Hello my friends. If you're following, you know that I'm working to heal CPTSD from narcissistic dark tetrad (malignant, entitled, exploitative, cruel) parent abuse from four narcissistic parents. I've started a series on normal things that dark tetrad parents fubar (foul up beyond all belief) for their kids. These are in no particular order because I'm unpacking as I go. Today we're looking at how narcissistic parents screw up childhood and adulthood for their children.
Three things got me thinking of this. One was watching vlogs by counselor Jerry Wise who talks a lot about narcissistic parent/child relationship. The other was remembering a visit with my daughter, to my dad and his wife and their adult sons about 10 years ago. This wasn't a homecoming because I never had a home with them. I lived in their house as an unpaid nanny and maid. Just saying. The last was a bizarre dream I had (among many weird dreams) that I was my dad's wife.
The entire visit was miserable for me. I was 50 years old with four children, a good marriage and successful writing career. But as soon as we arrived, they immediately thrust me back into the role of idiot child and I let them. Upon arrival I stepped in their net of enmeshment. The entire family began what I see now was a direct shame campaign to paint me back in the corner of scapegoat child wearing the dunce cap. And I fell into it because I always did, no matter how patently untrue it was.
And the way they did this was with gaslighting, lies, distortions and loads of shaming. My dad's unemployed, morbidly obese, drug addicted, felon wife began mocking and disparaging my blog work. My illegal pot-farming, morphine addicted dad let her carry on, like he always did and did not defend me like he never has. His grown married sons (whom I had parented when they were kids) started in too.
The government-sponging, unemployed, native-grant exploiting, religious maniac, wife abusing, father of two son conned me into staying with them so I would give them money which I did. I always did what was expected of me no matter how dangerous it was for me. The needy, alcoholic who no one was on speaking terms with, dragged me off to help extricate him from some legal entanglement he'd gotten himself into and I let him. Then I went for drinks with him. Terrible idea but then when you're taught not to trust your judgement, you don't.
I ended up taking a cab back to brother's house in the wee hours. Next morning my brother stood up in front of the entire family and self-righteously shamed me saying "our doors are locked at thus and such time." Even though I'd just paid his electric and grocery bill. They all laughed condescendingly. Tsk, tsk, there's fool Mary, making a fool of herself again. I of course, felt foolish on cue, even though my goal was to bond with my brother. We left the next day and they went back to their dysfunctions, confident that as usual, Mary (whom they saw once every 5 years) was the problem.
My poor daughter. She's the only one I let down and all I got out of if was a banging headache and confusion as to how I'd let myself get into this mess. But now I know exactly how. The role of court jester was assigned to me decades ago when my dad and mom divorced, remarried and had kids. Also the role of surrogate spouse, surrogate parent to them and their kids, servant and scapegoat. I was just playing my part, pathetic though it was.
Because that's what dark tetrad parents do. They mess up their scapegoat kid's childhood by flip-flopping roles. They neglect her basic needs, shame her for having them and act like demanding, whiny brats expecting daughter-mommy to fulfill their every whim. They are more spoiled and petulant than any real kid ever could be. But they retain the parental reins, demanding more outrageous things and levying more punitive punishments than any real parent ever did. The child never gets to be the kid and yet she's subject to them. They are neither parent nor child yet they expect to be treated as both, with all the perks included.
So this in turn, fubars adulthood for the child as well. They robbed her of childhood and then adulthood. She is stripped of power and deprived of the tools to enter adulthood successfully. She is shamed into continuing in their service and maimed for adult life. And they need her to fail at everything, like they have. They need her to take on their childish immaturity and failure to launch as adults. That way no one will see where the real problem lies and they can maintain their fake IDs of parent-child.
They not only require her to parent them when she is the child but also AS a child. Because it's only as a child that they can perpetuate this cycle of guilt. Children aren't adults and certainly not parents. So they don't know how to meet these demands. It's like expecting a baby to be a master carpenter. And they know this and weaponize it. Because she MUST fail.
See, it's not enough that this far-too-mature child somehow manages to comply with their disturbing demands. She must fail, be seen to fail or feel like a failure. Preferably all three. And they pull out all the big guns to ensure this. Shaming her into feeling like she's letting them down keeps her ever-striving to keep up with their ever-changing demands. Neglect and deprivation keeps her trapped and unable to move ahead.
Exclusion keeps her ever trying to be let in. Exploitation keeps her baffled and bewildered. Gaslighting makes her think she's too immature to make adult decisions. Parentification keeps her fearful of separation from them. Enmeshment keeps her in bondage to family demands. Intimidation makes her fearful of everything
Why the H would any parent do this to a child, you ask. They aren't parents they are parasite zombies feeding off their child. The floor is lava which keeps the kid dancing to avoid burn-drowning. They keep changing rules and roles to keep her confused and to preserve this freak show balancing act they call family. If one card is moved, the entire house of cards falls. Keeping her in this limbo is the ultimate win-win-win for dark tetrads.
And if you think all this was wacky, wait till I tell you what it's like to deal with aging narcissist parents. Their expectations change with their delusions. They who never parented and expected her to parent them, now want the perks of being cared for as aging parents. As if they had actually cared for the child. And the poor brain damaged, shell shocked kid keeps hopping. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
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