(warning: another very disturbing post) Hi friends. Couldn't sleep last night. CPTSD from parental narcissistic abuse will do that to you. And while I was praying/writing a novel in my head/trying not to ruminate, a memory of childhood trauma came shouting through. It exemplifies one tiny, but super creepy, way I was endangered, abandoned and exploited by a narcissistic parent. I say tiny only because in my life, it was small beer compared to the full buffet of abuse by four selfish, self-absorbed parents.
I've taken to listing the types of abuse I have experienced. Physical, mental, emotional, sexual, financial, religious and narcissistic abuse, plus neglect, endangerment, abandonment, shaming, exploitation, manipulation, scapegoating and gaslighting. This example shows the lengths my mom went to, to prove to me that she didn't give a fat rat's ass about me or my feelings, and would even use my pain for narcissistic supply.
My parents divorced when I was 6. We lived in Alaska where they had gone to "be missionaries to the Indians." (Yes I hear all that's wrong with that. It was how it was presented to 5 y/o me.) That never happened. The local Tlingit tribe didn't need missioning to and actually took care of my unemployed, homeless parents. They weren't sent by any church. It was just their delusional fantasy.
My dad left on a series of "mission trips" which were just wandering around without his family. My mom had her own delusions of grandeur which she'd dream up while leaving me on my own. She started cheating on my dad in a series of affairs that began there and continued when we moved back (sans my still-wandering dad) to Michigan.
Now before it get to this particular story, you need to know a few things about my mom. She loves attention. She has exploited me regularly to get it. She also fancies herself a pillar of the church, a good Christian woman, moral example and also a preacher in her own right. She regularly preaches about moral living and feels justified in calling out anyone or anything she deems immoral, sinful etc. She is completely in denial and hypocritical about her incredibly immoral (by her own standards) behavior.
One of the most egregious is that she is very off about sex and has been since I was about 6 or 7 when she began forcing me to hear the "facts of life." I would cover my ears but she persisted. She gave me a blow by blow description of "A Clockwork Orange." She would make out with her boyfriends in front of me. She used crude street language and let her boyfriends talk this way to me. As a result I'm kind of broken sexually and filled with shame that I've had to work for decades to overcome. Thank God for my miracle-working husband.
At the time (early 1970s) virtually no one I knew was divorced, let alone dating. Let alone having affairs. Let alone with married men. Let alone living with boyfriends (that happened later, but it relates). Regardless of faith or lack thereof, it was almost unheard of. Adult friends have confirmed this. My friends all thought it was weird and I was weird by association.
I felt so icky about all her sex talk. She said it was to protect me. I believed her but still felt icky. She said she just didn't want anything bad to happen to me. Mind you, she also let me play alone in a park a few blocks away when I was 5, where a known pedophile hung out. She told me, just don't go in the bathroom. And as you'll see, not only did she not protect me, she endangered, abandoned and exploited me for herself.
So on with my story. We moved a lot. And next door to the house in which this happened lived a single dad with four sons. I think the mother had passed away. Anyway, two of the kids were really nasty. One time, one of them poured a bottle of salad dressing over my head in the street while everyone sat and laughed. For some reason I developed a small crush on him. Which further shows how my parents had abandoned all protection of me. Isn't that what girls do? Fall for abusers?
Anyway, then his brother did something to me that would haunt me all my life. I was 10, I think. On Halloween, he sent a note to me, telling me all kinds of sick, dirty things he'd like to do to me, sexually. I think his brothers had a hand in this too. I seem to recall them laughing about it later. I remember reading it and just coming unglued. I got sick to my stomach and was screaming and crying. And really afraid. He basically told me he'd rape me if given the chance. My mom just dismissed it like she did every other weird and creepy thing that happened. She told me to go trick-or-treating and just ignore it.
So that was bad enough. Knowing that some fat stupid ugly bully was out there waiting to get her daughter didn't phase her. If it was my daughter, I'd have called the police, gone over and ripped them all a new ones and gotten me counseling. And maybe slashed their tires. But not my mom. She actually used this to her advantage.
A few months later, she started dating the dad (?!?!) He was a lot older than her which was another part of my mom's creepy MO. Looking for a sugar daddy. Blech. And let me just segue here to say that I understood none of this as a kid. I believed all my mom's bullshit gaslighting. I was just your average funny-looking but sweet, slightly naive tween who liked to read Scholastic books. It's only now that I'm 60 that I'm realizing how crude, lewd and morally bankrupt she really was. Back then, I thought I was dirty and trashy. Now I see that I wasn't. I was treated dirty and subjected to trashy behavior. It's actually kind of amazing how I navigated it all while still remained relatively innocent.
So anyway, their bunch had moved and she'd drag me over to their house so she could be with her new boyfriend. Then one weekend she announced that the two of them were planning to go away and leave me with his four sons. No adults. Not even any other girls present. Just me and the creeps. The kid who had told us exactly what he planned to do if left alone with me. All of us tweens and teens camping out on the floor. I can't honestly remember if he did anything, but I lay awake all night long in fear. And it didn't really matter because my mind was so raped by him and my mother's allowing it. The word pimping leaps to mind.
She didn't just allow this or turn a blind eye. She had to go out of her way to create this situation. She had fucking options. She could have asked my grandparents or my dad to watch me. He was back in town. But oh wait, then she'd have to admit what she was up to. Or actually no she wouldn't. She'd have just lied like she always did. I suppose she was worried I'd say something.
I didn't even bother telling my mom what happened. Why would I? She'd already proved I was on my own when it came to being safe. Then she had to audacity to trauma dump on me about how the old dad had "molested" her. Well what did you expect?? You went away for a hookup. If he even did which I doubt. It was just an excuse to put more ick in my mind. And to activate me pity. And to deflect attention away from my truly traumatic experience which she landed me in.
That experience wasn't the first endangerment involving men in my life and certainly not the last. It was just one of many situations she not only didn't protect me from but pushed me into. Between her, my dad and their partners, they taught me that this was what I was supposed to do, let people fuck with my head, hurt my body, break my spirit and damage my soul.
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