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 threaten suicide at age 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." 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 punished me for doing those things. 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 as needed. 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.
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