Caring for aging narcissist parents: the rules don't apply

Hi friends. In my quest to heal CPTSD from narcissistic parental abuse, I went looking for resources on caring for aging and elderly narcissistic parents. I didn't find much so I figured maybe I needed to start a discussion around that. I've been struggling with feelings of shame and anxiety after going low contact with the remaining two of my parents. And I want to explore that and share why I've chosen the route I have which is essentially not to care for them at all. I also want to delve into why most all rules don't apply to kids raised by narcissists. 

I was raised by four, two biological and their new partners and experienced a lifetime of shaming, abuse, neglect, scapegoating, deprivation, exploitation, endangerment, abandonment, enmeshment, parentification and gaslighting about it all from all four of them. They were hypocritically religious, setting themselves up as God and apart from rules. They were constantly misquoting scripture to shame and blame me. And then led very immoral self-absorbed lives. 

They put all kinds of inappropriate expectations on me, including covert incest, letting their new partners routinely abuse me and using me as a sex therapist. .I was made to care for them and their children and shamed for caring for myself. They forced dangerous people on me and abandoned me in unsafe situations. I was kicked out of the house at 16 and made to feel so ashamed that I never told anyone. I developed no boundaries or sense of self, separate from them.  Their demands knew no bounds.

So now that that the two that are left are in their 80s, what now? They have a few health issues, nothing major. But how much of that is my responsibility? I'm going out on a limb here and suggesting that maybe none is. I know, God says and people expect that kids will take care of parents when they are older. But here's where the rules may not apply to me. 

I have been taking care of them all their lives. I did things for them that they should have been doing for me. I basically supported myself financially since I was 16. As they squandered their money. And mine. Savings bonds were stolen. I was charged rent. My child support was used for their families and I was made to sleep on unheated porches and in the babies' room.  My few possessions often disappeared. And my mom parked a new motorcycle in the yard for her boyfriend. She stole my car and made me pay full price for lemon they pawned on me. I've given them money I didn't have. 

Now they say they can't afford to care for themselves. So, hint, hint, I should. I've helped a lot and probably could help more but only because I've been prudent with my finances. I've done without and was done out of, a lot.  And so, after a lifetime of lack (bed, bedroom, medical care, sanitary products, food, a home, boots, winter coat) as they took good care of themselves, I don't think that would be good for me. Or a good use of my money. It would be throwing good money after bad. 

And there has been zero reciprocity. After putting myself through college, and in our early marriage, we were skint for a long time and no one offered to help us. Often I could barely afford necessities for my kids. And "family" didn't lift a finger. 

And things came up missing when they were over. They always have their hands out. They don't just want to borrow money, they expect to. And they don't pay it back. Although I had to pay back every dime with interest that I was gaslit into thinking was a gift. I once felt sorry for them because they couldn't afford to go to a funeral. So I gave them money and then they didn't go. And were put out when I asked for it back. All while I was counting change for a gallon of milk. So they can afford things. They would just prefer others to pay for it. 

And as for needing care now that they're old, she's been playing that card all my life. Actually all her life to, so relatives tell me. My Alanon sponsor from 26 years ago, who is only a few years younger than mom, remembers being shocked at how much I did for her and how gaslit I was about what she needed. She has had to set me straight on how my mother has "played me" with her malingering, self-pity and manipulative demands. 

And also, about all these mysterious ailments, she supposedly has.  She's so deaf no hearing aid helps. Except when she forgets she can't hear. Or when she wants something. She dumps very personal sexual issues and details about her privates on everyone. She wears expensive adult diapers not because she needs to but because she "doesn't feel like walking to the toilet." She wears nightgowns in public to appear feeble. She can't walk and has to be basically carried, when anyone is watching and then runs up the buffet when you take her out to lunch. 

My mother has been leaning on people for all kinds of weird things and blown through a lot of relationships because of it. She controls every situation but also expects everyone to hold her hand and be her eyes, ears and brain. She holds the purses strings but then claims she''ll just "walk out into traffic" if someone does pull her back. I once tried not telling her stop at the stop sign (something her family, as she calls them are obliged to do). She looked around to see if I was taking note, started out into traffic and stopped because she saw I wasn't going to play along. She "can't hear" when the doctor calls her name so those with her must be vigilant for her. You make her dinner and she complains because you "let her eat onions" even though she knew full well which dishes had them. 

She tells people she doesn't get enough to eat but the fridge is full. She tells the doctor she wasn't given breakfast (because it's someone's responsibility?) when I know she ate. She's been using a scooter for years though there's nothing wrong with her. Walking just makes her "dizzy." She'd prefer a wheelchair which of course someone must push.

She passes gas loudly and on purpose. She yells in church. She makes cringy and rude comments about people. She gets stared at a lot. And claims that people are mistreating her. She complains and frets endlessly. She once threw a pie in my face at her company picnic. And ate all the cheese samples at the store. She "can't remember" hurtful things she did but recalls in vivid clarity anything that was done to her. A fair number of which are made up. 

And yet she's very dismissive of others' genuine issues. When I had shoulder surgery, she pooh-poohed it and said my sister said I was lucky it wasn't hip replacement (neither of them has had shoulder or hip surgery). When I was sick with Covid pre-vax, she completely ignored it but had to tell me about her "excruciating" hang nail. As I was fighting for my life. 

Are her symptoms real or not? I don't know. Maybe she has dementia now, maybe not. She certainly works hard to make you think she does. But these strange behaviors didn't just start recently. It's been going on for decades. The extended family says she's always been "needy" and "difficult." 

I used to believe her illnesses were always much worse than anyone else's. And I felt sorry for her. According to her, every doctor "doesn't care", lies, is only in it for the money, lets her down etc. I used to believe it was all their fault for failing her and that she was the medical miracle that defies treatment. I saw her, firsthand, triangulate my stepfather into threatening to physically assault ER staff and almost getting himself arrested. Yet I was so gaslit I just assume it was him showing concern. 

Now I don't know. She's cried wolf so many times and has symptoms so conveniently that it's hard to know what to believe. And her symptoms are so strangely...big and just strange. And hard to prove. I wonder if any ever were real. She has been caught in many lies and exaggerations.  I think now that it's probably malingering or Munchausen's and that she feigns illness to get out of work or to get attention. Or to guilt you into waiting on her. Or to excuse toxic behavior with diminished responsibility.  Or just to make you feel awkward.

I wonder too that when she hops doctors it's because my mom and her husband are trying to orchestrate a lawsuit of malpractice. The doctor catches on that she's malingering, exhibiting Munchausen's or inventing. But the doctors can't say for sure. They try all sorts of things and nothing works, apparently. Which convinces my mom that she's a marvel of science and that doctors are "inept." You know the type. Doesn't know the first thing about medicine yet faults everything the qualified physician does. And if the doctor can't say differentiate fact from fictitious, how can I know? 

What I do know is that it's exhausting and miserable. And embarrassing. You can never just be yourself. You have to be audience, entourage and supporting cast. You have to hover, anticipate, defend, encourage, humor, ignore her bad behavior, sympathize, be mad when she's mad, be lectured when she's on her high horse. Think for her when she won't and still let her call the shots. Be ashamed and grovel when she lies and blames your for something she did. Just to go on a fucking walk around the block. 

So as  I can't diagnose, I'll err on the side of protecting myself and assume most of it is fake. Or at least not something I have to or even can fix. Been there, failed at that. And have the scars to prove it. It seems to me that disabled or not, the last thing she needs is more enabling, privileged status and catering to. I'm a special needs teacher by trade. And we give kids the least restrictive environment possible. We help them do as much as they can for themselves. This is what's best for senior adults too.  

We all need to do for ourselves what we can do. Too much reliance on others isn't healthy. Depending on them to do for us what we can and should do for ourselves is a road to perdition. It sets up unhealthy expectations and attitudes of entitlement. It's enmesh-y. The cared for one takes too much and the carer gives too much. The carer has no boundaries. They lose their identity. They sacrifice wants and needs and the cared for just takes it as her due. I speak from decades of carer experience.

All my parents put many dangerous and unhealthy demands on me, which have caused me a lot of health problems. They subjected me to all kinds of unsafe situations and people. And now I have constant nightmares. I had a twisted spine that went untreated and now several vertebrae are fused. I didn't get follow-up care on congenital hip dysplasia and have struggled with early onset arthritis for over two decades. I lived in constant stress and anxiety and have brain damage as a result. 

So I was not cared for and was made sick, yet I get no help or support and I'm supposed keep caring for her because she's old? Well, you can't have it both ways. If you didn't want to follow the rules (God's rules, btw) and care for me when I was a kid, you don't get to expect that I follow all the rules and care for you now. What goes around comes around. 

Is that being vindictive? Nope. It's just logical consequences. They're very transactional but don't hold up their end of the bargain. When I do for them it's just 'what family does." When they do for me,  they expect repayment. So I don't want anything from them but I also don't want to be taken advantage of. 

I won't see any inheritance if there is any and I don't want it. I haven't taken anything from them in 44 years. But I also don't want to pay for things they should be paying for themselves. Or not buying if they're claiming poverty. I'm the best judge of how to use my money and I don't trust them with mine. They don't need it, they  just want it.   

I'm also the best judge of what they need and don't need from me in terms of care. They routinely confuse want with need. If she had her way, I'd be waiting on her as if she was paralyzed. And even if she does need something doesn't mean I have to provide it. Or that I even can. Because, speaking of needing things, how does it feel? It sucked when you deprived me. And then exploited and took advantage of me. I feel used up. Everything hurts all the time. I'm physically unable to care for anyone and have enough  trouble caring for myself. But I have to manage. That's life. 

And I don't want to spend the rest of mine dancing attendance on able-bodied adult babies.  It was awful when I was young and gets worse as they get older. The aging narcissist is the most ungrateful, petulant and frigging irritating person ever, to deal with. As I enter my senior years, I just don't have the fabulous to anymore. My well of giving was drained dry and I have nothing left. And I just don't care. 

