Hypocritical double standards malignant narcissist parents use to control kids

Hi friends. Ever seen someone who acts very insincere, smug, self-satisfied, arrogant and yet also very fake? It could very well be that this person is a narcissist. And the more time you spend around them the more weird behaviors you notice. If they think they have you under their spell (such as if you are their child growing up in their abuse) they get even more entitled and start to exhibit increasingly weirder behavior. I know because I was raised (if you can call it that, groomed might be a better word) in the cult of four narcissistic parents, two biological and their new partners. Here are words folks have used to describe narcissists in general and malignant sociopathic narcissists in particular and the bizarre behaviors they engage in. One thing all these things share is an element of hypocritical double standard. They arrogantly act one way yet just as arrogantly preach the opposite to others about how they should behave. For the child of narcissistic parents, these behavior make life one endlessly frustrating and confusing game of gaslighting and randomly shifting rules. 

easily bored by others' and boringly repetitive on their own pet themes

precious and hyper picky with their own stuff and careless with others. 

opportunist, chancer, capitalizes or even creates others' misfortune. Yet quick to finger point anyone who takes advantage of him, even accidentally. 

giddy, goofy, childish and immature, says she's never grown up as if this in an attractive trait. Scorns others who are genuinely children or who act child-like. 

coy, arch, flirty in creepy ways, is cougar with  younger men and sugar baby with older men (disgusting). Wears mini skirts and go-go boots when everyone else's mom is wearing Bermuda shorts. Self-righteously calls women tramps who act and dress like she does. 

shady, sketchy, con artist, scammer. Calls herself a brave risk-taker when she does it and other people liars for doing the same thing

coercive, controlling, intimidating, threatening, bullying, especially with her scapegoat child. Doesn't ask, expects and demands. 

punitive, arbitrary and Draconian in punishment. Calls it Godly discipline when she does it and abuse when you correct your children

disloyal, unfaithful, but expects loyalty from others

possessive of children but also neglectful of them

Self-centered. refers to everyone as hers "my family" even to children to whom they are also family. Treats child as extension of herself and not individual in her own right. 

light-fingered, thief, pick pocket. sees child as possession and so child's possessions as her own to do with as she wishes, owing no explanation to the child. things disappear when mother is around. Everything I owned when living with them disappeared and I got used to it and never wondered about it. 

greedy, covetous, hoarding. Scoops up free things and then complains about them. Goes to food pantry and whines about how they don't give out any meat. Skimpy and stingy with her own stuff. 

transactional with the few things she gives, expecting payment, reward or reciprocity. Then bails on agreement and returns nothing that has been given to her. Arrives empty handed and expects hands to be filled out of others' coffers. Calls it "just family doing for family" when on receiving end and business transaction when on giving end. Steals college fund and child support to lavish gifts on new boyfriend. Gives daughter money then claims it was a loan with interest. 

petulant, petty, easily angered over nothing and dismissive of actual hurts perpetrated on others

Belittling and mocking. Says she's an outspoken truth-teller who just says "it like it is" or says "what  other people are thinking." 

pouty and sulky yet quick to point out anyone else acting this way even when they aren't or are children just being children

vigilante always on the alert for others' wrong-doing yet cagey and secretive about her own awful behavior.

humiliates and shames child, actually saying "you ought to be ashamed of yourself" (check, done) for being a kid and acting like one, while blatantly behaving in shameful, licentious, immoral ways 

Smug, smirking, sneering, sanctimonious, self-righteous, supercilious above-it-all when telling others off for things they do themselves.   

hyper-sensitive yet tells you you're too sensitive

hyper-critical, nit-picky, fault-finding while calling you too critical AND too sensitive

Endlessly judgmental, in fact considers self God's mouthpiece to call others to repentance. Never repents or even admits to any wrong-doing. If caught, cries judgmental on others. 

Claims benefits of forgiveness and salvation like free pass but doesn't abide by terms. Says all his many wrongs are "covered by the blood". Preaches own weird and highly edited version of God's word Does not confess nor apologize. Does not extend actual Biblical forgiveness to others. Retains others' sins and browbeats them with what he defines as sin. Gives self special exemption, exclusion and exception. 

Insanely hypocritical. Wrong is right when he does it. Right is wrong when others do it. 

Entitled to do as he pleases no matter how wrong or hurtful that is. No one should ever question let alone criticize. He can abandon his 6 y/o daughter 3,000 miles from her home, on a whim and she must be completely on board. Then when she does because she has learned to kowtow, he faults her for "not being sad he went away." 

Know-it-all about things he knows nothing about. Pontificates, everything word he utters is ex cathedra. Sounds ridiculous. Then scolds daughter for explaining something she actually has a degree in. 

Pathologizes, labels (wrongly). Faults others for "showing off" by using real psychological words correctly then turns and uses them against people, wrongly. 

Pot stirrer. Creates drama. Then cries foul when burned by it.

