Hi friends! I've been working on healing from CPTSD caused by dark triad/dark tetrad parental abuse. And one thing I want to discuss today is an essential tool you must have in dealing with dark triad parents. And that is radical acceptance of the fact that they are accomplished liars and cheats. Until you get that fact firmly in your head, you're going to be fair game for their gaslighting and exploitation of you to get their narcissistic supply fix.
Dark triad personality includes narcissism (complete self-centered arrogance and expectation of others to focus only on them) psychopathy (lack of empathy and regard for others) and Machiavellianism (exploitation of others for personal gain). Dark tetrads add sadism (getting off on other's pain). This trifecta is the ultimate Molotov cocktail for destroying relationships. And in order to maintain these obviously dangerous lunatic beliefs. requires metric tons of lying, deception, conning, twisting, manipulation, gaslighting, etc.
If you are in the crosshairs of a dark triad narcissist, particularly if you're the child of one, you've been weaned on their shaming, blame-shifting, projection, scapegoating and invalidation. You've lived, eaten, breathed and slept in their cloud cuckooland. You've been neglected, abused and brain damaged by their endless scamming. You've been made barmy, battered and broken by their deceitful machinations. If you're nodding your head to any of this, you NEED to read on.
So I said you need to practice radical acceptance of them as liars. But how, if you've been raised up from infancy in their personality cult, do you do that? How do you suddenly stop buying into the grande delusion? Well, you have to set upright what they upended. They convoluted everything, making you believe right was wrong for them and wrong was right for you. So you have to flip that around. You start from the premise that EVERYTHING they say is wrong, a lie, a con.
I had to start looking at how other more normal people acted. I had to admit that my parents, all four, were really messed up and were messing me up royally. I had to pry my hands off my eyes and see their hypocrisy, distortion that was right in front of my face. Even though I believed and in some ways still believe their lies and gaslighting, I have to act like I don't. I have to fake confidence and trust in myself that I don't feel and hope that I'll make it to a more confident place. And it does work, I've found.
Now, instead of accepting everything they dished out, instead of falling for all their BS, I'm treating everything they say as suspect. I'm trusting nothing, believing nothing they say. I am quitting allowing myself to be a punching bag. Basically I'm treating them as guilty until proved innocent. Which turns out to be about time, because I'm realizing that unfortunately they are rarely ever innocent.
Will I end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Meh, don't care. I can't afford to. I've suffered far too much at the hands of these dark tetrad narcissists to let anything slide. Will I burn bridges? I hope so. Cuz I never want to go back to that misery again. And you know what? If it turns out they are actually legit occasionally and I blacklisted them unfairly, oh well? Serves them right for crying wolf so often. That's what you get for being such regular liars and cheats. That is logical consequences. And it's illogical for me to continue signing up for abuse.
And that's also how you treated me all these years, backstabbing, shaming, gaslighting, manipulating, cheating and stealing from me, victimizing me and then making me feel like the one in the wrong. How does that feel with the shoe on the other foot? It hurt me like hell. So am I vindictive? It's immaterial. If refusing to believe their lies or take the consequences of their bad actions, if allowing them to suffer the repercussions of their bad choices is vindictive, what they did must be pretty bad. And the only way for either of us to get any healing is radical acceptance and ending the enabling.
No comments:
Post a Comment