If all this sounds unChristian and selfish of me, so be it.  I've finally realized that I don't owe anyone anything anymore. Actually, I never did. I just had to keep paying to keep the peace. Or so they told me. It never worked and they just expected more. Which is why I have to stop now. If that makes me a bad person, at least I'm a healthier one now. And if my detachment approach is wrong,. I'll take it up with God. The letting of people who didn't do their jobs with me, dictate what is my job, stops here. 

Why I can't outgrow narcissistic parent abuse and gaslighting but wish I could

Hey friends. I've been writing a lot about abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, enmeshment, scapegoating, parentification and gaslighting I experienced from four narcissistic parents.  When I began telling my story, I got a lot of advice, solicited and unsolicited, about how to deal with it. While some was helpful, a lot was not. Some was downright hurtful, counter-intuitive,  gaslighting in itself and just generally stupid.  

For example, being told to just grow up. Be the adult. Or variations on that theme. The theory, I guess, is that because I'm chronologically an adult now, I should "act like one" and magically be able to put it behind me. As if!! It's not like childhood trauma is a dress you outgrow. Would you tell a little girl who was born without an arm to just grow one? I was not raised to think for myself and always made to anticipate and fulfill others' wants, no matter how selfish they were or hurtful to me. Growing up was frowned on because it meant I would not be available to them anymore. So how am I meant to do that now? 

I was both parentified (made to parent parents and their kids as a child) and infantilized (treated younger than I was). And not in a good, protective way. In a shaming way. I was not allowed to be a child when I was one and had to be grown up for the actual grownups. They expected me think like an adult while they acted like spoiled brats. Then shamed me even though I managed to adult pretty well, considering I wasn't. They expected me to parent their kids and do things for them that they should have been doing. They didn't care for their kids but got angry when I did and did it better than them. I'll just let the crazy in that settle in. 

But then they also they also infantilized and treated me like a nuisance disobedient child. They made me work like an adult, including doing things that should have been their responsibility. Then scolded me like a wayward kid. They found fault with everything I did so I was in a constant state  of failure. When I was 20, in college and working, I was locked in the baby's room and getting up with him at night. Yet when I joined in conversations, they ignored me or told me not to "butt in" when adults were speaking ?!

They made decisions for me which I was perfectly capable of and should have been making. Then gave me no help with things they should have, like teaching me to drive or letting me practice with the car.  I was working and buying my own clothes because my dad "couldn't afford to." I wasn't even living with him. Yet he felt entitled to forbid my piercing my ears. And then turned a blind eye when my mom's husband kicked me out to fend for myself when I was 16. 

They patronized, ordered me around, scolded and yelled at me when I was a fully grown adult. One time, they yelled at me for correcting my brother--who was a student in my class! I was a professional, fully qualified teacher! My brother had lied and said I singled him out. My step mother went ballistic, never questioning his version of events. Then my dad jumped in, immediately taking his part against me. I actually spoke up, for once, and told them what had really happened. Then my dad, embarrassed, yelled at my brother. But no apology to me. 

When I told the principal, she called them in and had a talk with them about teaching their son to respect his teacher. And they got mad at me for "involving others" in a family matter. When they were the ones taking it to my workplace. I wish I'd have asked my stepmother if she'd have confronted her teacher friend in this way? Or my dad if he'd like me to come to his workplace and humiliate him??

But then, none of my parents ever took my part and always believed anyone who said anything bad about me, no matter how untrue. Especially if it was their partners or kids. They expected and I think hoped I would fail. They taught me to believe they had to treat me like a child because I was so childish. My every mistake was blown up into a world crisis while they all could do no wrong. My dad so habitually targeted me that he'd sometimes scream my name when the dog did something wrong. And common kid behavior? Forget that. It was absolutely verboten to me. All while while doing their adulting and parenting them, mind. 

For a kid who wasn't allowed to be a kid and was expected to perform like an adult so the adults could act like big babies, I didn't do half bad. I see that now. Then I just saw them angry and blaming me. I assumed I was letting them down even though I had no idea how. Narcissistic parents excel at ambiguity, faking, distortion, deception, reaction formation, projection, vague hints, veiled threats, double speak, bait and switch, double standards, passive-aggressive digs and shell gaming.  All the good ole' head games. 

Truth, for them, is relative. Rules are plastic. Promises are for breaking. They play Dodge 'Ems with reality. They give out opinions as facts. They dispense unsolicited advice which they do not follow. They believe that their every whim is divinely inspired no matter how hellishly it hurts others. They expect to be obeyed like a deity but they disobey him right and left. 

They live in self-serving paradox. They dwell in self-pity but show no mercy towards others. They brow beat but won't bend, compromise. They harass you about showing humility but then never humble themselves. They enjoy calling others out but can't stand the slightest breath of disapproval. They fault find, nit pick, and attack others and are oblivious to their own reproachable behavior. They backstab, gossip, belittle, mock and humiliate others and play victim. They accuse us of  things we didn't do and won't admit to bad things they did do. 

It's exhausting. And while it may seem like I've strayed from the point, bear with me. All this brings me full circle to why I can't just "outgrow" it. I wish I could!  I have grown up but misshapen and wrong. I'm the crooked tree that can't never grow straight because my roots were damaged. You might as well tell my cat to turn himself into a zebra. And the last thing I need is more expectation to grow up. I've never been allowed to be anything but grown up.  

I've done for others all my life. But not enough for myself. I learned to be satisfied with too little. I've been bread crumbed by people who should have provided meals. I'm tired sleep deprivation and being crammed into uncomfortable places. I'm scared from being terrorized. I'm always expecting to be abandoned, so I placate. I'm confused by being bullshitted and gaslit. 

What I need is to be a child again. To be told that I'm okay and even good most of the time. To be cherished not ignored, treasured not scapegoated, championed not shamed, loved not exploited. I need less expectation and more support and nurturing. To be encouraged not beaten down. I need a warm bed and hot meals. I need hugs and love. I need to be laughed with not at. All the things I have always given, I now need in return. 

10 hypocritical double standards narcissistic parents put on the scapegoat

Hello my dears. As the old year winds to a close, I'm looking at ways to overcome old unhealthy behaviors I developed to cope with narcissistic parental abuse. The abuse was physical, emotional, mental, social, religious, financial, sexual and medical. It included neglect, abandonment, endangerment, parentification, exploitation, triangulation, scapegoating, enmeshment and gaslighting about it all by four narcissistic parents. Today I'm looking at how narcissistic parents' hypocritical double standards put me in a parallel universe with very conflicting alternate realities. 

I'm not even talking about their double dealing with others. That would take a 26 volume encyclopedia to enumerate their many scams, cheats, lies, delusions, shell games, distortions and deceptions. I'm just talking here about their double dealing with me, their scapegoat child. I'm beginning to see that these mind games were how they tricked me into compliance with their narc fantasies. I lived my entire life in one enormous big con perpetuated by masterful confidence tricksters.  Nothing that is real and normal for others applied to me. It's all fake. Consequently, I have CPTSD and cognitive dissonance up the wazoo. Here are just a few of those double standards I had to navigate. 

And when I say they/them, I mean all four of them: bio mom and dad and their new partners. I'm not just being paranoid. It really was a collusion to extract every ounce of narc supply possible from me. They manipulated, parentified, deprived, stole from, weaponized, enmeshed, endangered, abandoned then guilted me to get me back in their clutches. They disagreed on everything, the bunch of them, except on scapegoating me. My life was literally in danger on a regular basis. I survived thanks to God and my own bulldog tenacity of life. I wish this was just some conspiracy theory. But I have the scars, nightmares and trauma responses to prove it. 

Hypocrisy #1. Right was wrong for me and wrong was right, for them. Self-care was bad. Deprivation was good. Them pampering themselves at my expense was good. Normal childhood emotions and behavior were bad. Shame was good for me. Me being held to ridiculous expectations was God's will. Greed, adultery, neglecting care of me, fornication, immorality, deceit, exposing me to evil people, was good . Chaos and stress was normal. Being over-worked and made to wait on others was good. Me being sick was selfish. Them faking illness was good. And shame on me if I wasn't grovelingly on board with it. 

Hypocrisy #2. Child me had to act like an adult while adults acted like spoiled brats. They would dump all their problems on me. I was made privy to intimate sexual details. I was told I was disobedient while they completely dishonored their parents. I was made to counsel and bear very heavy emotional burdens. I had to listen to my dad casually discuss his probably suicide starting when I was 5.

Hypocrisy #3. Unfair divisions of labor. Actually no division, just assigned to me. I was told my obese stepmother had a bad back so I, with spina bifida, congenital hip dysplasia and scoliosis had to do all the work. On hands and knees. I developed early onset arthritis in my 20s as a result. I had to wait on my mom's chronically unemployed live-in while he slept the day away. I had to "help around the house" which meant several hours of chores daily and no time for homework till bedtime. 

Hypocrisy #4. Calling out sin while living in it.  She was busy preaching to others about their "immorality" while cheating on my dad, sleeping with married men. committing adultery, living with boyfriends. Dad at 34, took me on dates with his 17-year-old girlfriend. Yet I was always being told what a bad person I was. My normal kid behaviors were exaggerated into horrible crimes. 

Hypocrisy #5. Deprivation in squandering. We were "too poor" to afford a bed, new pillow, shoes or food for me. I was made to sleep in their kids' rooms. I didn't get glasses till my eyes were shot or medical care till other people forced them to.  I couldn't even have a cheap mop or decent vacuum for me but there was enough money for breed dogs, motorcycle for unemployed boyfriend, fine furniture, expensive jewelry, costly collectibles and other luxuries for them. We didn't have enough to eat and I lived on vitamins and power bars. But my dad's wife had pricy diet food and cigarettes. My mom bought cigarettes for her boyfriend with  my child support. My toys and gifts from grandparents were sold to buy their new kids stuff. My college savings bonds were cashed in to buy property for her husband. He just laid around the house. 