Showy, exaggerated, artificial, counterfeit. Constantly in reaction formation mode. But quick to call others fake or frauds. 

Melodramatic yet calls out child for showing off often when they aren't. 

Invalidator, dismissive,

Questions to undermine, second guesses, plays Devil's advocate, picks apart what others do and say. Goes looking for inaccuracies and when there aren't any, makes them up. Is enraged if anyone dares to just ask him an information seeking question. 

Disrespectful, disobedient, insubordinate by nature. Can't handle authority. Rebellious like a bratty 13- y/o as an adult. Calls it obeying God's law by disobeying "man-made" laws. Considers self brave firebrand. Yet remonstrates with actual 13 y/o for her supposed disobedience which is just misunderstanding his unclear demands. Rails that child is insubordinate and disrespectful when neither he, his wife nor their children are ever respectful to her. 

Disloyal, unfaithful, cheater, adulterer by nature. Cheats on everyone, especially her child. Backstabs, conspires against child. Chummy with other cheaters. Calls herself open-minded and welcoming. And even preacher who is leading others to God (by sleeping with them). Expects dogged loyalty from child. Then twists it one step further and shames child calling her a "sheep" who follows blindly. 

Intimidating, threatening, menacing, coercive. Terrifying. 

Seductive, sexually and generally. Lures others to sin, uses people as cat's paws. Likes the rush she gets from the feeling that others are lusting over her. Flaunts self. Literally runs around naked and teehees when seen by a visitor. 

Triangulates. Pits people against each other by lying to and about each to the other. Sets people up. Secretly plots. Machinates. Orchestrates from the wings. Delights in creating chaos and then watching other people duke it out. Especially over her. Then fakes innocent concern with subtle shaming, claiming she had no idea why they are fighting. If called out, can't remember any of it. 

Two-faced. Betrays people. Traitor. Takes sides with aggressors, against children. Endangers child then defends perpetrators. Scolds and shames abused child. Blame shifts. Put responsibility for abuse on child. 

Self-pitying, plays victims. Does DARVO if confronted with behavior. 

Main character in all situations. It's all about her. Nothing matters unless it affects her. 

Liar, deceiver, back pedaler. Future faker, Promise breaker.  

Twists, rewrites history, gaslights. She can do as she likes including all manner of evil behavior and calls it being a Godly Christian. 

Misogynistic. If female, sees women including daughter, as competition. Hates them. Punishes them. Sees men as targets. If male, subjugates, demeans and enslaves victim women (daughter) to curry favor women who have authority over him. Hates them all. 

Shaming and shameful

Condescending, haughty, patronizing yet despises people who treat them this way. 

Vain, conceited, arrogant, proud, sneering, scornful, imperious Yet always looking for and calling out these traits in others. Even if they aren't there. 

Cagey, twisty, slippery

Superficial, artificial, fake, gamers, role-players, mask wearers, woman of a thousand faces

Exaggerated expressions, theatrical tone of voice, strange nonsensical word salad language

Show off, exhibitionist, will do anything for attention. Particularly favors things that make others uncomfortable or embarrassed. 

Vulgar, cheap, crass, crude, obnoxious. She loves to call others "rude, crude and lewd." Thinks she's cute for making up this epithet. Is actually those things. 

Loud. Brash. Brusque. Arrogant. Especially in inappropriate situations. Adores attention. 

Gossipy, rumor spreader. Stage whispers insults behind people's back. When on high horse will arrogantly "confront" others with their "sin." Calls it bold and Godly. Is affronted if legitimately confronted with her own actions. 

Easily offended over perceived slights. Yet dismisses any question about her own nasty hurtful behavior as people merely "choosing" to be offended. 

Lives by two personal rules. Is always right. If wrong, see first rule. Calls own bad choices accidents or mistakes and others' actual accidents or mistakes, choices. Or, she loves this one, when she does wrong, she was actually a victim who was led astray by evil doers. It's always someone else's fault. You should pity not censure her. In her book, others choose to do wrong while she is always the innocent good Christian martyr. 

Plays martyr. Hand to forehead oh how she's suffered at everyone else's hand. She manages to extract pity even from others' suffering she has blatantly, intentionally caused. 

Uses word I, me, mine a lot. Everything is always what about me? I'm hungry. I'm tired. I hurt. I'm sick. It's all about me. Pity me. Admire me. Support me. On and on and on. And all while neglecting her child's very basic needs. 

Atmospheric (you feel they are doing things to create a mood or effect.) Inauthentic. 

Loves tension and friction between people especially that which she created. Feels powerful. Large and in charge. (another of her cutesy accusations leveled at others). Sows dissention not peace

Agenda based interaction. Is always trying to persuade or convince, saying they need to be brought round to the right way of thinking. Which is confusing because the person usually already knows this and she knows they know it. She just wants to make it look like she has converted them. Or single-handed (you're welcome) turned them from their sinful ways. Has done this by having sex with them. True story. 

