Hi friends. I've been writing a lot about how I was abused, neglected, abandoned, exploited, toxically shamed, manipulated, scapegoated and gaslit about it all by four parents, two bio and their two spouses and later their some of adult kids. Today I'm sharing some specific examples of how particularly the family scapegoating and parental gaslighting worked. These are in no specific order and reflect only the tip of the iceberg.
Family scapegoating. My dad and his new wife did not like each other. But instead of admitting it, they pretended they were fine but I was the problem. This meant a lot of brittle tension and air so thick you could slice it. Her way was aggrieved huffiness, weaponized "exhaustion" and passive-aggressive anger and cool superiority (which I learned later was basically just poutiness). My dad just angry all the time with a pasted on grimace he thought passed as a smile. She was obese, lazy and self-pitying. She was always quietly seething about something but never said what. Which pissed my dad off. But instead of dealing direct with each other, they triangulated and aimed it at me. They never said what the problem was, they just knew I was it.
And I always believed that I was. It was insanely stressful and confusing. I couldn't see anything I had done. I thought by doing the majority of the work (vacuuming, mopping, dusting, dishes, laundry, cleaning) and childcare (including sleeping in their kids' rooms) would surely be enough to keep them happy. I knew in this very transactional childhood, I'd never earn their love. That was way above my paygrade. But at least they would not be mad. Which was really all I ever hoped for was that others would be okay.
And that empath nature of mine was as I now see it, the biggest weapon in their gaslighting arsenal. I just gave it to them free. They both knew just how to push my buttons to get what they wanted. Like a cigarette machine. They wouldn't yell, per se, just hint that I was letting down, that I wasn't doing my share. That's true. I was doing everyone else's share. I remember all my dad had to do was say "your stepmother (or worse yet "Mummy") is upset with you." And I'd jump to fix. He could have told me to get her the moon and I'd have done it. And it would have done about as much good because that woman was never happy or ever going to be. Neither was he.
And my mom and her husband were no better. She would pit him against me and sit back and enjoy the show. Not only did she not protect from his venomous wrath and bullying, she egged him on. They all had such a good thing going with me. I was that broken slot machine that just kept paying out. All they had to do was say jump and I'd say how high? Pretty soon they didn't even need to say and I knew just how far. They got more adept at getting more and more out of me. And they made sure their kids extorted from me too. I was so twisted up inside by the time I moved out that I could look out my own ass.
I still am. Decades later I have to keep telling myself that the problem may not be all me. It's so ingrained that I nightly dream that I have angered or upset and done some terrible thing to one of them. I've dreamed it so much that I have dream memories. And I'm always sure what's dream and what's memory. I actually have more dream memories than actual ones.
And why? Their lies, manipulation, exploitation, parentification, abuse and scapegoating are imbedded in me brain and they always will be. I will hopefully with practice, at least be able to say it was wrong. But whether I'll ever really believe it, I don't know. The single sickest way parents gaslight their child is into thinking they're the cause of family problems. Especially a kid like me who tried so hard to fit in, to be loved and wanted. As if...
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