Hypocrisy #6. Child parenting their children and them. I had to sleep in the babies' rooms, get up with them at night and care for them. Parents slept as far from us as possible in sound-proof rooms. I had to feed, transport, clean up after and care for and do everyone's chores. This would have been difficult enough to parent siblings. But these were their "new children" who were called my siblings when it meant me doing for them. But they were not expected to treat me with respect. I was family when it suited their purpose and excluded when it didn't. I never thought of any home as mine. 

Hypocrisy #7. Gaslighting about feelings. I was expected to be "sensitive to" everyone's needs, as per God. This meant being alert to ways to serve (fix, placate, fawn). Yet I was OVER sensitive about anything that upset me. Even though I never said anything about being upset over things that should have upset me. I took things "too personally" when they were attacking me. But yet I wasn't supposed to ignore it either. That would be disobedient. If I didn't seem glad enough about their constant nit-picking I just "couldn't accept constructive criticism." On the rare occasions when I felt good about anything I did such as possibly actually getting their demands right, I was "arrogant and proud." My dad who demanded constant praise, said that I was "fishing for compliments" when I asked if I did one of the many tasks he expected of me, right.  Servants shouldn't feel good about serving. It's just our job. 

Hypocrisy #8. Rules for me and rules for thee. While talking out of one side of their mouths about all God expected of me, my parents did not model them or even believe they applied to them. When I asked questions I was questioning. When they backstabbed, sabotaged and undermined me, it was just parental correction. They nit-picked, fault-found and set me up, yet I was the "too critical" one. Which is so bizarre because I never said boo to a goose let alone dared to show anything but permagrin to every weird thing they did. 

Hypocrisy #9. Religious double-babble. God supposedly expected my rigid obedience to their every crazy. Yet they regularly disobeyed God's basic commands. I had to "honor my parents" yet they didn't have to follow the part about not angering or frustrating your children. And they didn't honor their parents at all. They fancied themselves ministers (with no training or any church sanction) yet they blatantly flouted God's laws.  When they played their instruments, it was praising God. If I sang in the bathroom, I was "showing off."  I got disciplined for things I didn't do. If anyone corrected them on anything, they got furious. They pouted, resented, self-pitied, lied, cheated, stole, coveted, were jealous of, trash talked others behind their backs. Then lied and said I did these things and punished me their actions. It took me 60 years to realize that I hadn't done most of the things they said I did. But because they said they were Christians, it was all righteousness. 

Hypocrisy #10. Make it up as you go along.  They made up rules and changed them on a whim. And didn't tell me. They were parents when it suited and parentified me when it didn't. I was family when it came to expectations on me and an outsider when it came to expectations on them. Love and care were transactional, given only if I did what they wanted. But I never got my part of the bargain. They would just move the target and tell me I was failing. It was Godly when they did it and sinful if others did. Their self-serving demands were needs and my needs were selfish.  I was made to feel guilty for all the wrongs they committed.  

You're probably seeing the double standard pattern now. Bait and switch. Change tactics. Blame and shame. Reverse roles. Target, project, distract and displace. This chaotic constantly shifting reality has left me with a host of problems. I'm baffled by their endless mixed messages. The gaslighting has trailed me into adulthood. I'm chronologically grownup but emotionally still a scarred, scared kid. Girls of many ages inhabit my brain, each connected to whatever stress and anxiety my parents were putting on me at the time. Each one is trying to please and failing. Each one tries to stay calm while being expected to be hypervigilant. Each is trying to grow up and out but their toxic quicksand sucks her further down. 

I'm fighting it but I feel like Hercules trying to take out the Lernaean Hydra. Just when you get one head loped another even worse one grows in its place. It's a war on many fronts. 

How narcissistic parents exploit a scapegoat child's resilience for their own selfish ends

Hello my loved ones, as I've come to think of you who follow this blog. I'm learning a great deal about what I thought my family of origin was and what it really is. I've come to understand that what I was gaslit to believe were loving normal experiences were in fact just what it felt like-continual abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, parentification, triangulation, exploitation, invalidation, shaming and scapegoating. Today I'm exploring this notion of a child's natural resilience against hurt and how narcissistic parents exploit it for their own selfish ends. 

We talk a lot, too much I believe, about how kids are resilient. I actually hate it that we do because it's so open to exploitation. Something bad happens to a kid and some adult glibly trots out "oh, well, she'll be fine. Kids are tough." As if that makes us impervious to pain. The bad thing is usually something that would traumatize an adult or was inflicted by an adult. But it's all okay because of this shiny suit of armor the kid supposedly has. 

I'm sure you can hear the dismissing, invalidation and gaslighting in this. It's the same nonsensical BS they use to minimize all your pain and suffering. "You're making it up. You just looking for attention. You're too sensitive. Don't take it so personally. It's not that bad. Power through. Walk it off (I despise that one especially)" And coming from narcissistic parents and their new partners, who redefined oversensitive, were walking self-pity parties and who dumped every little thing me, is pretty rich. 

It's easy for YOU to say it's nothing. It didn't happen to you. You caused it! And how about you practice what you preach? You can't put up with the smallest inconvenience without blaming me and expecting me to fix it, let alone the constant abuse you subject me to.  YOU try walking it off. As the wife says in the Sixth Sense, "abused children deal with things that would make most adults piss themselves." 

This notion that I'm so "resilient" is a handy excuse to gloss over terrible behavior. It goes along the same stupid lines as whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Uh, no. It leaves scars that disfigure and disable. And it's very convenient for gaslighting a kid into minimizing her own experiences. And teaching her to ignore red flags and let others shat all over her boundaries. 

And it's flat out lies. Kids are as yet immature and vulnerable. They require care and nurture. That's why the adults who made them are called parents. Children learn by example. Sure they develop coping skills (fawn, freeze, fix, fight, flight). But it's not how they should develop. These are not healthy skills and don't serve very well in the real world. At best, they are stop gaps to deal with toxic parent behavior. Some of us got so good at it that no one noticed how hurt we were. But it was all a mirage. We were exhausted, burnt out, damaged and running on fumes.  

And boy howdy, do narcissistic parents take advantage of that! They use and abuse us, expect us to dance like a performing bear. They pooh-pooh, shame and use it against us. They push us to the edge and then mock us for falling over. It's a cruel, endlessly looping lose-lose circus shitshow. 

So yes. I am resilient in that I have thick scar tissue. I can take a licking and keep begging for more. But I also have damaged leprotic nerve endings that can no longer protect me from pain.  I have a weakened auto-immune system that makes me susceptible to every passing threat. I'm beaten down. And that's all thanks to abuse and neglect of basic care, parent endangerment and abandonment, exploitation and parentification by those who were supposed to care for me, and shaming and gaslighting about it all. 

Narcissistic parent rage triggers CPTSD over-reactions to rage/ IED in others

 Hello friends. Recently I shared how narcissistic parental rage creates Complex (also called childhood) post-traumatic stress disorder. Now I'm delving into how living with someone else's chronic anger and intermittent explosive disorder triggers my CPTSD reactions. Childhood trauma creates of vicious downward spirals of rage, shame, guilt and more anger. Here's how. 

So part of my childhood trauma developed from my four narcissistic parents' anger problems. My mother and stepmother were often passive-aggressively angry, resentful and sullen. My mother masked hers with a veneer of "Christian holiness" that cracked and spewed toxins when she didn't get her way. So I gave her her way all the time in all things. Not to protect myself. I was taught that to do that was selfish. To help her maintain her narcissistic fantasies that wrong was right for her. (It took me all my life to realize that's what I was doing.) Consequently, she didn't look angry, except in private. 

I placated my stepmother because my dad made me run interference and would triangulate me against her. Actually, they all exploited my good nature and scapegoated me. My mom pitted her boyfriend against me. He was viciously, bullyingly angry and would goad and mock, lie about things I'd supposedly done and then attack me. And my mother went right along with this. She'd make up lies or say things about me in such a way that she knew would provoke his rage. 

When my dad was mad which was most of the time, he'd find a way to make it my fault. He also targeted me when he was angry with his wife or other kids. And she when she was upset about something else. Or nothing. This perpetuated their narcissistic fantasies that they were perfect and I was the only problem in their lives. And my constant guilt, shame and feelings of failure both fed and were fed by this gaslight-y scapegoating. It's impossible to please selfish, angry people. But I didn't know that then. I just thought and they told me that if I would just try harder...well, you can probably imagine the tail-chasing that led to. 

I also didn't  know that a child/ teen shouldn't have to. Actually no one, even an adult is responsible for someone else's happiness. They got that part alright. Which is why they pinned it all on me. They had no intention of actually working together to make their family work. Why would they when they had such a convenient fall girl in me? They had me believing that I was at fault for being unable to do all they expected. Which I actually did but the hoops were always moved and expectations were always changed and I wasn't told. 

And it's also weird because the placating (fawning) involved dancing attendance on them, parenting them, doing the majority of their work and caring for their children like a parent. So I was both the problem and the solution to the problem. I know, it doesn't make sense to me either. 

And so what this caused in me was constant cognitive dissonance and chronic guilt and shame (CPTSD). Whenever anyone in my adult life is angry, my trauma response is to jump in to fawn and fix. Living with someone with explosive disorder and dealing with chronic rage just sends all that into overdrive. All the advice about staying calm and detached with others' rage is impossible for me. Because I learned so young that this (very healthy) response was wrong and wicked. How dare you not attend to our every petty whim, you selfish lazy brat! Stay calm and not react, will you? We'll soon make you care, dammit! 

And to add further confusion to chaos, I was told I was OVER sensitive about anything that upset me. I took things "too personally" when they were attacking me. However, I was also expected to be "sensitive to" their every "need" (petulant temper tantrum). I was SUPPOSED to take their endless fault finding seriously. Yet I was also "too critical" of them. So I was hypervigilant for an opportunity to jump in and fix. Which requires being in constant reactive mode. And it's impossible to react and not react to others at the same time. 

So essentially, all the common sense about dealing with rage in others flies out the window in my case. I can't not react. I'm wired to. And it feels wrong because I was told it was wrong, not to. It's like having had an emotional stroke and having to learn all basic functions anew.  