Always trying to sell something. usually an embroidered sob story, a better picture of herself than she actually, a lie that she didn't do something awful thing she did, or a very amended version of truth. Always a con or scam. 

Entraps people Calls herself convicted by God to show you the error of your ways. Very unclear what those are. You feel like she's trying to con you into admitting something because she is. Whatever it is, it's always something she herself does but has a good reason for doing. 

Loves to play Gotcha cop. Always looking to catch someone in a lie or misdeed. Is not picky about veracity of said lie or misdeed. Is just as content with fabrications and trumped up charges, maybe moreso. 

Truth is situational and changes to suit their needs

Risk-benefit analysis guides behavior (they don't think about doing right or good, only what seems to benefit them most). 

More concerned with personal gain (will sell out anyone to get what they want, Machiavellian, utilitarian)

kindness is conditional (you must earn any good from them and they never do good without expecting something in return. Evil, unkindness, cruelty they give away freely. But you mustn't give them any ever.)

They make false bargains. Help is transactional and they expect full repayment with interest for lost wages. And then they renege, retract and and pull out support once you have paid your part in full. You throw good money after bad with narcissists. 

Pathologically jealous then accuse children of jealousy when they find a new person to wave in her face. 

Disingenuous, sincerely insincere, salesperson. Is in marketing, not customer service. 

Oddly and exaggeratedly intense about inconsequential things. It feels scammy because it always is. Then also oddly callous and unconcerned about critical things, like their child's welfare, safety or health. 

Love to hear themselves talk. And talk is all they do. They don't walk the walk. Yet others must constantly prove themselves with deeds. 

Disagreeable. Need things done their way. They call themselves uncompromising on the "truth." like they're some kind of hero. Yet they lie all the time. They're just control freaks. 

Sets people us and pits them against each other for fun and profit. I know I mentioned this before. But it bears repeating because you need to be wary of this. If a person is smearing someone behind their back to you, know that they are doing it to you, too. Usually with an end to getting something. 

Very binary about her definition of right and wrong for other people but fluid about right and wrong for herself. 

Constantly rewrites double standard rules for herself and others. She changes rules without warning to keep others' hopping while changing rules for herself to avoid culpability and stay one jump ahead. Or so she imagines. For example, says abortion is wrong but only after she had one and also took a girl to have one. 

Is very Pick Me. Says whatever she thinks will make those she thinks are cool kids applaud her no matter how stupid, hypocritical or deceitful it is.

Polarizes and then reverses polarity. Says now that being anti-gun and supporting abortion is hypocritical for liberals but her MAGA cronies being pro-gun and anti-abortion is righteous and Godly, despite her knowing nothing about guns and never caring about them till she wanted to be a cool kid.  

Repeats gossip, rumors and falsehoods without verifying. In fact, prefers it as nonsensical as possible. Adds to rumor like a game of Telephone. 

Thrive on their own manufactroversy (manufactured controversy over things no one disagreed on till she created it--be very wary of this) 

Use people, love things. They play people like snooker balls against each other

Confides inappropriately in child to make her feel special. Mother has graciously deigned to dump all her weird sick shit on you, kid. So be grateful. And keep my secrets, damn you. What it actually does is to groom the child by isolating and making her feel icky. She feels too ashamed to tell anyone or get help. The child (raising hand here) absorbs and takes all herself mother's disgusting actions. For the longest time, I dreamed and thought that I was a dirty, pervert (as a kid) because I'd heard so much of my mother's dirty, perverted crap. I confused myself with the offender. It is covert sexual abuse. 

This is only a snapshot. There's more. Suffice it to say that to understand a malignant narcissist, you have to flip-flop everything you know or believe about right and wrong. 

Gaslighting double binds malignant narcissist parents use to subjugate and stranglehold their kids

Hello my friends. In my mission to heal CPTSD from malignant sociopathic narcissist parent abuse, I'm looking at gaslighting double standards they use to subjugate their kids and keep them in a stranglehold. These include hidden toxic agendas, child sabotage, logical fallacies, double binds, con games and scams. I want to thank Dr. Les Carter (and Gus) for sharing these ideas. I've piggy-backed off from his list with my own experiences with four narcissistic parents, two biological and their new partners to whom my parents made me subordinate to. Their standard expected of me will be presented first and the double standard hypocrisy second after the HOWEVER. 

The sociopathic narcissist parent presents themselves to the child as the keeper of truth. But that's the problem. Their truth was false. My parents made themselves gods to me (and only me, as scapegoat) They demanded unwavering loyalty, worship, reverences, blind obedience to them, plus exoneration from all wrong-doing. They proclaimed to be omniscient, all-knowing. HOWEVER they acted very unGodly wantonly disobeying Bible and moral commands right and left. They lived hypocritically, with two very distinct set of rules, one for me, one for them. And both were as far from the Bible as could be. 

