Hi guys. Me again with more things I'm learning about my childhood experiences with parental abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, scapegoating, manipulation, parentification and gaslighting about it all by four (count them) narcissistic parents. Here are two things I've learned about being gaslit and lied to by parents. One is to question everything. Every. Single. Thing. And the other is that a skunk smells it's own smell first.
About questioning, once you catch someone in a lie (a hurtful one, not the kind a parent might tell a child to protect them), you have to wonder how many other lies were told. And I have caught both my mother and her husband in a plethora of lies about and to me and gaslighting of me. And my dad and his wife in a ton of gaslighting. Now understand, that calling these things lies and gaslighting, is all new to me. For the first 58-ish years of my life, I believed they were always right. I believed their version even when it was hurtful to me.
And it always was. The gaslighting was to make me believe that their narcissistic abuse didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not their fault. And if it was, they didn't mean it. And if they did, I deserved it. (the Narcissist prayer, which is really eerily accurate if you've ever experienced such abuse. It's very affirming, somehow, to hear this mantra of narcs, expressed so clearly. It helps this survivor see that these self-centered people are not as scary as I thought and that they are just rather pathetic and predictable.)
So, back to the lies. Once I understood them as such, I began to look more closely at other things they did and said that seemed odd to me at the time but which I never questioned because, (cue chorus) they were always right. And I began to see not just a few untruths but patterns of lying that are pathological. I see that there was more lie than truth. And worst of all, that these lies have formed the basis my thinking and damaged every part of my life and completely sabotaged my memory of things.
Because their acts of neglect, abuse (physical, emotional, sexual, religious and medical), abandonment, endangerment, manipulation, parentification, exploitation, scapegoating and toxic shaming, are so weird (see pasts posts on that), they're almost unbelievable. And they counted on my not being believed if I told anyone. And they gaslit me into thinking no one would believe me and that I was the problem. And worst of all, they exploited my very caring, empath nature.
For all of my life, I've believed terrible things about myself, things I see now were tube fed to me by people in whose interests it was to keep me thinking them. I believed I was bad, flawed, worthless, evil, selfish, greedy, lazy, a bad "family member", a nuisance, hurtful. But also that I was only there to do for others, to be the scapegoat, servant, surrogate parent and surrogate spouse. That I had to earn love and that I never worked hard enough. I still have trouble accepting that these things might not be true. They were very good at gaslighting.
But once I allowed myself to consider things from another angle, all the pieces began to fall into place. All this bullshit was told to me to keep me in my place. I was told I was bad so I'd keep trying to please them. I was told I was a nuisance so I'd keep trying to earn my place. I was told God expected me to serve others so I would. I was told I was angry, bitter, selfish, too sensitive, a show off, to cover their bad behavior. And I was told (and probably others were as well) that I was the problem to draw attention from what they were doing.
Once I started looking for lies, I found them. Once I saw what all they got from me, how much of their abuse I accepted, how hard I was willing to work, how much of their shameful behavior I was willing to take on myself, it became perfectly clear. They were playing me. And being weaned on these lies, I never knew and just got more and more brain damaged as they got more audacious with the abuse.
So now I question everything they ever did or said. That's one thing I learned. The other thing is that a skunk smells his own smell first. What I mean is that weirdly they always called out others' lies especially "mine." Also, cheaters, scammers and thieves. They are always accusing others of lying, cheating, scamming and stealing. My mom's husband actually proclaims to be one of those people who can "always spot a liar." Which is a really stupid because no one can "spot" a liar because they are deceptive. Unless he is one himself and knows the tricks. I mean, I never caught on that they were liars because I was truthful and believed the best of them. It would not occur to me for nearly 60 years that they had been routinely lying to, manipulating, exploiting, stealing from and cheating me. And all those people who were supposedly so deceitful, had been scammed and lied to by my parents.
So why would they be so preoccupied with tripping others up? Because they were and have been hiding their own dishonesty. As I now see it, they have spent their lives lying, cheating, scamming and stealing. And for being so good at spotting and calling out these things, they completely missed that every person in their small enclave, is also a cheater, liar, thief and scammer. Accident or design, I don't know. And most ironic of all, one set divorced because they found out each other was lying (cheating, stealing and scamming). And the others just wished they had and hated each other. It all comes full circle.
It still doesn't fix the brain damage they've inflicted on me over the years. But I'm working on that.
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