What my CPTSD nightmares area teaching me about my narcissistically abusive family

 Hi friends. Lots of discovery going on around here about the narcissistic abuse and neglect I was raised with. And there's one really helpful source that might surprise you as it has me: My chronic CPTSD nightmares. Seeking help for these was what got me looking at things more clearly.  Here's what trauma dreams teach me about my abusive family. 

So what we know about CPTSD is that it's like combat-related PTSD only more complex because it stems from early childhood trauma. One symptom I don't hear much about is nightmares. We know they're part of shell shock. But there's not a lot of mention of them related to CPTSD. Maybe because few people have them, or have them like I do. 

I've never heard of anyone having dreams like mine. When I ask them about dreams, I get responses like "everyone has bad dreams." Or they say they understand because they had one bad dream months ago. Which is patronizing and not very helpful. Because I know everyone dreams and clearly I wouldn't have brought it up if mine were normal and occasional. And it feels dismissively gaslighting because it denies my reality of constant, nightly disturbing nightmares or likens one bad one to a lifetime of bad dream memory. 

The point isn't to fault people for not understanding. Though being sensitive and supportive goes a lot farther than condescending or dismissive. And maybe they're not pooh-poohing. I only think they are because I was shamed for everything. And mocked for walking in my sleep. I never told anyone about the nightmares because I'd have been further shamed.  And gaslit into believing that they weren't that bad. And that I was showing off. Which is probably where a lot of the nightmares stem. And so because I was not taken seriously, I learned to downplay it. I began gaslighting myself. And my dreams join in.  

Also, in a way, hearing what others consider bad dreams is helpful because it shows that very few people have dreams like mine and so regularly. When I tell them mine, they instantly recant and say they've never experienced anything like this nor know of anyone who has. They say they couldn't invent dreams like this let alone imagine how awful it must be to have them. Which is both scary and affirming that I'm not making it up and they're that bad. 

Because my dreams aren't just about bad things happening to me. They are about bad things I believe I have done. And good things I'm failing to do. I always have a mountain of expectations I'm not meeting. I don't even know what they are because no one has actually told me. I'm trying to care for everyone's kids, do laundry, cook, clean and care for everyone, plan lessons, teach classes, meet deadlines. The environment is dirty and unsafe. I'm wading through literal garbage. There are feces and urine everywhere. Children get hurt in terrible ways because I didn't even know I was supposed to be watching them. I don't have the resources and don't know where things are. I'm always late. 

I feel terrible guilt and fear. People are angry with me and won't tell me why. I've done unspeakably bad things but I don't know what they are. My kids hate me and my husband cheats on me, scorns and makes fun of me. I'm left behind. I'm lost, alone, hungry, exhausted and cold, a lot.  And it goes on and on.  This is a very small sample of what I go through each night. It doesn't matter what I eat or drink. Where or when I sleep. What I do or don't do. The dreams are relentless. 

So another thing I'm learning from my nightmares is that you don't dream like this without there being a reason. And what they're telling me is that my childhood really was as disturbingly dysfunctional as I'm now accepting it was.  So mind-blowingly disturbing that my trauma damaged brain must rehash it every single night all night long. And why is that? Why does my brain put me through this? 

My parents would say that it was guilt for the terrible things I've done. God is inflicting this on me to show me my sins. Which fits in neatly with their theory that I was the cause of their problems. And that all they put me through wasn't abuse, neglect, exploitation, scapegoating, bullying, endangerment and abandonment but logical punishment for my transgressions. See, even your dreams are telling you how wicked you are. 

And, since that's exactly what  happens in my dreams, I assumed they were right. They had me so brainwashed that I "remembered" things that they said I did or that happened in my dreams as if they were memories. I actually have more dream memories than real ones. And if it's happening night after night, God must be trying to tell me something, right?

Right. But not what it seems. It's time to play detective and start looking at just the facts. Because what I dream I've done wrong, never really happened even though I thought it did. People were always angry with me. They did place crazy expectations on me. They did change rules and not tell me. They did expect me to jump on command and read minds. They said they were angry because I'd failed. But how could I have? I hopped through their every hoop. I waited on them. I kept quiet and was terrified of my own shadow. 

Looking back, I see it was either someone else failing or no one. For example, in one repetitive dream, my dad comes downstairs in his underwear, furious because I've been loud and woken him up. Now my dad did do that kind of thing or would have. He was always angry, mostly at me. But he worked at night. And I had to go to bed early with his kids because I slept with them. I worked till bedtime. I crept around the house on eggshells. I hardly would have dared make noise both because he got so angry but also because I genuinely worried about him getting enough rest. So it could not have been me waking him up. 

But now that I remember, there was someone who did. And I just recalled a few days ago that my stepmother would watch TV all night. She also let their sons be loud. She expected him to do all the work and childcare which he put on me.  They were not quiet or considerate of his need to rest. But that, like most everything else just got blamed on me, despite me being the only one who actually did respect him (too much). Even I blamed myself, so my dreams show. 

And my dreams are right, there were always random inappropriate and unstated demands on me. Even my father-in-law saw that the first time he met me. As my husband says, these aren't dreams, they're memories. I did live periodically in squalor, in unsafe places. I was left behind and left alone too young, a lot. I was cold, alone, hungry, a lot. I felt lost and homeless because I was. I was expected to be at everyone's beck and call. I did have to care for lots of random kids. I did have mountains of heavy work to do. I was told I was bad. 

So why does my mind keep going over these experiences? Two reasons, I think. One, to try to make sense of the senseless cruelty. My inner child is trying understand why she wasn't parented but had to parent her parents. She's trying to juxtapose the notion of loving family with the nightmare she lived. She's trying and failing to find a reason for her ugly alternate reality, a way to survive her parents delusional fantasy. She's trying to bring order to her intensely painful cognitive dissonance. 

And second, their gaslighting was very successful. One thing we know about the gaslit is that we start doing it to ourselves. We believe and internalize their lies. 

And third, I think God is trying to find a safe way of showing me that it did happen and shouldn't have. He protected little me by dulling the memories. Which explains why I have so few good memories. There weren't any. And now He's helping big me see and come to grips with it. To get clean from the gaslighting. 

This isn't ideal. What would have been best is for it not to have happened. But since it has, needs must He find a workaround. He has to work with what he has. And a shell shocked, gaslit mind like mine doesn't give him much. It automatically makes everything my fault because that's the default presets my parents put in place.  My dreams can't and won't accept that it might not be how they said because it's hardwired not to. The guilt and shame gaslighting runs too deep. So God let's me dream them over and over again in hopes that one day I might be able to rightly interpret them.

Where does this leave me? Hoping that the dreams will abate, the more I process this in real life. 

How narcissistic parental rage/ IED and bullying creates CPTSD

Hi friends. I'm on a quest to heal CPTSD from narcissistic parental abuse, enmeshment, scapegoating, neglect, exploitation, parentification, scapegoating and gaslighting. And one piece of the puzzle I've not talked much about is parental rage, both overt and passive aggressive. I'm looking today at how I developed CPTSD from being raised by angry narcissistic and histrionic people. And also how that carries over into adulthood, living with a partner with chronic rage and IED (intermittent explosive disorder). 

I come from a background of chaos. My "family life" was a constantly changing, complicated sticky mess. My histrionic, narcissistic parents were all over the place. We moved constantly, were periodically  homeless, frequently jobless and into one odd situation after another (self-proclaimed missionaries to Alaska, running foster care homes). Both of them had Peter Pan Syndrome (refusal to grow up and act like adults) Then they divorced and married equally immature, selfish people. All of them were angry and resentful. My mother and dad's wife were passive-aggressively angry and my dad and mom's husband were full of rage and exhibited what we now call intermittent explosive disorder. 

My mom and stepmom would pout and sulk if they didn't get their way. Or just because. I was expected to fix, please and cater to them, like a parent. They were both lazy and left a lot of their work to me, including raising their new kids. My mom didn't display it so much but then she didn't often get crossed. She just carried on with her bizarre lifestyle and I fell in line. When she hooked up with her boyfriend, all that changed. He moved in and hit the ground running with the abuse, neglect, etc. 

I laugh when I think of just how much gaslighting went into that shitshow. He'd lost his job for hitting a supervisor, though he said he got laid off. He who prided himself on being able to ferret out a liar, lied his way through everything. He sponged off my mom and my child support, never holding down a job much after that. I had to get a job at 15 to buy my own clothing and Kotex. While she bought him all kinds of toys. She never took my part and let him bully, mock sexually assault me, lie about and scream at me over stuff he lied about me doing. He kicked me out at 16 for coming home an hour late. Because it was "his house" mind you. I never called a house "my home" after he moved in. It was always theirs. Even though I did the lions' share of work to keep said house. They're divorced now but live together. They can't stand each other. She lied and gaslit me about it never happening on the one occasion that I brought it up. She only ever talks about all he's done to her and never what he did to me. And feels sorry for herself. 

My dad's anger was loud and randomly explosive. He'd come unglued usually when he wife was pouting. She'd triangulate us, sullenly whispering to him about some way I'd failed her. That would set him off and he'd lash out at me (for what I never found out). He'd say "you upset your stepmother." He'd then expect me to somehow make her happy. He never asked me outright to do things. He'd broadly hint, saying things like "maybe Mary could help?" and then invite her to think up something that I might do. 

I'd cry with shame, though I never identified why. I'd beg her to tell me what I could do for her. It had to be pretty difficult for her to think up something because I was already doing all the work. But she managed. And I'd run off to do it. And it just got rolled into my growing chore list. What I don't get is how, if I was failing so badly, how could I possibly be competent enough to satisfy her? Anyway, one thing was certain. My dad wasn't going to do anything about it. In his mind, I screwed up his first marriage and he wasn't going to let me screw up the second. They lived and died despising each other. 