The religious sociopathic narcissist parent exploits and weaponizes scripture to suit their self-serving narrative. They made up rules as they went along, reneged on promises, changed rules on a whim, kept me dancing to please them. They literally believed that amid all their very immoral behavior, that they were preachers, with full dispensation to TELL other people how to live. HOWEVER they showed a completely opposite life. My father abandoned me at 6, in Alaska, because God told him to go tell other people how to live. He used to tell me about how he planned to commit suicide. He at 36, took me on dates with his 17 y/o gf. My mother used to sleep around while married to and after divorce from my dad. She told me (yes she forced her 8 year old to hear about her sex life) she did this to "win them over to Christ." Shagging to save souls. No words. I'm surprised my computer hasn't caught fire typing this. 

The sociopathic narcissist parent destroys any real notion of God for their scapegoat child by posing as  God while being very evil AND holding the child to horrific double standards. They baffled the hell out of me with all their pontificating and preaching while living such wicked lies and lives. They had me choked with guilt and shame that God supposed put on me. They bound me to terrible burdens and were more mercilous, spiteful, vengeful and unjust than any god, pagan or otherwise that I've ever read of. At least Baal had one set of rules and didn't punish people for following him. But narcissist parents do. It's damned if you do or don't. Just when you get the hang of pleasing them they change the rules and punish you for not keeping up. 

Sociopathic narcissist parents deny you, your basic worth, your voice, your you-ness, your self, even your existence. They are child deniers like those Holocaust denier nutballs. You do not exist as a person. Apparently God lied when he said you were his child, according to your parents. You're not their child, their responsibility simply because they are God and they say so (remember their self-styled truth keeper role). You exist to serve them. You are a prop, a tool. And if they decide that you are no longer of use, they erase you and your memory of the you you once were. My memories of childhood are as battered and barmy as a WW1 soldier with shell shock. They have gaslit so much much that everything in my head is the Somme on Nov. 11. When they remarry , they rewrite you out of their lives as if you  never existed. Because to them you didn't. They abandon, neglect, abuse and endanger you, hoping, I don't know, that you'll be killed and they won't have to think about you anymore. Problem solved. 

HOWEVER, don't forget, they call the shots and change rules at a whim.  So when they decide to, like when they require your services, they write you back into their lives. But not in your role as child. A role you never had, just a subordinate. A subject. But now, because they say so, you are an unpaid servant. And they treat you with the same disdain as any bad king to his subjects. They keep you in appalling conditions and make you to unspeakable things. They steal from you because you aren't a person. You own nothing. It's all theirs. 

Malignant narcissist parents owe you nothing. You owe them everything. Again, they are your gods. I was to bow, scrape, jump joyfully to serve them. And if I wasn't smiling broadly enough, my dad beat me. I'm serious. He spit in my face he was so enraged. After he sent me, at 15, to go to his baby son's room, not mine. And I didn't move fast enough. I guess. They didn't owe me a proper bedroom, food, clothing, bed, anything. I was supposed to be eternally grateful for all they supposedly did for me and I was to serve them endlessly by doing all the chores. I have the same spinal damage as children in impoverished countries who lug water and herd cows. And we lived in middle class America. So much for the land of the free. 

HOWEVER, it wasn't enough that I just live as their slave. Oh no. Malignant narcissist parents play one endless game of humiliate, blame, shame, DARVO, lather rinse repeat. Not only was nothing I did good enough, it was smeared in my face what a letdown I was. When I was mopping the floor on my  hands and knees with a damn toothbrush. I shit you not. When my dad's wife was pissed off and she was always pissed off, I was her target. My dad would hint that "maybe Mary could help." Then he'd invite her to think of even more things I could do for her. If I objected, I was being selfish and disobedient. She would smirk and deign to lower herself (weary hand to forehead) to think up some nonsense work to add to my list. How I got such good grades is a miracle as I couldn't get to my homework till I was exhausted. 

If I asked how it was to be done I was told "what's wrong with you?! You should just know!" And if I asked if I did it right, "stop looking for attention or praise. You should do a good job without expecting anything!" If I felt sad after being scolded over some minor or non-existent flaw I was told "You're too sensitive. You can't except constructive criticism." Except they never said what was wrong with what I did. So it wasn't constructive just attacking. If I smiled because, silly me, I thought I did a good job, I was told " you're arrogant and showing off! You should be ashamed!" (I was). 

There is no winning with malignant narcissistic parents, there's only endless losing for the scapegoat. They pimp themselves and their golden children posturing as these good Christians. All they while they spread rumors about you and leverage your mistakes. They exploit you misfortunes for personal gain. They exaggerate, weaponize and herald any wrong doing on your part. They actually like you to fail or look like you are failing because they think it distracts from their own failures. And most people are too self-involved to offer you any help. You just quietly drown in all their muck. 

