because they will DARVO and call YOU insensitive, cruel and nasty. They only hear what's wrong with this nonsense when it's said to them. They have two distinct sets of rules for you and for them. 

It took me 61 years to begin to understand just how destructive these saying are. To hear the insidious shaming. And to see the folks who say them for what they are. And, too late, the brain damage is done. They've embedded in my core. The toxins poison my dreams. And I repeat them to myself, by default. I have to continually and consciously talk back to these voices, these flying monkeys in my head. And it is exhausting, debilitating and overwhelming. 

So I challenge us all. If someone launches any of these missiles at us, hear them for what they are. And end the conversation and friendship there. Before they have a chance to take root.  And start immediately to detox with healing affirmations. I'll blog more on that later. 

How to expose malignant narcissist parents to heal from their cruelty

 Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm reflecting on some vlogs by my favorite Youtube therapist/psychologist, Dr. Ramani. She shares a great deal of insight on narcissism. And based off that and my own experiences at the hands of four narcissistic parents (two bio and their partners), I'm going to explain how to expose a narcissist parent to avoid their cruelty. 

First let me make a disclaimer. I'm not talking about publicly exposing them. Or even exposing them to themselves. I don't have near the experience or fabulous for that. I'm running on fumes, emotionally, and confidence is not in my toolbox. And furthermore, it's not advisable, as per the experts and my own experiences, to do that. Malignant narcissist parents, with their dark tetrad exploitative, arrogant, entitled, manipulative, nasty, spiteful behavior  are FAAAARRRR too good at the this game for me to safely unmask them. 

What I'm talking about is exposing, to myself and my trauma brain, what they did and how it affects me now. I'm taking my own side, for a change. I'm taking myself out of the scapegoat seat they stuck me in and putting responsibility back on them, where it belongs.  And I'm doing this by showing myself (and you if you need to hear it) just how they operate, and what red flags to notice, so we can avoid their cruelty. 

Look past the gaslighting fog. So we use this term gaslighting to mean a con job in which they deny reality and paint a false new one for us. But I think gassing is a more accurate description. They pollute our minds and damage our brains with sick, twisted lies, poisonous fabrications and evil spun narratives. Narcissist parents reinvent our reality and implant wrong ideas which we grow up thinking are true. And I know, you're thinking, okay but how do we do this? Good question. We begin to...

Hear the self-serving lie for what it is. Catch them in one manipulative, arrogant, exploitative lie. It just takes one. And like cockroaches, where there's one, there's more. As you see the deceit, you can begin to connect the dots and see other deceptions and lies. Pretty soon, you'll notice that there's more fake than real, more lie than truth in your relationship. That's when the entire narcissistic fantasy the fed you, starts to unravel before your eyes. 

Trick them into revealing their selfish con game. Turn about is fair play with narcissist parents, if it means you get some healing. Do this by asking them about something you know for a fact happened, but they've never admitted to. Pretend you don't remember and are just asking for clarification. Make it something tame, or better still, something that makes you look bad, but beware. Nothing is simple for narcissists, especially vulnerable ones, who are always looking for insults to personalize. The most innocent question can set them off. They're paranoid because they're  liars and cheats. They often forget who they told what. But that over-reaction in itself is revealing. And so is the way they deny, lie and DARVO.  I managed to trap my mom by "admitting" that I had disobeyed her, at FOUR y/o by using bathroom in the park, three blocks away, where she had sent me to play ALONE and where a known pedophile hung out. She had previously denied this but after I "confessed" she smugly said "I knew you lied about it" Which she thought would make me feel ashamed but which was in fact, an admission that she was not supervising me at the park. 

Stop auto-gaslighting. I've always defended, shielded, taken responsibility and did damage control for my parents' irresponsible, malicious chaos. It's like I had hands on eyes and fingers in ears so I couldn't see or hear what they did. Over the years, I took their gaslighting of me on myself. My memory is very patchy as a result (gaslighting doesn't rewrite history, but it does mess with  your memories of it). But some things, by their egregiously bizarre nature, stand out. What opened my eyes to my mother's lies was, when at her doc appt, she was asked to list all her surgeries. I reminded her of one she had in Alaska (where we'd moved to from Michigan to be "missionaries" which was a huge farce but I digress). My dad was supposedly on a "mission trip" and she had left him and moved us to a remote island. (no home, no job or money, just squatting, again). After we were there for a few weeks, she left me with strangers for a week, to go to Seattle to have surgery for a bladder infection, she said. (This is how it was presented to me). When I brought it up, she irritably shut me down and denied ever having surgery or going to Seattle at all. Which I know by the trauma nightmares of that experience, happened. 

Stop making excuses for them to yourself. I realized that she was lying then and is still lying. I don't know why she lied, but it wasn't to protect me, just herself. I have no idea where she went or what happened. I just know she disappeared, just like my dad, and it terrified me. Now as an adult, I call it what it was. Abandonment.

Connect the dots. Looking back I recall they did that a lot, left little me alone, in unsafe, unfamiliar places. With dangerous people. And they did it and other neglectful, abusive things away from eyes who would have cared.  I also see that my mom's lie at the doctor's office was more than just that one lie. It is part of a lifetime pattern of gaslighting. So many disturbing she said and did, and justified, and hypocritically preached against, have now proved to be the unethical, illegal, immoral, unsafe things they always were but I didn't see.  Things like telling 8 y/o me it was good she was sleeping with a married man because she was trying to win him over to Jesus. Yes, that is a true story. 

Ask trusted people for feedback. Ask what their childhood experiences were. Ask objectively, without sharing personal experiences immediately, their opinion of things that happened to you. Ask how they would feel if thus and such happened to them. I'm not saying be cagey and if they ask, you can say this happened to you. If they knew your parents, ask what their impressions were/are. I've gotten incredible awareness from things friends have shared. My cousin met my mom for the first time and she did some weird thing which I had overlooked, as usual. He immediately identified what was wrong with it. He was able to help me, who was too close to and too historically gaslit by her to see clearly what she was doing. 

Ask AI. I'm serious. I have conversations with Gemini about things that happened to me to get perspective. Ask if this is narcissistic type behavior. Many of the things they did, that I've downplayed over the years, turn out to be actionable abuse, abandonment, endangerment, neglect, then and now. And Gemini has sound sources to prove it. In fact, AI will often say, if this is happening to you or someone you know, report it and here's where. One benefit of asking AI over real people is that AI does not have the capability of gaslighting, shaming or invalidating you. AI has no personal agenda to protect unlike flying monkeys do. 

So let's recap. We're not looking to "out" anyone, except to ourselves. That's not our motive. And it wouldn't be safe anyway.  A cornered malignant narcissist is deadly. We're not attacking. We're just trying to defend ourselves from attack by them, by identifying that malignant narcissist parents are dangerous. We ARE blaming them and we need to. They have blamed us for their problems all our lives. They've scapegoated, manipulated, triangulated, exploited and abused us. And it's time to put responsibility for that back where it belongs and stop taking their issues on ourselves.