Come to it, that's how my mom feels about me too. She has her real family in which I have no place. How dare I exist to mess up her narcissistic fantasy? But yet, if I wasn't around who would be in the hot seat? Who would they find to blame for their stupid choices? I now see that no matter what a buzzkill I was to their delusions, I was also very convenient as a ready scapegoat, enabling them to never take responsibility for themselves or their shiny new families. 

I know I promised to write about how this affects me now, with a partner with chronic rage. But I'm just too tired. This dismantling of the false reality they stuck me in is exhausting. I'll blog more on that later. Thanks for reading. 

Healing CPTSD, narcissistic parental abuse and gaslighting by learning the correct road signs

 Hi friends. Today in Advent the Catholic Church prays the O antiphon (titles for Jesus) Key of David. This metaphor for unlocking and releasing captives is a good one for those of us suffering with CPTSD. Throughout our lives, we've been slaves and scapegoats of narcissistic parents.  So I'm thinking about keys to healing from abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, scapegoating, shaming, invalidation, parentification and gaslighting. Today, let's explore key to free us from toxic parent and family systems that have enslaved us. 

Number one is to learn red from green. For the first 59 years of my life, I was color blind. I was just an extension of my self-absorbed, immature parents and their new spouses and families. I was taught that self-care was selfish and that responding to caution signs was being too sensitive. Not modeled mind you. Anyone with experience of narcissists knows they take very good care of themselves. At others' expense. They are the most over-sensitive, easily offended folks on the  planet. They take up all the oxygen in the room. They are giant needy, demanding black holes who live parasitically off from others. 

They drain your resources and leave you exhausted, depleted and deprived. You're barely able to function on autopilot, let alone mindfully making healthy choices. And coupled with the constant shaming and gaslighting, I was a burned out, vulnerable mess. And add to that the nightly CPTSD nightmares which left me too tired to keep my eyes open, let alone deal with red flags, especially those about their dangerous behavior and the unsafe people and situations they exposed me to.  

I was gaslit to believe that God didn't protect me or want me to protect myself, but rather just serve them no matter what the cost to me. Exploited, manipulated, remoted controlled, pirated and enmeshed were all I knew. I had no real identity of my own. Scapegoat, servant, surrogate spouse, surrogate parent were my middle names. 

Consequently, I got all the traffic signals wrong because everything was bass ackwards in my life. Up was down, wrong was right and good was bad. I yielded when I should have gone, plowed through red lights, barricades and thin ice warnings.  I went the wrong way up one-way streets and merged when I should have exited. I ran headlong into terrifying situations, with incredibly toxic behaviored people because I didn't know better. And have I got the scratches and dents to prove it. 

I thought God expected me battered, bruised and barmy. But come to find out, He doesn't. He wants me well and whole. He's the one sending the red flags and He wants to me to stop for them and wait on Him to find out when it's safe to proceed. This is revolutionary, brand-new thinking for me. I have to learn new response and ways of doing things to keep my little self safe.

But first, I have to learn to know red from green. And I think that to do that, I have to do pretty much the opposite of what I was taught. If my old response is to run it, my new response should probably be to stop. If I was taught to stop doing something (thinking for myself, having needs and feelings) or yield to someone (to not protect myself from them), maybe that's actually a green light I should go on? 

If something is a one-way street (me doing all the work, giving good and taking of crap) maybe that's a street I should avoid. If my kneejerk response is to merge into a freeway of unhealthy demands, expectations and hurtful behaviors, perhaps I should exit instead. If I'm so tired from the constant pressure of entitled demanding people, I might pull off the side of the road and nap. And find ways to sleep better. And if the roads are too dangerous, and the other drivers too crazy, I could go home, put on comfy jammies and have some cocoa instead. 

How narcissist parents distort and convolute the scapegoat child's reality

 Hello my friends. I'm working to heal from a lifetime of narcissistic parental abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, enmeshment, parentification, invalidation, triangulation and gaslighting. Today I'm going to explore how narcissistic parents distort their scapegoat child's reality. One essential tool they use is double entendre. They purposely misuse words to deceive and confuse the child. They speak with forked tongues. They use words contrarily and weaponize benign words against the child. Unbeknownst to the child, they are actually saying the opposite of what the child believes them to mean. 

Case in point in my life is the concept of family. Or actually, let's take it back a step, to include the concept of parents and children and the nature of their relationship. My "parents" called themselves this when referring to things expected OF me. I had to do things because "I'm your parent." " You have to obey me." etc. Which would be sort of normal except that they didn't act like parents. 

I was also expected  to parent them. They made very immature, unsafe choices and left me alone in countless dangerous situations. I was a more reliable babysitter at 10 than they ever were as parents. They confided deeply personal, uncomfortable things in me, as a kid. (which I've learned is emotional incest). They expected adult behavior from me that they didn't model. And in situations most actual adults would struggle with. They scolded and shamed me for acting like a kid. So I stopped. I just played the "guess what they want now" game. The stress of these constantly shifting roles has damaged me in irreparable ways. 

Then add to that, their divorce and remarriage, which are other words they misused against me. They both lied about why they got divorced. My mother claimed abuse which didn't happen. She was actually cheating on my dad. They told me it was God's will and made me feel like it was my fault. Then they told me I was lucky because they had a "good" divorce. Then they married other very dysfunctional people and threw me at them to be used and abused. 

So back to the word "parent." They called these people parents as in, I had to serve, respect and obey them. Not as in they had to respect, care for or parent me. I "owed" them life, loyalty and they owed me nothing. Now all four of them were exploiting me each with his or her own unique spin. I was pushed back and forth among four adults who acted like irresponsible teenagers. 

And then they had kids. Now I had siblings, they said. But that was just to get me to serve (parent, wait on, nanny) their new kids. It was made clear that I was only in the "family" on sufferance. I had to earn my keep. It was never my house, I just had to take care of it. I was an unpaid housekeeper, nanny, cook and caregiver before age 14. I was not cared for. I was hungry, cold, homeless and excluded. What was expected of me was optional for them. 

Another irony was that while I was expected to act, think and work like an adult, I was also treated like a foolish, immature child. I was both infantilized and parentified. I was expected to abide by very rigid, inappropriate rules and shamed and shunned if I stepped out of line. At 16, I was working to support my mother's husband and family while going to school. But still given a ridiculously early curfew. Not because my stepfather needed me home for anything. He slept all day. Or because he cared about me. He just liked throwing his weight around. When I came home late, he kicked me out of "his" house. I was left to fend for myself. 

When I was 20 and in college, holding down a job and student teaching, I was made to co-sleep with my dad's and his wife's baby. I had to be home every night at 9:30 to babysit. Even with back injuries, I had to do all their housework including ironing, lugging a heavy vacuum, mopping floor on hands and knees and scaling snow hills to get frozen diapers off the line. Despite doing everyone's work, I was still treated like a naughty child, scolded, shamed, ignored and made fun of. 

You might wonder how they got away with it. The secret, I've learned is to keep it small and not let anyone see just how badly you're treating someone. And lie a lot. We never had company over. No one saw that I was sleeping on a cot in the baby's room. They presented an image of me as the problem. Occasionally they were caught out. But I still didn't see how wrong this was because they had me so gaslit. 

This odd parallel universe, of being adult child and child adult went on all my life. I continued to rise or lower to their expectations, as needed. Lots is trapped in my head. I didn't see it for what it was. But some incidents are beginning to show me the way out. My husband and a few trusted friends are  helping me understand that they presented a false image of reality to me. And this brings us back to misuse of words. 

My mother has always called her new family (husband and children with him) "my family." She would come over and then say she had to get home to her family. It was said very intentionally, to show us that we were NOT her family. She would say it in such a way as to sound like we were selfishly keeping her from them. She behaved as if the slightest amount of babysitting was a monstrous expectation on our part, though I cared for her children, free of charge, all my life. 

And the funny thing is that she usually came over to get something, not give it. I've been my mother's sounding board, sex therapist, and dumping ground all my life. And they don't like it when you have a spouse or kids of your own either. They get jealous because you're supposed to parent them, not anyone else. That's the flip-flop nature of narcissist parents. We want what we want from you when we want it. 

Every time she came over, she'd bend my ear with complaints. One time, my youngest daughter wanted me to play and my mother snapped and said "quit bothering your mother. Sometimes I need her to be my mother too (?!?)" What went around never came around. I'd give loving family support and care (often inappropriately too much) but did not receive it. I was family when it suited them. I was outsider when I needed anything. 

And one thing to know when dealing with narcissist parents is that it will ever be thus. They don't give much and never without expecting much more in return. Their greed knows no bounds. You can never be, do or give enough to fill their gaping black holes. For that reason, I've been forced to cut contact, to stop my very natural and generous giving. Because it only comes back to bite me. No good deed goes unpunished with narcissist parents.  

I'm sorry to sound so defeatist but there it is. I didn't ask for it to be this way. I wish there was another way. I'd have liked to have a more normal, healthy family of origin. But they didn't. They liked me enslaved. What I had to finally do is to realize that this wasn't good for me. Or my family. I couldn't be a healthy person or parent being so enmeshed with them. So I'm cutting the netting.

I'm trying to find the  me in all this "family." I'm writing the script instead of just letting them feed my lines. I'm determining how I want to interact with them instead of hopping through their weird, constantly changing hoops. I don't want to be their perpetual parent OR child. I'm an adult. I want to be me. If that's good enough for someone, fine. If not, also fine. Take it or leave it. Actually, at this point, I prefer they just leave it. I don't want their version of family anymore. 

How I feel as an empath with CPTSD (this might surprise you)

 Hi friends. I'm digging deeper into CPTSD (complex or childhood post-traumatic stress disorder) that I developed from a lifetime of abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, invalidation, bullying, parentification, scapegoating, terrorizing and gaslighting by four narcissistic parents. On top of that, I'm an empath which makes it so much worse. Today I'm going to try to explain how empath plus CPTSD makes me feel. Some of these things might surprise you. There are the usual suspects, fear, anxiety and sadness. But deeper and more core are feelings which are so big they defy naming, though I'll try. 