Malignant narcissist parents keep you subordinate by keeping you dependent and confused. They steal from you: money, possessions, self, rights. They condition you to expect things to disappear without warning so you never question where the heck all your toys went? Why you have no memory of a bed or bedroom. They cut you short, neglect your needs and medical care. They subject you to abominable living conditions. Mine didn't even keep a roof over my head. For most of my life, I've squatted. I've couch surfed, slept on the floor next to the baby's bed, in a tent, on a camp cot, on a cold floor, on a fold out couch, with four special needs kids, on unheated porches. I've been kicked out been homeless. I've been shunted between 40 different "homes." I've been so hungry I stole food. I lived out of my car at 17. The only consistency was inconsistency, chaos and deprivation. 

Malignant narcissist parents keep you subordinate with undeserved shame. They mock you to your face and behind your back. My mothers' boyfriend sexually harassed me calling me "blisters" and she cackled right along. He told filthy gross jokes in front of me and she never once told him to stop. My dad turned a blind eye to a Playgirl magazine circulated at a party and scolded me for looking at it. But they are quick to run you into the ground. They lie and make shit up. They conspire with others, to smear you. They announce at family gatherings, mortifying things about you like getting pubic hair.

They cruelly gossip, making sure to "ever so kindly and gently in a spirit of love" (bullshit) emphasize your faults and downplay or ignore all the good you do. They use a lot of exaggeration and generalization. My mother in law would say "She (meaning me) never lets my son call me. (lie, he doesn't want to call you because you're so vicious). "She tries to keep us apart.  I don't know why?" (Cue the pity play). I think she and my son are probably having problems. (Spreading rumors) She's very difficult to live with and can be very nasty." (Omitting the part where I cared for her throughout her illness.) 

My mom, dad and stepmom would shame and humiliate me publicly because my husband and I "had problems." Meanwhile they all hated each other and my dad wanted to commit suicide on the buddy plan with stepmommy. But make sure to keep focus on Mary and Albert who are only having problems because you lot gave then nothing but grief and piss poor examples. 

Malignant narcissist are both defensive and offensive as hell. All through my life, there was no discipline in the healthy sense. Only hitting, attacks, screaming cruel rages, belittling, insults, mockery, fault finding, nitpicking, harassment, bullying, sarcasm, threats, intimidation, terrorizing. Yet they go into a towering rage if anyone, no matter how kindly, mentions the slightest thing about them. They take offense over nothing. They whine, pout, sulk, hold grudges, rail and rage. Then they tell me I'm to defensive and can't take constructive criticism when it is completely destructive and nothing like constructive. 

They frustrate, annoy, hurt, upset, rattle, backstab, ambush, humiliate, make fun of and do everything they can to piss you off. And then when you show the tiniest upset, they attack you for being angry. My perpetually petulant stepmother told me I had an anger problem. My permanently pissed off dad who had enslaved me to him and his new family, sent me to counseling for anger management. Joke was on him when the minister called them in to confront them with things I'd inadvertently said in therapy. I was told I was disloyal by "not keeping family secrets" and not sent back. The abuse escalated after that. So even that came back to bite me. 

Narcissistic parents parentify and infantilize simultaneously.  Every idea I shared, every accomplishment was invalidated. I was scoffed at and ridiculed. I was expected to act like an adult as a child but treated like a child through adulthood.  Since I was 13, I had to co-sleep with their babies. I raised them, looked after them and did for them. BUT I was not given any authority, even as an adult. I was given all responsibility with no power or resources. I was left with them and then scolded for correcting them (far more respectfully and maturely than I had ever been corrected, I  might add). Then, as an adult, my dad said to me when I politely participated in a conversation, "don't interrupt us. The adults are speaking. 😳He would send me to my room. Or actually the baby's room.  

They scapegoat and make the child feel responsible for all their problems and even their own bad choices. They refuse to admit personal failures. Blame shift, accuse in condescending way. Shame and scold angrily. They DARVO deny, attack reverse victim offender. When they have actually hurt you. Because everything is flip-flopped with malignant narcissistic parents. 

I told my husband that the only way to understand my life is to reverse everything you know or believe. about right and wrong. What is good for others is bad for me. What is bad for others is good for me. Malignant parents do bad and call it good. And call the good the child does, bad. Right and healthy are wrong for the child. She should not expect that. She should tolerate and allow bad people to do bad things to her. She should let creepy pervs do what they want to her. She should never call them out but should just roll over and be abused. This, they say, is God's will HOWEVER, remember, they are god. Or so they've said. And this we know to be heresy. So when they said I was disobeying god, they were giving themselves away. I wasn't disobeying God or even them. I learned all their toxic lessons all too well and am paying the price now. BUT They were disobeying because what they said was wrong and contrary to God. 

