Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal CPTSD caused by abuse from four dark tetrad narcissistic parents, I'm looking at a critical way dark tetrad parents cause so much pain and confusion. This happens to be the thing the Bible, which my parents endlessly quote at others, speaks out against most strongly. And that's deception.
My four parents, two biological and their two new partners, each exhibited strong dark triad and dark tetrad traits: narcissism (self-centered, arrogant, demanding), Machiavellian (exploiting for their own ends), psychopathy (disregard for others, lack of remorse or empathy, cruelty). Dark tetrad adds sadism, which is enjoying seeing others suffer.
Yesterday I wrote about how surviving such ruthless, nasty bullies requires radical acceptance of the fact that they are intrinsic liars. Today we're going to unpack further why they lie and how they con us with their deceit. I'll use dark triad, narcissist and dark tetrad interchangeably.
So why do narcs lie? Essentially, it's to get what they want in any situation. It's also to preserve the fake IDs they've created. Their entire universe is false, and held up by a framework of deceit. The only thing that holds it together is carefully rewritten and edited versions of events. They also lie by habit. My stepfather used to say "you know he's lyin' cause his mouth is movin'" What I didn't get then was that he was describing himself too. And my mom.
And they lie because truth is too boring. Goodness, kindness, gentleness, truth, transparency, integrity are for sheep. THEY are the brave "truth tellers" who "say what everyone else is afraid to". They're lone wolves, stealthy, cunning and above everyone. They're risk-taking thrill seekers and lie because they get off on conning others. They feel superior if someone falls for their mind game. It's an inner cabal of one dead set on domination by trickery.
Their end game is remote control of people, making them do, think and feel things they have no idea that they are doing let alone why. It's not enough that they should just manipulate other people. We must dance marionette-like, but not see the strings. Our job is to feel really stupid and icky and keep dancing.
Dark tetrads are like human pyramid schemes where the more people they can sucker in, the more awesomely above it all they feel. And nothing succeeds like success. Case in point. Donald Trump. The writing's on the wall. He told us exactly how he planned to manipulate and destroy. He's a narc on a mission. When MAGA right-wingnuts called Biden and Harris the puppetmasters, they outed themselves and their Puppetmaster in chief. Trump and his acolytes are dark tetrad personified. And guess whose parents are loyal devotees? But she's been out-played. What she doesn't see is that she fell for the oldest game in the con business, being conned by a better confidence trickster.
And how do dark tetrads manage all these charades? How do they keep the plates spinning? With their elaborate web of lies and fake personas. They watch genuinely kind people carefully and pose as them. Then launch a smear campaign against them to distract from the fact that they're just a cheap copy not the genuine article.
My mother maintains the guise of a good Christian woman. She talks the talk (sort of, anyone who knows anything about real Christianity hears the gaslighting in her talk) And she definitely doesn't walk the walk. A cursory examination of her life, shows she is and always has been a deceitful, exploitative scammer. She has broken every single rule she lays on others. She has stolen, cheated, lied, tricked and faked. She does the very things she preaches against, routinely. And has nothing but scorn and scathing criticism for truly nice kind people. She will slander them untruthfully without batting an eye, her voice dripping disdain.
So hypocrisy is another tool and also the smear campaign. Because while imitating those good people, they are maligning them behind their backs. They are creating fake personas for others too. They gossip and spread rumors. They lie and tell people their child is a liar. They steal from her then say she loses things. They live like trash and then call her the tramp. They're judgey AF and call her judgmental. Amid their utter chaos and depravity, they paint her as the problem. And the poor kid absorbs and believes it all. Because what kind of parent would do this to their child? The kind that uses the guise of a parent to hide very hurtful behavior.
We who are victims of the dark tetrads, develop this bad habit, from decades of gaslighting, of believing what we hear over what we see. We believe their lies over our good common sense. And they capitalize on that. Even when the proof is staring us in the face. We believe that because we care about them, give them good and love them. they do likewise. Nothing could be further from the truth.
They ensnare us with our own innocent trust of them. They start when the child is too young to know to be wary of them. They count on the fact that most parents don't act like this. We see other kids' parents mostly loving, caring and authentic. We have no idea ours aren't because they pose as normal people and lull us into a false sense of security. They wear sheep's clothing so we expect that they are gentle sheep. We don't see the wolf's fangs and claws under the fleece because we're not looking for it.
And other people fall for the scam too. The narcissist gets her version in first and it's the very devil to challenge it. She paints fake backdrops and distorted images. Then if anyone does question her, she'll gaslight, twist and throw sand in their eyes. She'll turn on them and attack and then cry victim.
And others don't see it coming because they don't act that way. They don't have an agenda. They're just living their life, loving their kids and being the best they can be. They expect that the dark tetrad parent is doing the same thing. They see what from the outside looks fairly normal. They don't see the harm and danger the child of dark triad parents is being subjected to. My mother's brand of weird was as out of place in the places I grew up as as a giraffe walking down the street.
And maybe other people are just too lazy to see. I once told a nasty thing my mother did to a friend (rather out of character for me to be honest). Despite never meeting her and knowing me to be a decent person, he immediately took her part and criticized me for saying what she did. This is how the narcissist perpetuates her lies. By playing to the crowd and working her crafted image. And it's easier for outsiders to to turn a blind eye than to reach out and help. Better to just wring your hands when the child is carried out on a stretcher and say, "we had no idea!"
All this gaming is so baffling to those of us who live in the real world. It took me 60 years to see that I was living on a chess board and not in a home. So I think the way out is by rewriting the rules of engagement. The rules didn't apply to me and so they don't now. And I don't have to follow their dangerous rules anymore. I refuse to spend the rest of my life in a fencing match so I'm getting off the sparring mat. I'm playing by my rules.
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