I am an empath, meaning that I don't just feel for others. That's sympathy or pity. I feel WITH them. And unfortunately it's the unpleasant emotions and none of the positive. When they succeed, I admire and applaud by I don't get any satisfaction vicariously. Yet when they struggle, I glom onto that with my whole self. I'm shredded by others' sorrow and have zero detachment skills. But I'm also sensitized to the fact that it's not mine. I don't want to seem to make it about me. Because it's not. But yet it is. I feel their pain more than my own. I feel it as if it is mine. 

Deep empathy has this weird ability to lift you outside yourself. You have a prescience that defies explanation. You can see people's minds with crystal clarity. Their hearts are laid bare. You can see things about them that they can't see themselves. You can almost finish their sentences and predict their next moves. And it is a terrifying superpower to have. 

You can never really be angry or upset with people because you're so tuned in to why they do things. You feel pity and sorrow for them. But the irony is that you often cannot feel those things for yourself. It's like you're drained dry by feeling with others and have none left for yourself. You are enmeshed with everyone and don't know where, or even if, they end and you begin. You are hard-wired to give and can't stop. The vulnerability and protentional for abuse is unimaginable. 

Now, enter the narcissist. They have this unerring ability to sniff out an empath and target them for their own use. If they are your parents, you're screwed. If they're Christian narcissist parents, God help you. Narcs already take too much. When they encounter a chronic over-giver they just roll them into their oversized selves. They exploit your empathy for selfish ends. They thieve your identity. They capitalize on the fact that you pour yourself into others. They manipulate your understanding of God so that you believe that it's Him you serve when it's actually them. 

I was raised to serve. I don't remember ever doing anything that wasn't designed to please someone else. I was brainwashed to feel guilty for needing and, God forbid, wanting. I was indoctrinated as a toddler into the cult of mommy and daddy. And then when they got sick of our family, they made shiny new ones that I wasn't apart of but was made to serve also. And I did. And felt guilty for not being able to do enough. As my husband so aptly puts it, I was groomed to this. 

I'm only now starting to really unpack all this. For the first 59 years of life, I defended, complied, supplied, excused and affirmed them in all things. I scolded my husband for having the guts to say what they did was wrong. And ironically, I'm still feeling a lot of shame, too much gratitude and not enough anger. Yes I said not enough. Some anger is a healthy response to hurt. None is sick and dysfunctional. It perpetuates the shame. 

I was grateful for common things all kids should expect. Which actually I didn't get, as I look back. Things like a bedroom or bed, clothing, food, warmth, a coat, transportation at some points, even a home. I was evicted and homeless at 16. Everything was transactional, except that I didn't get my end of the bargain. I did my part (and others' parts) because "that's what family does." Yet I wasn't family when it came to basic care. I had to earn the things I needed. Things were taken from me and given to their children and new spouses. My mother used my child support to fund her new family. While going to school, I had to work for clothing so her husband could sleep the day away. I was family when it came to getting from me and an outsider when it came to them giving to me. What was expected of me was optional for them. 

So what do I feel? Pity. For their pathetic machinations. For their unquenchable greed. For their embarrassing and awkward behavior. For their shallow, self-absorbed lives. 

Trying to answer the question about my narcissistic parents that I've been avoiding all my life

 Hi friends. Thanks for going back with me to sort out the mess my life has been. I'm rethinking what happened and finally seeing it not as healthy family behavior but abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, invalidation, shaming, enmeshment, parentification, scapegoating and gaslighting by four narcissistic parents. Today, I'm going to try to answer the question that has plagued me all my life. What's that question? Well, you might be surprised. 

Is the question why did they do all these things? No, but it should be. I should be demanding what the hell they were playing at screwing me over like they did. But then, I wouldn't have had to because they wouldn't have done these things in the first place. The fact that I can't shows how abusive they were. Because if you know histrionic/narcissists that's one of the many questions you can never ask. They get really mad if you call them out. Or even if they (which is more likely) just think you are. 

It's not safe, especially if you're their child. You basically have to put up and shut up. And even if I did ask, I wouldn't get a straight answer. The two times I did, it didn't end well. I was lied to, lied about, screamed at, further gaslit, shamed, bullied, mocked and assaulted by their  partners whom they sicced on me. Both experiences were absolutely terrifying and left me shattered. And as per usual, I just picked up the pieces of myself and carried on. Never an apology from them or admission of anything. 

So I have been avoiding that question too, but for self-preservation. All my life, I've excused, exonerated and defended them and punished myself. Because as the scapegoat I was always at fault and responsible. But now that I getting healthier, I just don't give a damn, anymore.  There was never any excuse for it, end of. 

The question I am trying to answer today, is why was I so afraid of them? What was I so afraid of? Because terrified, I sure as hell was. So much so that 60 years later, I am still terrified of them. And two are deceased. In fact, I'm probably more terrified now than ever. Their specters have loomed so large that they've become enormous, unstoppable juggernauts. They've grown in power and magnitude. I can't think about them without being sick with fear. But a fear I've covered all my life. 

And that is both the cause of and answer to this question. This fear is primitive because I was so young when they began frightening me. And so bizarre guerilla-like in the manner of doing so.  Both of my biological parents and stepmom presented as calm, balanced people. My stepfather was just bat shit crazy angry. But my dad would fly into these insane and random rages. And my mother and stepmother would turn septic out of the blue. Both were venomous and seething angry, I now see. Back then, I didn't. 

Because they painted themselves as righteous, put-together people, these outbursts seemed out of character. (At least my stepdad was honest about being a raging maniac.) So I assumed and they told me, that I provoked them to wrath. That I caused it. Even though they never gave me the tiniest clue as to what I had actually done wrong. Or if they did, it was blown out of proportion, twisted, exploited, manipulated, etc. 

Sometimes my dad (I realize now) was mad at his wife or one of his kids and just took it all out on me. Another time, when I was 16, I came home 15 minutes late and my mom's (unemployed, lazy sponger, living off my child support) husband grounded me for a month. Another time, I sat in the drive talking with a friend an hour past when I was supposed to be in he went so ballistic I thought he was going to combust. He kicked me out of the house. She stood by and let him. 

They used a lot of narc word salad (bullshit) about how I was disobedient, sassy, a nasty person, too sensitive, too critical, selfish, unChristian, a show off etc. But I have no memory of actually doing the things they said I'd done. Or if I did, I remember it being an innocent mistake that was twisted into something horrendous. Very frequently, I'd actually done a good thing, trying to please or placate their ceaseless expectations. But it wasn't done right. (?!) Or I hadn't tried hard enough (?!?) Or their demands had changed and I wasn't kept up to speed (??!!) Or  even I had the wrong motives for doing it (?!?!?!) There was never any winning, or pleasing them. I couldn't hope to be good enough. 

And being so bloody terrified I wouldn't have dared to do bad things to start with. When I made mistakes it was because I was so nervous and frightened of their displeasure. And then my dad (the King of oversensitive) would say I was overreacting and needed to lighten up. As if! And, come to find out, everything I'd done or even supposedly done was actually stuff all kids, including my four parents had done. 

My mom snuck out of the house, mouthed off to her mom and destroyed a dress she'd made. My dad wrecked family cars, told his parents off routinely. My stepmother never did a thing around her house. My stepfather beat a kid half to death for shits and giggles. They told those stories with pride. They continued their childish behavior into adulthood. And poor me, who jumped at her own shadow, was made to be more adult at 6 than they'd ever been in their lives. 

So what WAS I afraid of? What was I afraid they would do? They were four rather dysfunctional adult children. They are all emotionally frail bullies. What power did they have over me? Adult me doesn't have an answer. Child me is too afraid to pry her hands off her eyes to ask. I think if I can manage to do that, I'll see that what I'm afraid of is a chimera based on myths, lies and gaslighting. 

And saddest and scammiest of all, they said that it was God who was angry, displeased and whom I was letting down. They made God into a Golem to terrify me into submission. So one level of my fear was upsetting God. I wasn't even afraid of what they could do to me. I'd taken their worst all my life and survived. I'll say this, I was hard to keep down. I just kept coming back for more and they got better at the abusive tactics. 

So fear of displeasing God. But another level was, I think, fear that ultimately, I'd never make anyone happy, no matter what I did or how hard I tried. I didn't just fail, I WAS failure personified. And that I couldn't and shouldn't live, with that knowledge. That somehow I was the exception to God's unconditional love. That everyone would be better off without foolish, failure me in the world. Which doesn't make sense, I know. But when you've been bashed in the head since childhood, you tend not to think clearly. 

I think maybe, as a therapist once put it so well, I was trying to keep myself alive. And running out of reasons to do so. That explains to some extent, the terribly traumatic dreams and nightmares. My dream make up convincing lies about things I've supposedly done that are unspeakable. Planted by my parents to perpetuate this idea that I'm their only problem. Get rid me and viola, all's well. 

Does it help to answer this question? I wish it did. I wish, that seeing my demons unmasked, I could laugh off my fears and move into the light. But old sins cast long shadows. And I have lived in them for so long, I'm not sure that I can or ever will, be able to shake them. And that makes me afraid too. Afraid that by admitting I'm damaged will be letting someone down, again. 

CPTSD and gaslighting fog follow me everywhere

 Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal from CPTSD (childhood or complex post traumatic stress disorder) I'm looking at how gaslighting after effects follow me everywhere. If you're new to the blog, welcome and buckle up because we get very intense around here. I'm trying to deprogram and reparent from a lifetime of narcissistic histrionic parental abuse, enmeshment, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, invalidation, triangulation, parentification, scapegoating, shaming and gaslighting about all that. 

So first,  I want to explore the idea of parental gaslighting. I think of this as indoctrination and brainwashing into the fantasy cult of the enmeshed, narcissistic parent. All reality is denied except the delusional unreality of the narcissists. Every experience I had, or was shoved into, was twisted to suit my narc histrionic parents' narrative. Good was bad, wrong was right, immoral was Godly, I was selfish and too sensitive, you get my drift. 