They were leading a child astray. They didn't care for me. They neglected and abused me. They let dangerous people hurt me. They abandoned me. Let's look at the bible on that. 1 Timothy 5:8 clearly states that anyone who does not provide for their dependent children, is worse than an unbeliever. 

Colossians 3:21 tells parents not to  "provoke" exasperate or antagonize them, lest they become discouraged. Well, St. Paul got that right. Discouraged is my middle name, thanks Dad. Parents are told to "train up a child in the way he should go" not to serve their own agenda. They're to bring us up in the "discipline and instruction of the Lord." 

And as for this gaslighting that my parents new partners were my parents, bosses, etc. And that I was responsible to and for them and was to serve them and obey them, uh-uh. When they ruptured and destroyed my family, they left me to bleed alone. I got no help whatsoever, just their new partners shoved in my face. So anything I owed them was just more of my parents self-serving heresy. The Bible doesn't say anything about step parents because the Bible doesn't recognize them period. And certainly not as authority figures over the child. The parent is sinning by twisting scripture to suit their purposes again and making false gods for the child. As I think about it, it was a form of idolatry of them I was expected to practice. 

They set me to burdens they didn't put on themselves or help me carry. By making me the scapegoat and responsible for their problems, they put a millstone around my neck and pushed me over the cliff. They forced unmerited guilt and shame on me by lying and shifting blame for their wrong on me. They caused me to stumble and trip over their false teachings. They showed me a false face of God and so sabotaged my relationship with Him. Not that God was wrong but that they perverted my understanding of God to serve their own selfishness. And so, not to mix a metaphor, the bible says, it would be better for them to have millstones around their necks. 

And this is the key to the conundrum. This may be what reverses the damaged relationship. Malignant narcissists aren't righteous. They are self-righteous. Operative word, self. AKA right by their own shifting double standards. They don't follow God as I've shown. They follow their own selfish desires. And remember, right is wrong and vice versa with them. They speak out of both sides of their mouths and act disingenuously. They lie, keep secrets, hide, evade, twist, distort, deceive, thwart, confuse, change the signs, derail. All these things are evil, not good. 

And so, getting back to the religious abuse, it is the worst forms of their gaslighting. The utter hypocrisy of claiming to be Christian while leading their child astray. Claiming all the perks without the work. Putting themselves as gods. Demanding that the child do and be all for them so they can live as they wish. Denying scriptural commands. Preaching to others while living so counter to God. I feel heretical even mentioning them in the same sentence as God. I mean for crying out loud. This type of behavior, this vain posing as God is what got Lucifer chucked out of heaven! And superimposing oneself on a child as god, in place of the real god and then twisting truth and deceiving the child is a plus-sized mortal sin. It's probably the worst of sins. 

Therapy teaches kids wrong responses to narcissistic parent rage

Hi friends. It's me again back with more contradictory and possibly counterintuitive ways to heal from narcissistic parent rage. I don't mean to always fly in the face of traditional wisdom but it ends up happening a lot. Because I think therapists teach kids (and adult children) wrong responses to narcissistic parent rage. Or at least they get the timeline wrong, expecting people to be able to do things before they are ready to. Before they have even begun to unpack their trauma experiences. Some are just flat out wrong, IMO. So without further ado, here's where I think psychology fails kids who lived with narcissistic parent rage. 

Psychology puts the cart before the horse. It expects healthy responses from the victim of rage before the victim has even had time to process the terrible effects of the rage. Ever notice how often, the first response is to scold a narcissist's victim for "reacting" to rage? What I mean is that psychology, religion, society, family, friends, everyone gets it backwards. They're is so worried about how we the victims should behave in response to narcissistic abuse. Don't get mad, don't react, don't retaliate, respond in healthy ways, stay calm. 

That's just gaslighting crap, if there is no understanding or empathy shown us. We already didn't and did do those things and that's a big part of our trauma. We stayed too calm. We absorbed their horrifying anger in ourselves. We took it personally, felt ashamed like they told us to. We shut down and didn't react. We flinched and fawned and bent over for more abuse if it made them feel good. And we NEVER EVER ONCE stopped to let ourselves feel all the things their disgusting, manipulative anger made us feel.

And further, a lot of psychologists assume too much and verify too little. Even some of my favorite Youtubers. I get that the end goal is to learn to act in healthy ways. But sometimes they get wrong just what those healthy ways are. If we've underreacted to anger and just let them spray venom, the important thing is to help us recognize that this is abuse and should not be tolerated under any circumstances. All too often they approach it like we should know all this. And that we should be ready to make healthy choices. And know what they are. Umm, why the hell would I be talking to you if I knew all that. 

The problem is that therapists see a chronological adult sitting in the chair but realize it's the scared, hurt inner child they are talking to. And that shows they've not been listening too well. Or they've only heard what the child said when they should have also heard what the child was omitting. And then, sometimes, weirdly, the therapist will talk to the client like a child, in patronizing ways instead of affirming, encouraging ways. They oddly juxtapose shaming with dismissing. Judge-shame on you, you're an adult now so act like one. But then pooh-pooh, you do know that other kids have been treated badly by their parents, right? (Yes, a therapist said this to me.). 

