Hi friends. I'm on a mission to heal CPTSD from abuse by four narcissistic dark tetrad parents. What's a dark tetrad? That's an arrogant, bullying, manipulative, self-centered, cruel person who hurts others for personal gain and pleasure. In a parent, it's a Molotov cocktail. Today I'm looking at how dark tetrad parents weaponize an abused kid's trauma responses. Here are 12 ways traumatized kids play right into their bullying parents' hands. Yes some are contradictory.
1) Showing fear. Dark Tetrad get off on terrifying people with their threatening behavior. And dark tetrad parents have the perfect victim in their kids. Children already fear a lot of stuff, especially those of us who grew up in scary chaotic situations. Dark tetrad parents know their kids will look to them for protection. They tell kids there's nothing to be afraid of, then lure them into their candy house. The kid never sees the witch till they're in the oven. What a rush it is for them to hold out hope and then snatch it away, all the while maintaining the kindly old lady guise.
2) Not showing fear. Contradictorily, dark tetrad parents love it when kids put on a brave face thru all the shit their parents put them through. They see it as a challenge and up their game. "You're not afraid yet? Oh you will be when I'm done with you." And the child just feels like she's the one with the problem because what kind of parent would purposely terrify their child?
3) Crying. Dark tetrad parent get a quadruple whammy out of this. First, they get the sick delight of making the kid cry, then they can fake comfort and lull the child into a false sense of security. And then they shame the poor kid for seeing thru the false comfort and still being afraid. They call the kid a "cry baby" or accuse her of showing off or some other such narcissistic bullshit. Lastly, they threaten the child that she'd better quit or "I'll give you something to cry about." Lather, rinse repeat.
4) Not crying. Kids who stay stoic in the face of parental shaming, beatings, attacks, screaming sets a dark tetrad off in another direction, anger, of the self-righteous kind. Which by the way, they get high on too. Two reasons. It feeds their bloated god-like sense of entitlement and above-it-all-ness. But on a deeper level, it embarrasses them because their child's calm maturity shows the adult's idiotic tantrums for what they are.
5) Embarrassment or humiliation. Speaking of parent embarrassment, dark tetrads looooovvee to see their kids ashamed preferably by something they've done to humiliate the child but which others don't see. The parent does the shameful thing and the kid gets the blame. Which is of course value added. They get to act foolish plus see someone else made a fool of. My mom invited me to her company picnic and then threw a pie in my face. I was often the schlimazel to my one of my parents' schlemiel.
6) Bed-wetting, nightmares, sleep-talking, sleep-walking or other nighttime disturbances. This is manna to a bullying parent, who has caused the night trauma in the first place. And it's a bonus fix because the parents gets the fun of wreaking havoc, mocking the child and then acting all condescending and dismissive over the fears set off the damn sleep problems in the first place. My mother's lazy-ass live-in used to sleep all day on the couch and stay up all night watching scary shows. He'd rage if anyone woke him or asked him to turn the TV (our TV!) down. And then he and my mother would make fun of me for walking, crying and calling out in my sleep.
7) Having accidents like dropping or breaking things, falling, or even wetting pants. Dark tetrads really hit the jackpot here. They neglect medical care so the child doesn't see properly or has postural issues from living in unsafe situations. Or from physical abuse. They caused the nervousness which makes the child jumpy and accident-prone. Then they make fun of the child calling her a klutz. And then they get high-horse bitchy because the child made a mess. And condescendingly "help" the child clean it up.
8) Expressing shock at parents' shocking behavior. Dark tetrads adore attention, preferably by startling, disturbing, upsetting, worrying or generally unnerving people, especially their kids. It's crack to them. They go out of their way to do and say the weirdest things to make them uncomfortable. My mother's live-in used to love to hold out a donut to one of her foster care kids, then scream "NO!" and watch the child fling the donut cry and sometimes wet his pants. Oh how they'd laugh. Sick MF-ers.
9) Exhibiting stress. Traumatized kids live in constant chaos which causes stress which causes constant bursts of cortisol and adrenaline which causes a myriad of health problems. All of which is caused by their dark tetrad parents stressing and traumatizing them regularly. So again, bonus is that the parent gets to create the chaos and then get annoyed with the child's natural stress responses. And then use it against the child or punish them. And then enjoy watching all the suffering they've created. (Dark tetrads are sadistic).
10) Being sick or tired. Dark tetrad parents enmesh with kids and live parasitically off them. They routinely drain their child's resources. They neglect her basic care. They make her ill and exhaust her with their ceaseless neediness, inappropriate demands and unhealthy expectations. And then, when they've sucked the life out of her, voila, they blame her for being of no use to them anymore. They say she's "showing off" or "too sensitive" or looking for attention.
11) Getting annoyed or angry. This one might be a dark tetrad parent's favorite response from their children. Because oh the payout, especially if they are religious dark tetrads. They systematically antagonize the child. They deprive, bully, harass, goad and frustrate her to no end. And remember they've also been living off her like tics. So she's constantly weak. And then when she snaps (which is surprisingly rare and very mild given her exhaustion) they act as if she's just destroyed the world. Their blazing, shaming, scathing fury knows no bounds. Everything mean thing they've ever done is exonerated by the child's one tiny act of defiance. They harangue her with God's wrath at her wickedness. They call her every name in the book.
They accuse her of being angry, disobedient, disloyal, disrespectful, etc. Notice how they ignore the fact that they are doing these very things regularly. They actually scream at her and hit her just for speaking up?! Or not being happy enough at being exploited. My vengefully angry father and spiteful, manipulative stepmother (who hated each other) said I was the entire problem in their family because I was "so angry." They conveniently forgot how they had enslaved me and done things to me that would enrage a saint.
12) Showing discomfort or awkwardness when parent purposely behaves inappropriately, especially sexually This is similar to embarrassing the child but worse. Narcissists are notoriously provocative, the root word of which is provoke. They activate feelings of shame in the child by acting perverted. They're weirdly flirty, they even with kids. They crash kids' boundaries and invade privacy. If divorced, they date people who are way too young or old for them.
My mom and dad and her later boyfriends were all "off" sexually. My mom would talk to me about sex when I was 8. She said it was for my own good but it was always anecdotal and creepy. When I'd beg her to stop she'd get annoyed and keep right on. She would horrify me with stories of how boyfriends "raped" her. Yet she'd keep seeing them. She told me that my grandfather "hit on her."
She's used me as as sex therapist all my life. She said we were "more like sisters anyway." (Her sisters would NOT have tolerated that!) She would make out with boyfriends (yes, gross) in front of me She ran around naked and told everyone she slept naked. She actually did at my house when I was married adult kids. My mom's boyfriend would openly mock me for my small breasts when I was 11. This is obviously sick perverted child sex abuse but I didn't know it at the time. I thought it was just normal.
There are more ways these twisted parents abuse their kids. These are just the ones off the top of my head.
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