I get why the term gaslighting is used. But as a survivor, I'll say that it is more like gassing. Those of us with CPTSD have been mentally and emotionally gassed, like soldiers in WW1, with toxic behavior and poisonous thinking of the histrionic narcissists. You can see it in our eyes, the squinting and shielding from being constantly on the defensive. Our brains are burnt from years of parental nonsensical hot air and self-centered manipulation.  They're damaged from constant dousing with cortisol and adrenaline, in response to their manufactured crises and stress. 

And like any other burn scars, they don't go away. There's no brain grafting process that can remove damaged memories and thought processes and replace them with good, healthy ones. This is our normal and it follows us everywhere, into every new situation, relationship and experience, like our legs or liver. It's kneejerk response. I expect abuse and shaming. It's kindness I don't understand. And this has caused untold problems in my family of now relationships. 

For one thing, no one knows that my brain processes are radically different from most everyone else's. I look fairly normal on the outside, and so normal behavior is expected of me. But my insides are abnormal AF. Everything about me, how I think, feel and act is cockeyed, skewed and distorted. And the one thing that helps me fit in is also the thing that makes it more difficult for others to understand my predicament. 

I am an actor. I know how to read faces, mirror responses and mimic behavior. I'm pretty good at sensing appropriate and healthy behavior even though it's a 180 from what I learned and how I was treated. So if I appear to be always "on stage" it's because I am. I'm desperately struggling to learn the lines and play my part. 

Is it fake? Eh, yes and no. It's not genuine because these are learned behaviors. Healthy interaction and life skills weren't modeled for me. You can't be abused, neglected, endangered, abandoned, invalidated, manipulated and parentified on a daily basis and learn healthy behavior. Cerebrally, I know what's right, but core response is still sick. So I fake it till I make it. 

How loving parents vs. narcissistic parents treat their kids: holidays, gifts and good deeds

 Hi friends. Tomorrow is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, mother of the Americas and of us all. I can't think of a better day to contrast the difference between how loving parents and narcissistic parents treat their kids. Now you might say, well aren't all parents somewhat selfish and you'd be right. The difference is M.O. (modus operandi), frequency of selfish behaviors, intent and targeting of certain children and not others. This is only part one of the story. 

Narcissistic abuse of scapegoat children is pattern. It's how they do things most of the time. Loving altruistic behavior is abnormal for them. Loving parents have the reverse ratio. I share this from six decades of narcissistic parental abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, bullying, backstabbing, shaming, scapegoating, invalidation and gaslighting about it all, by four narcissistic parents. 

1) Good deeds. The child does something loving and no matter how imperfect, the loving parent is proud of, grateful to the child. She's made to feel good about it. But conversely, no matter how well it's done, the narcissistic parent will find a way to diminish it. She'll find fault, insult, mock, twist motives, feel sorry for herself (?!), shame, act annoyed, downplay etc. She will give her golden child credit for what the scapegoat actually did. 

Case: My dad and I surprised my mom a necklace for her birthday when I was four. We wrapped it in pretty paper, put it on the bed and led her blindfolded into the room. Her response: where's the rest of my gifts? I began crying thinking I'd failed her (that began a lifelong pattern) and she got mad because we didn't laugh at her "joke." 

Case: I usually made dinner for the family when my stepmom was at work. She didn't cook and we rarely ate dinner unless I or my dad made something. I went a little bigger this one time and her sons told her how much fun we'd had. She got mad and said I'd deprived her boys by not having their supper ready till 6 pm. I felt so guilty for that. Despite even my dad, for once defending me, snapping "why can't you ever say anything nice to Mary?" Why not, Jack? Maybe you should ask yourself that. Then he spoiled it by telling me not to be so sensitive. 

I probably don't have to tell you how a loving parent handles these things. But I will. And far be it from me to give myself much credit for anything but I am a loving parent. I treasure any gift my kids give me no matter (maybe because of) how homemade it is. And they know it. I make a big deal out of the good, kind things they do. I'm not jealous, I'm proud of them. 

2) Gift-giving, special occasions. Narcissistic parents make a huge, out-of-proportion deal out of their own  and their golden children's birthdays. They expect the scapegoat's attendance, armed with gifts, no matter how busy she is with her own life and family (their grandchildren). They want it all, big gifts and small, many and expensive. You can't give enough. Contrarily, they go cheap or not at all with gifts to the scapegoat. They make no bones about it, and actually want you to know that you are excluded. They say they "can't remember" your birthday but you damn well better remember theirs. They bullshit you with nonsense like "I don't do big gifts for Christmas" yet expect you to lavish on them and theirs. They cry poverty, yet expect the scapegoat to cough up, no matter how skint she is. 

Case: I was given gifts that were actually for my siblings. A race car set at 14 which doubled as free babysitting. I was expected, in college, which I was paying for entirely myself, no help from any of my four parents, to give and give big to them. I was living on about $20 a week and basically didn't eat. Homemade was sneered at. When my children came along, my grown ass brothers still expected presents despite them never giving me or mine a thing or even remembering our birthdays. 

One year, things were really tight for us. We'd just moved into a house that needed a lot of work. I had just lost a baby and my husband had started a new job making less but closer. suggested to my mom that we not buy gifts for each other. We were shopping for Christmas dinner which I was paying for like I always did.  She readily agreed with her not giving. Then proceeded to fill up my cart with goodies for "her family" which she promised to pay me back for. She never did. Then she wanted me to buy her a sexy nightie. 

Loving parents give to all their kids, the things they know their children want and need. they do their best. They DON'T EXCLUDE. They give, not expect. Holidays and birthdays are about others, not themselves. We've had hard candy Christmases with most items bought second-hand. My one son said those were his favorite memories. 

The naked truth about how messed up I am

 Hi friends. This post is going maybe as deep as I've ever gone. I'm going to share how messed up I am after living in six decades of abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation,  manipulation, triangulation, scapegoating, invalidation, enmeshment, parentification and gaslighting about it all from four narcissistic parents. 

It's not just my brain that's damaged by CPTSD. My abilities are crippled. I'm disabled by it. Every thought and feeling is colored by it. I don't understand my needs and wants. I only know what others want and need and how it's my responsibility to provide. And how inept I am at being able to do that. And how that engulfs me with shame. I don't know where they end and I begin or if I even do begin. My identity was stolen by enmeshed parents who saw me as an extension of themselves. 

I second (third, 26th) guess everything I think and do. I never make a decision for myself, without endless self-doubt. I never do anything without self recriminations. I never do anything good for me, without feeling immense guilt at the audacity of my own "selfishness." I'm terrified by countless faceless, formless fears. I walk amid shadows. I live in a parallel universe in which I don't fit. I'm as out of place as a turnip in daily life and have about as many coping skills. 

To most people it may not show. It does if you look close. I'm bent with trying to fit in, to accommodate and to survive in unsafe, healthy situations. My face wears a perpetual grimace which is part clenched teeth and part appeasing smile. I do not relax ever and wouldn't know what that felt like if I did. I sit on the edge of the seat expecting to have to jump up and do something for someone. 

What was modeled for me by parents was bizarre, maladaptive, manipulative, histrionic behavior. Odd was normal and normal pretty much didn't exist. They went around in a delusional, center of the universe fantasy in which I was a supporting character. They were constantly needy and attention-seeking. They never sang in the choir. They were prima donna and primo uomo. They didn't work within systems. They did their own thing. 

I saw other families who were more functional, less theatrical, more genuine. And I remember secretly wishing sometimes that I was their kid. You know, how your kids will sometimes say, quite normally, I wish Mrs. S was my mom? And you just smile and say sometimes I wish she was too (lol). But being an empath, I didn't want to hurt my own parents. Because they wouldn't have laughed it off as greasy kid stuff. They would have exploded, on me. It wouldn't have been safe to. Even just the normal silly stuff kids do was verboten to me. So I developed some coping skills which if odd and unhealthy, at least helped me juxtapose this cognitive dissonance that was my life with the world outside their little cults.  

But these defense mechanisms don't fit real well in society. Throughout my life, I've done and said weird things, which earned me strange looks, censure and estrangement. I'd fawn to the point of emotionally prostituting myself. Sometimes even physically. I was told I was dirty flirty which as you can imagine, raised my shame to self-harming levels. In youth group, I was punished for letting an older guy kiss me. Why there were creepy 20 year-olds hitting on a 13-year-old at church was never addressed. 

I didn't realize how odd I was until it was until it was too late. I'd act like I'd been taught to act and people would give me funny looks and back away. I showed a lot of signs of CPTSD which I see now put a target on my back for the creeps. I'd been groomed to serve others needs and they could smell this a mile away. I couldn't even do over-nighter events without my nightmares, sleep talking and crying out terrifying others. Some mocked me for it. No one ever reached out to help. And I just felt even ore like the idiot oddball. 

I cringe when I recall how disturbing my behavior. But I also feel really sorry for young me. And angry. Why the fuck did no one step in and help? If I was that messed up, why did no one think to look into why? Why did they just punish and ostracize? Like that was going to do any good. Not one of them could punish more than I already did to myself. Hello, suicidal kid here! And ostracize? oh honey, been there, lived that all my life. 

And why did they throw me at these icky pedophiles, turn a blind eye while they molested me and then shame me for feeling good that someone liked me? But no, they just smiled their happy, normal "Christian" smiles and tsk-tsked scapegoat me. Which I see now is just more narcissistic fantasy. Pin all our sins on the scapegoat and send her out of the village in shame so we can pretend we're actually functional good Christians. 

And I see where it might sound paranoid when I say it was just me they did this to. But it really was. Because the other kids had (wait for it) PARENTS WHO GAVE A SHIT! They taught their kids how to navigate and take care of themselves. It wasn't that they were so much holier than me as I always thought. It was because they had enough pride in themselves not to let this happen. And the creeps would never dare to take them on because they  had back up and support, not four totally self--absorbed parents who left their daughter to the wolves. Actually, I'd rather have been raised by wolves. 