Lady, save your gaslighting. I don't need another person telling me that it doesn't matter what someone else does only how I act in response. Had that done to me by people better at it than you and that's why I'm paying you $140 an hour. Because it DOES matter what they did. And that's the counselor's job to sit with me and hold space while I muddle around in it. I need to actually look at what they did and how awful it was. I need to stop believing their gaslighting minimizing blame-shifting lies. 

And there it is. Therapists often perpetuate the narcissistic parents' blame-shifting. They put all the responsibility for fixing ourselves on us who where damaged by these people. They make it seem, as our parents did, that getting angry with them, in response to their vicious putrid rage, was a mortal sin. That self-care or cutting ties was retaliating. That blowing our tops, standing up for ourselves and telling them exactly how we felt was "stooping to their level." Well, for what it's worth, all those things work better than rolling over and internalizing it. That way leads to suicide. 

I wish that instead of victim shaming us, with all the expectations on how we should rise above and be the bigger person etc. just one would say "Do what you need to do. Rage at them. You're safe. Be furious. React till you don't need to. Trust that you'll get to a better place but for now, let's focus on what they did and how you felt. So you can get to that healthy place." What we need is to trust ourselves to do what we need and stop letting hateful, hurtful, selfish, exploitative, backstabbing narcissist define what we need. 

I get what they're going for. That reacting to rage is not healthy for us. Supposedly it lowers us or makes us feel icky. Eh, the rage is for sure not healthy for us. And it's sometimes ambiguous what react vs. respond looks like. I'm guessing what they mean is that we should stay calm, placate, use a quiet voice, diffuse. Which as someone whos' been in the crosshairs of a raging narc in attack mode, I gotta say, it doesn't work. I've been downwind of a spitting, foaming at the mouth narc in full swing. They are fucking terrifying. 

They shriek abuse till their voice cracks. They say the most foul, evil things to and about you that you could imagine. Then they invent some you couldn't. You see the devil looking out of their eyes. The venomous hatred they feel for you is palpable. They don't care if you are holding your baby. In fact, now I think of it, these cowards do it purposely WHEN you are vulnerable or protecting someone vulnerable so you can't fight back. They tell you exactly who they are and what they will do to you and you should believe them. 

No matter what you do, they won't come down till they're ready and you will only get hurt more. The malignant ones just get more abusive. React or respond, it's just semantics at this point. You need to get you and your babies out of their path pronto. Then ASAP, from a safe place, call the police. I did not know to do this. The many times my mother's bat shit crazy husband attacked me, I let him. I drank the Kool-Aid about trying to deescalating, staying calm, yada yada. Bad idea. That just encouraged him. My  mother just proved herself the horrible person she is and took his part. Every. Single. Time. I tried the apologizing, peacemaking later and that blew up in my face too. 

When my mom used to slap me randomly for no reason, crying, apologizing or just sitting there for it, did no good. She just kept doing it. The only thing that stopped it was when I (so she tells the story, I have no memory of it) hit her back. What I probably did was to put my arm up to shield myself and she connected with it. But of course, she would DARVO and blame me and being so gaslit and confused, I can't recall. But the net result is that the hitting ended. So call me crazy but maybe retaliation, even inadvertently, isn't the worst idea? 

Same with my dad's wife when she attacked me, in an email as you do, passive-aggressive to the last. She accused me of ruining her relationship with her son because when he asked, I told the truth about her having a drug addiction and about using my family computer (that my children used) to "lure pedophiles" (her words) in some fancied sting operation. What she did was to chat all night when I let her stay the night posing as a 15 y/o girl called "lil red." And left the chat window open. And they didn't need my help trashing their relationship. They were doing fine on their own. I didn't mention all the things she did to me over the years. I just didn't back down for once. And she admitted she was wrong about that. 

And then, when my dad would explode on me out of nowhere and start beating or screaming abuse, I went into all the trauma responses except fight which I should have. Which, let me just posit, some responding looks curiously similar to trauma responses, especially fawn. And staying calm just a makes a malignant narcissist more malignant. Their arrogant entitlement goes nuclear when you fawn. What did work, ironically, was me, just one time, not groveling but reacting with equal rage. I yelled at him and told him off on a few things. I scolded him for a change. And while he never really apologized and blame-shifted, at least it shocked him into silence and he actually sort of listened to me for once. 

