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.
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