Hello my friends. I know it's been heavy weather around here, with me coming to terms with the many levels of abuse and neglect I experienced from four dark tetrad (narcissistic, malicious, exploitative, cruel) parents. I'm working to heal CPTSD from childhood trauma, including endangerment, abandonment, neglect of basic care, parentification, enmeshment and enslavement, scapegoating, constant shaming, boundary smashing by my two bio parents and their new families.
I started a series on normal things that dark tetrad parents fubar for their scapegoat kids. As this is a stream of conscience blog, they're in no particular order. They're coming to you as I realize them. Today I'm looking at how narcissistic parents mess us their victim child's goals, understanding of abilities, dreams and even career path for her.
To do this we have to go back to the beginning of her life. Dark tetrad parents systematically (operative word) deprive her of even the simplest of things, that most kids in her milieu take for granted. And they do this is a clandestine way that makes it appear that she's no different that anyone else, and has access to what most others have. Or they go so rogue but gaslight people into thinking it's normal that people miss the abuse that's actually taking place. I know, confusing. Welcome to my life.
Now, you may say and you'd be right, that many children have experienced neglect and that it's not the parents fault. They were doing the best they could. For example, children of parents who are working poor, doing their best, working their butts off just to provide. But my situation was different. My parents didn't work consistently. And never at plebian jobs everyone else did. They were too good for that. They were "called by God" to be missionaries and I was dragged off on a "mission trip" to Alaska that never materialized. They just, as my grama put it, "ran off to do their own thing and leave Marilisa on her own." I was 6.
And we weren't poor, I was. They had money for expensive breed dogs, an organ, new motorcycle with matching leathers, English riding lessons (I can't make this up). For that mission trip across the globe from Michigan to Alaska. And they did this by, bluntly put, stealing, denying me basic things, funneling resources from family for themselves. My grandparents never knew that most of my life, I didn't even have a bedroom or proper bed.
So I said this was systematic and that was a critical point. Dark tetrad parents groom their victim child by
1) keeping necessary things from her like safety, security, people to watch over her and even food or shelter.
2) endangering her in bizarre terrifying ways that destroy her self-care abilities. Actually they frown on her self-care and call it self-centered showing off. Her needs are selfish whims while their entitled selfish whims are God-demanded expectations that she must fulfill.
3) routinely abandoning her, not showing up, not being there, leaving her alone in scary situations with no one to help and no explanation of how to navigate. Leaving her alone in situations that would traumatize adults.
4) putting far too much and too adult responsibilities on her, bullying her into doing their work, and then the coup de grace, attacking her for being unable to satisfy their endless demands even when she does manage to perform pretty well, better than they as adult perform. They create a constant feeling of failure, worthlessness, being a burden and in the way.
5) indoctrinating her into a fake reality, a parallel universe, a cult in plain sight, using endless lies, humiliation, distortions, twisting, deception, exploiting fears, invalidating, gaslighting, boundary crashing, enmeshment, parentification, role reversal.
6) grooming her to her into believing this is God's will for her. Even though no one around her, cousins, their other children, friends, are living anything like this deprivation.
7) manipulating her empathy and genuine care, making her believe it's her job, from little girl on up, to keep them (and anyone else they decide to make her subject to) happy, no matter what it takes or how much it hurts
8) damaging her brain with endless stress and chaos. Causing her body to spray cortisol like a sprinkler. Creating a shell shock condition in which she doesn't sleep but only cycles through endless nightmares.
9) sabotaging self-confidence, calling it arrogance and pride, wearing down her resilience so that just staying awake and upright is a challenge. Walking, thinking, feeling, interacting is exhausting and everything hurts. But she learns to suck it all up.
10) infantilizing and making her feel no use to anyone, ultimately shaming her into thinking that this is all she deserves and it's as good as it's ever gonna get.
So what's left is one damaged, ashamed, scarred, scared girl who doesn't know safe from dangerous, right from wrong, parent from child. Who has been color-blinded and can't tell red flag from green. And that's exactly what they want, a kid who not only doesn't know how to protect herself but who feels guilty doing so. And she's putty in their hands.
So how does that screw up her ability to set goals or even choose a career path. Her sense of accomplishment has been destroyed by them endlessly moving the target and raising the bar. She's been worn down and made to feel never good enough. She's been drilled into servitude to them. Having goals requires believing you have the right to have them. But the damaged child has been dictated to all her life. She's been forced to fulfill THEIR goals, dreams, wishes. She's been punished for having organic ideas and thoughts of her own, let alone aspirations.
Here's a case from my life. By the time I was 13, I'd been so thoroughly enslaved to both sets of parents that I wouldn't have knows a wish or want if it hit me in the face. I raised them and their kids. I did what I was told and then was made fun of for failing. My only thought was them. So when, in 8th grade, I took the COPS and CAPS test, it showed that my abilities far exceeded my goals. My scores were in the top 2 percentile and I'd listed as my goal, childcare or housekeeper.
Not being a mom, myself, mind you. They'd convinced me I was far too messed up to ever parent a child myself. My chief "goal" if you will was to care for others' children and clean their houses. Well, that's all I ever did. No one had ever talked to me about going to college. I didn't even know the names of different universities except from reading books. And they certainly weren't going to cough up for any furthering of my education. Let alone give up having me around to do the heavy lifting. That's the infantilizing servitude: destroy her confidence to do anything but wait on them.
Now, you might say there's nothing wrong with childcare or housework. The test proctors thought otherwise, if the student was capable of more. My teacher called me aside and said that something unprecedented had happened. The test assessors who apparently never comment on results, had contacted him and said he needed to have a chat with me regarding my choice of career vs. my ability. Usually what they saw were kids expecting to have big jobs without putting effort in. I was the exception. "This kid could design fighter jets and she's settling for babysitter. You've got to stop her letting her potential go to waste. Get her some college and career counseling!"
I didn't go home and tell anyone. They would have just scoffed and taken it as an insult anyway. When I did go to college, I got no help and a fair amount of hindrance and dismissive pooh-poohing. I still didn't grasp as far as I could reach. Fear will probably always hold me back to some extent.
But I did cherish that middle school affirmation random strangers. It only takes one person to believe in a child, to make a difference.
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