Interestingly, history would prove that most of the many churches I've attended, were not as Godly as they'd have liked to believe. Especially the one with all the pedos. In all the groups I've been in, secular or religious, they had the highest rate of failed relationships,  multiple marriages and broken kids. Which gives me no pleasure to say. Maybe if the adults had worried less about their Christian image and more about actually behaving like Christians, we could have gotten the help we needed. 

So now I muddle through. 

How narcissistic parents flip the script to gaslight the scapegoat child

 Hello my friends. Today in my deep dive into narcissistic abuse, I'm looking at ways narcissistic parents and stepparents flip the script to gaslight the scapegoat child. These come from my six decades' experiences of abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, parentification, triangulation, toxic shaming, manipulation, invalidation, scapegoating and gaslighting about it all by four histrionic narcissistic parents. They literally rewrote the narrative. 

"My house, my rules." As if they have the right (I  hate that word) to do anything they want to someone because it's "their house." This is a pecker-headed thing to say to begin with. Because usually it's said by narcissists who stampede others' boundaries when in their homes. And it's isn't' just your house. It's the family's home including the scapegoat child's home. In my case, it was NOT the house of the one saying it, my mother's husband. He was just the live-in sponger whom my mother ceded control over me, to. 

"My daughter lives with us." Do you hear how weird this sounds? No? I didn't either for most of my life. But let's take apart this gaslighting phrase. First, why would your daughter not live with you? Why would you say it like giving her a home is some kind of privilege and not just basic child care. And the use of pronouns is odd. "My daughter" (possessive) and "us" as if the daughter not part of the family, just a lodger. Which is was, an unpaid domestic servant. When my parents divorced and remarried, I never again called it my home. Because it wasn't presented to me as mine. I wasn't part of the family. It was their homes that I was being allowed, by their good graces, to live in. I always said I lived with my dad or mom. This phenomenon has a name. It's called hidden homelessness. 

"You owe us for all we've done for you." So much wrong with this. Again with the we and you. The scapegoat isn't family. She's a possession. A slave. A helper and fixer. But also expected to repay? Repay what? You never provided even basic care which YOU owe ME as your child. And wait, I thought we were family? At least that's what you say when enumerating your many expectations of me. "Family help each other." But when you do something for me, suddenly it's a business transaction. My mother lied and said she would pay a few months rent when I was in college. Then she gaslit me and said it was a load she expected to be paid back with interest. After using my savings bonds and child support to fund her new family. Supposedly this was to pay for my care when actually it was to buy shit for her chronically unemployed boyfriend.  

"Family loyalty." Whoa, does that phrase cover a multitude of sins! What it translated to in my situation was "never repeat what happens here." Never say what we've done to hurt you and how we neglect you. And I never did. Till now. It still feels disloyal. But if it's disloyal to tell the bad things someone did to you, then loyalty is misplaced. 

"God expects this of you." My, oh my how this was used against me. And funny how this God of which they spoke always applauded every cruel and hurtful thing they did to me. Every unsafe situation they put me in, every inappropriate expectation, every act of abuse and neglect, every lie told about me, every dangerous person they put me in the path of, was all explained as God's will. So it's no wonder that I have a broken understanding of God. 

These are just some of the countless mind-effing things they've made me believe over the years. 

How a histrionic narcissistic parent's threats of suicide destroy a child

Hello my loved ones.  If you're following my blog in its current iteration, heartfelt thanks and gratitude. It's been a log road of ride lately. I'm excavating six decades of narcissistic parent abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, triangulation, scapegoating, invalidation, enmeshment, parentification, infantilization and gaslighting about it all, from four "parents." And the impact it's had on me. Today I'm looking at what might be the most insidious and shattering form of narcissistic abuse and that is a parent's weaponized threats of suicide. That one thing almost destroyed me. Thank God for God and his beloved Son and Spirit. 

It is currently not the done thing to use the word "suicide." I hesitate even using it now because censors will flag and ban my blog. I get why, but try telling my dad not to use the word. He was threatening me with his self-harm since I was 5. I was probably the only kindergartener who knew what it meant. Where was anyone then, to worry about what impact this had on me? I just carried that shit in my broken little heart and told no one.  

And what did it matter what term was used? As if not using a certain word will change what actually happens? I wish that just changing the jargon could stop its impact. But the intent was the same. All I knew was that my daddy intended to top himself at any given moment and there wasn't a bloody thing his little girl could do about it. 

So as well-intentioned as this censorship might be, it's not helpful for those of us affected by it long before there was an internet. Or anyone to know or care how we worried ourselves sick. I need to talk about this or I will run mad. I need say the words that were said to me and which have been trapped in my child mind for 55 years. And anyone who has endured the death (or just threatened death) of a loved one from self-harm, needs to as well. 

Because it isn't just the person doing it or talking about it who suffers. Not by a long chalk. Especially not when it is a narcissistic, histrionic parent.  I'd say that I suffered more than him. For all his talk about it, my dad liked himself quite a lot. He fancied himself a minister (no training) and was quick to point out specks in others' eyes. Yet he never addressed the board in his, which were his continued threats of self-harm when he didn't get his way. 

So you may say, oh poor guy, he was really in pain. But as I look back, I'm not so sure. He was pretty glib about it. And the way he forced me to listen to his plans. He seemed to enjoy the power he had to make me miserable. I know we're not supposed to say this, but I believe, from firsthand experience that threats of self-harm are sometimes bullying. They sure as hell are traumatizing, mind-messing and behavior altering. 

So we censor the word because we want to prevent further incidents of self-harm. God yes. I can't begin to describe how his threats devastated me. And warped my brain and shattered my heart. No one should suffer like that. Because say what you will about the person taking their own life being a victim, those left behind are even more so. Whether they actually do it or just terrorize people into thinking they will, they kill large parts of those who love them.  And they do it very casually, leaving us to bleed out. And do all the dirty work: the guilt, shame, fixing.  

So on that note, I'm going to be the one to say what a lot of us victims feel, that suicide is incredibly selfish. And I say that completely empathizing with the massive emotional pain that drives them to it. I will give special dispensation to kids and teens. I don't think they have any idea of the hurt it will cause others. I'm not even sure if they understand that it is permanent. I think many believe that they will somehow be saved. Kids think they are invincible. 

But my dad? He knew. He saw how much I cared and he didn't care. I know, you'll say "he was the one hurting." "He was sending out cries for help" and "you should take it seriously." I know all the received wisdom about how family is supposed to understand, not dismiss it, etc. And I did. Every. Single. Time. He would "cry for help" and I'd jump to help and fix and bend and twist to keep dad happy. And it was never enough. He just got better at the mind games. But I didn't know that's what they were.  I gave up my life and self so he'd keep his. 

And he never did do what he promised. So that's good right? Sure. That's what I thought. At least dad is safe. Well, maybe so, but one of us did lose her life, her identity, her self-worth. I felt constant shame and guilt. No matter how hard I tried, he held that sword of Damocles over my head. He said dance, and I said name the tune. It became a lifelong dance marathon and it never did me one fucking bit of good. 

I have very few good memories of childhood. But I recall the first time he told me that he was going to end it all, as if it was happening now. He didn't even commit to anything, just said vaguely and calmly, as if he was contemplating buying a new car, that he'd probably at some point eradicate himself. I cried, said I loved him and would miss him. And wouldn't he miss me? Uhh, no, he pondered, he didn't think so. So there wasn't anything I could do about it except suffer with the knowledge, live in fear and bend over backwards to keep him happy. I died a bit that day. I don't remember laughing much after that. 

I think now that he never intended to do anything. I think he just got narcissistic supply seeing me cry, beg and grovel. I think now that it was just a ploy to keep me dancing attendance on him, his new wife and their kids. You might say, oh you must never say that to a potential suicide. I didn't. I wish now that I'd have told him that if there was nothing I could do, then quit threatening me with it. But even thinking of doing that makes me feel guilty. 

And why must I not say that? I have a right to life too. A right to peace of mind and satisfaction of doing a good job. Why was it necessary that my life be destroyed over it? So what if I had told him to quit bullying me and just do what he needed to do. Would it have been my fault if he had? My gaslit brain says yes but my common sense says no. I can't control his actions and enabling him to keep jerking me around this way doesn't help either one of us. Only I can end this Spandau Ballet he put me through. 

And the ironic thing is that the one who actually followed through, was me. Or I would have if it wasn't for fear of what it would do to my beloved husband and kids. Where he didn't care  how he hurt me, that was what stopped me. And I know, you may think, well if you knew how bad suicide was how could you contemplate it? That's the kicker. Being guilted by suicide threats made me suicidal with shame. 

And further paradox. Would I have done it to end the pain? Nope. I figured I deserved all of it and more for failing my dad. I would have done it to spare my loved ones having to suffer with such a piece of shit person as me. Which of course made me feel even more guilty. It's a cruel, vicious, self-perpetuating cycle. And trust me, you could never blame me as much as I blame myself. 

But what I've learned is that self-blame is a thing we use to try to make sense of it. If it's our fault, we can do something about it. We can prevent it. Like I did all those years placating my dad. But God doesn't see it that way. You know how He says that the sins of the fathers are passed to their kids? It doesn't mean we're destined to repeat our fathers' sins. We're not automatons. The last thing I wanted was to put my kids through what I'd lived with. 

The scripture means that their poison splashes onto us. We feel the repercussions more than they do. I got caught in the crosshairs of his selfishness. I got the fallout. Now I have to convince myself that I didn't fail him. He failed me. And that's going to be a tough job because the gaslighting is powerful and the voices are real. And I got a slow start. So I might not make it to the mountain. But I want to help you get there. 

I want to let you know, what I didn't know because I was too young. It is not your fault. It's not your job to fix. No one has the right to terrorize you with their problems. Even your kids. It  hurts like hell to know that they are suffering. I'm not saying be callous, God no. But you can't take their suffering on yourself. There's one and only one that did. Our Lord Jesus. I'm of the belief that it wasn't so much our sins but our pain that he took to the cross. You can give all you have, and it may help them. Or it may not. But it doesn't mean that you didn't give good. You are good. And it is enough. You deserve joy. 

Love, mar

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