Hello my friends. I'm working to heal CPTSD from decades of narcissistic parent abuse by the four people who called themselves my parents. Today I'm looking at how narcissistic / dark tetrad parents get away with all the abuse and exploitation they wreak on their child. And if you're looking here for an answer to this question, let me warn you. I don't know.
Since I began this healing journey, I started asking myself how did no one see what was happening to me? Why did no one step up to help or at least guide me? Granted I never said anything. But I was a kid and very gaslit by my parents. Others in my life were adults who should have seen and at the very least, communicated to me that this was not normal or healthy.
Maybe it's a matter of "Nobody expecting the Spanish Inquisition." Funny Monty Python meme but one which makes the point that perhaps dark tetrads get aways with harming their children because no one expects parents to act this way. Or maybe others turn a blind eye. Actually, I'm sure they do. The evidence is there in the fact that traumatized kids do not act like other kids. And then there's the obviously bizarre, selfish, manipulative and dangerous things the narc parents do to their kids.
My parents dragged me to Alaska to be "missionaries" when I was 5. There was no mission field or church sponsorship. It was just a huge delusion. Everyone could see that and no one thought it was a good idea. And yet we went and I was left on my own the majority of the time. Both my parents were thousands of miles away in Seattle, and Adak and other parts of AK, at various times. We squatted and lived in tents. I played alone down by the docks like a bowery boy. My mom hooked up with men and my dad took groups of teens (so he said) on mission trips?! Neither parent was ever around. I was left with strangers on remote islands. I don't know how or what I even ate.
And there sat all my family back in Michigan, living their happy normal lives, oblivious to the fact that I was literally in danger on a daily basis. My parents could barely manage basic parenting when there were watchful eyes around. They were notoriously immature, chronically unemployed and exceptionally needy. They moved every few months and didn't even have a proper bed for me. Did the extended family actually think my dysfunctional parents had suddenly become functional thousands of miles away? Did they just not care?
This is one small example of the continual crazy in my life. It was part of a fabric of neglect, abuse, exploitation, parentification, scapegoating, endangerment and abandonment. I've been hit and screamed at in front of others, kicked out of the house, stolen from and left alone as a little kid. I was a latchkey kid before there was a word for it. Our house was a revolving door of men. My dad dated a girl only a few years older than me when I was 9. I've heard, witnessed and been exposed to things most people cant' even imagine. It wasn't just abusive, it was insane.
How did my normally loving, caring and responsible extended family not even see? I don't buy this shit that "well, back then you didn't interfere." Nonsense. My husband's grandmother "interfered" as in interceded on his behalf over things that were much more benign. And his parents accepted it as correction from an older, wiser person. It breaks my heart, and has been a very real source of gaslighting in my head, that mine didn't.
It's not like these things were happening under the radar. My grandparents knew my mother was living with her boyfriend in our house (which was absolutely verboten in all circles, then) AND my uncle 22 y/o and his girlfriend were bunking up in my room. My grandparents hadn't allowed him to play house in their house. Why was it okay in mine? One of my mom's foster kid's and her boyfriend sleeping on our living room floor. While I was sharing a room with four other foster kids under 5, including a toddler and an infant. My other grandparents knew their son had abandoned me and his duty to me, to wander around for a few years in Alaska.
And all this was before they married other whackjobs and had more kids that they didn't take care of and expected me to raise. Then the abuse just multiplied exponentially. And everyone just seemed to accept it as normal. Am I blaming my extended family? Not exactly but maybe I should be. I mean we are told that silence implies consent. Maybe it's about time I asked the hard questions instead of always believing they were perfect and could do no wrong.
I don't know, maybe it was my own resilience that baffled others into thinking it was fine. I don't think that's any excuse but anyway. It's not like I'm asking anyone to fix it. Just reach out. Ask. Investigate. Tell me it's not okay or normal. Read the writing on the wall. Open their eyes to what was right there. But no, the one time, a few years ago, that I dared to share what life with them was like, I covered it in gratitude and kisses. I groveled and placated like I always do. And my aunt whom I shared it with, while admitting that my mother has always been a pain in everyone's ass, never acknowledged in any way, how difficult it must have been for me to live with. Way to perpetuate the gaslighting.
I've been so indoctrinated that everything was fine, so shamed for ever speaking up that I've begun indoctrinating myself. I've been auto-shaming myself for even thinking of questioning anyone. I've been taught to exist on toaster crumbs that I never even considered asking for a full meal. I was groomed to believe that everything was my fault that I never considered that it might be otherwise. Now that I'm 60 years old, it's devilishly hard to undo that.
Would it really have cost that much to just care what happened to me? To not fake that living with four patently obviously self-centered people was normal? I mean come on, my boyfriend's dad saw what was wrong the first time he met me. My extended family were loving people, or so I always thought. Now I'm not so sure. They certainly jumped whenever my parents wanted anything. Why and how could they let a little kid dangle like that? One thing I know is that I'll never have answers or closure.
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