Hi friends. Can I just take a minute to thank you for reading and walking my healing journey with me? I hope if you've experienced narcissistic dark tetrad parent abuse, this is helpful to you. And speaking of helpful, today we're looking at "helpful" comments people make to CPTSD sufferers that are really just more gaslighting. I've written on this before but it bears more examination because these wolf-in-sheep's-clothing comments can really take you down a dark spiral of shame if you're not prepared.
First, we have to establish where I as the victim of narcissistic parent abuse am compared to those who aren't. Abuse sufferers come from a completely different place than those raised in more healthy situations. Our lives were characterized by weaponized and parent-created trauma and chaos.
Humiliation, unsettling confusion, attacks, set ups, backstabbing, were our norm. So our normal behavior was fear, shame, awkward trauma responding, kowtowing, self-doubt, hypervigilance, worry, anxiety and sadness. We were expected to serve only.
People who were raised by caring and nurturing parents have no idea what that's like. They were taught to be confident. We were taught self-doubt. They could and did set goals for themselves. We were taught that our only goal was to serve the family (aka them as we really weren't part of the family, just unpaid staff).
They were encouraged in their pursuits, we were discouraged as it took our resources away from them. They were allowed lives, interests and plans of their own. Our only goals were to please our enmeshed demanding parents. Their interests had to be ours and if we had any of our own, they were mocked and invalidated and shamed. Our childhood, lives, our very selves were pirated by selfish parents and siblings.
So that was a long discourse but necessary to understand how childhood trauma sufferers lived polar opposite lives. And why we are so vulnerable to certain "helpful" comments which actually hurt like hell. Such comments as:
"Your parents meant well." Well, that's what I've always gaslit myself into believing and which belief magnified my trauma 100 fold. I've made excuses for them all my life. I never even saw that most all of what they did was cruel. While they betrayed, set me up to fail and never even gave me the benefit of doubt. So did they mean well? Because it really feels like they meant it to be just as abusive as it was. And really, how would you know they meant well? Hmm? You didn't live under their reign of terror. YOUR parents meant well. Please don't put your expectations on me when I don't have the resources you have. And why would you anyway? What's it to you? If you can't handle hearing how it was for me, just peddle your mops.
"There must have been SOME good times, right?" Yep, a scant few, and they made the bad ones all the worse. Because every "good time" ended with the rug being pulled out and me being reminded what a sucker I was to think I could have what other kids did. But what's your point anyway? If 90% of my experiences are hurtful how are a few less hurtful ones going to help? Or are you trying to catch me in some lie or exaggeration? Are you hoping for a gotcha moment so you can feel self-righteous?
"Move on" "Grow up" "Let it go." "Faith over fear" "Let go and let God" "Pray more" "Read you Bible." "Go to church" "Get over it." And other such fake-positive Christian-shamey, morally-superior sounding claptrap. It all sounds so pious till you stop to recall that these people aren't preaching to themselves. They're canting to someone suffering about whom they have no understanding of nor concern for.
I've gone to church, read my Bible, prayed all my life. Why suggest I haven't? My parents wouldn't allow faith to triumph over the fear they instilled in me. It won't let me go. Moving on was very dangerous, just like growing up, being the bigger person, getting over it, yada yada. They DEMANDED I stay stuck in the muck they created. So not helpful. And please, do you think I have been there, tried that all many times before? Could you be any more clueless and idiotic?
So you might say, oh people who say that just don't understand. THEY mean well. You're damn right they don't. They've not lived it. I've not lived cancer either but I don't need to, to respect the suffering. I'd cut my tongue out before I uttered such shaming platitudes to those who have. And no, just like my parents, they DON'T mean well because they don't feel good. And being told to just tolerate what doesn't feel good, doesn't help. It throws petrol on the flames.
All these cutesy cliches do no good and only harm. Because what comments like this boil down to is blatant, ignorant, arrogant, insensitivity. They make you feel even more beaten down, ashamed, disgusted with yourself and uncared for. And not to put too fine a point on it, if you were feeling suicidal, these comments just hand you the gun.
People like us are already too vulnerable to shame. We autoshame and all we hear in crap like this more shame. Bad girl, you said your parents did wrong. Shame on you. How often I heard that phrase and I never did understand just what I was getting shame for. But still I took it. And I am a messed up mess because of it.
What they are telling you is to ignore your pain and God's red flags and bend over for more. And people who talk like this are the really screwed up ones. So their opinions are not worth listening to. Focus on your own healing. No one needs more shame.
Please God, if someone shares with you and you're tempted to say one of these things, apologize for your lack of empathy and walk away. And if you suffer from childhood trauma and you run into someone who talks like this, RUN away. Read the red flags. Don't let them mind eff you.
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