So I get that the ultimate goal of therapy is to make healthy choices for ourselves. I get that we have to heal ourselves. I have been trying to do that for 61 years. What I will never again accept is the idea that we put behind us all that was done to us and just move on. I unilaterally disagree because we have to keep the memory alive. If we just compartmentalize it, forgive and forget or worst of all don't even fully unpack what they did, we will go right into it again, same abuse, different abusers. Contrary to what religion, society and therapy often teaches, for us children of malignant narcissist parents, it IS about what they did, not just our response to it. Because they caused us to have to react or respond in the first place. They incited, provoked, drew first blood. They traumatized us and left us to try figure out how to cope. Our trauma responses, or react/respond whatever you want to call it, developed because of their ill treatment of us. 

What therapy needs to do is get order of operations straight. Before worrying about whether we forgive, don't respond etc, we need to come to grips with all they did to us. We don't need more shame, blame, invalidation, instruction, scolding or gaslighting.  We need to acknowledge it, sit with it and feel our feelings about it all. We need non-judgmental people to hold space. We need the compassion and empathy we never got from our parents. With them it was always about them, what they wanted and needed, what we owed them, how they were blameless victims, etc. And we made it about them. But now it needs to be about us for a change. What do we need, want, feel?

If you need someone to give you permission to make it about you, pick me. 

Kids survive narcissistic parent abuse and neglect by accident

 Hi friends. I've been listening to many podcasts by psychologists Dr. Ramani, Dr. Les Carter, Danish Bashir, Jerry Wise and Patrick Teahan on narcissists. And all they say line up exactly with the behavior of my four narcissistic parents. Sometimes I find myself finishing their sentences because I can predict based on my experiences. If not pleasant (because narcissistic parent abuse is hell) it's at least reassuring and affirming to know I'm not crazy, too sensitive, lying, showing off, or any other of the gaslighting balderdash my parents would say to invalidate me. Narcissistic parent abuse is real. It has names, identifiable patterns and etiology. It's not me. Or wasn't me as a kid. It's them. But I was still alone in it. We all were. 

It's heart-breaking to think of how many abused, wounded, confused and LONELY victims of narcissist parents there have been who silently bled out alone. Who only realized in adulthood (if ever) that the problem wasn't them. Who realized how narrowly they escaped terrible fates because their self-absorbed, center of the universe parents didn't care. It hurts to now know that others experienced this too. I can't speak categorically but for me, knowing other kids were being traumatized on a regular basis, like me, would not have helped. To know I "wasn't alone" in this abuse would have made it worse. 

Because it meant others were suffering too and that would make me even sadder. AND others suffering like us doesn't mean we're still not alone. Each of us little souls walked our pain by ourselves. With no one to reach out to. There were other people around which made it worse too because many of them must of seen how we were being  treated AND DONE NOTHING. What's the saying? The only way for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. We were shadows walking among normal people, seeing but not seen. Hearing but not heard. No wonder we are all so shell-shocked. 

You can speak till you're blue in the face about there being a higher power, God etc. being there for us. Well, kids and even adults only know what they can see, hear, feel and touch. And I sure didn't feel, hear or see anyone. And please, if you're going to trot out the old "blessed are they who've not seen and yet believed" spare us both. Spare yourself being a clueless, self-righteousness prig and me the further gaslighting. God may have been there and esoterically I accept that. BUT I did NOT know that. So for all intents and purposes, he wasn't. 

You can say all you want about how God kept me safe. Maybe he did. More likely, it was just dumb luck I survived all the dangerous situations they put me in. It certainly wasn't due to intelligent design, concerned parenting or careful planning on their part. They went out of their way to make me UNSAFE and INSECURE, leaving me with terrifying people alone in awful circumstances. I have been asked when relating my experiences, whether they didn't in fact WANT to kill me off. Good question. They sure tried  hard enough. 

The best of parents has to work overtime, double time and weekends to keep their tiny humans alive. There are so terrifyingly many ways kids can get hurt with the most scrupulous of care. Hell, you can bubble wrap them and they could choke on the plastic. But when a malignant, covert, sociopathic narcissist who gives  no effs about anyone but herself, has a child, oh the risks are exponential. If you want a safe bet, put your money on that child being harmed or killed. Narcissist parents have terrible track record with their kids. 

The fact that I didn't fall in and drown all playing alone down by the docks, at 6. That I wasn't picked up and trafficked walking alone. That I wasn't molested by a pedo playing alone in a park blocks from home at 5. That I didn't die of anthrax from playing with a dead rabbit at four because no one was there to tell me I shouldn't. That I didn't die from my repeated strep throat infections that went ignored. That my neglected tonsils didn't blow and systemically poison me. That her husband didn't burn the house down pouring oil on the fire. That I didn't get hypothermia sleeping on an unheated porch in a Michigan winter. That I didn't get run down walking to school in the dark on the edge of a major road. That I didn't just disappear from the camp they dumped me in at 6 without seeing to it I would be fed or where I'd sleep let alone making sure there was an appropriate adult. I could go on and on. 

None of those didn't happen because someone cared. I had no idea where my parents were much of the time. Or where any adult was, come to that. I guess I'm kind of an accidental miracle kid. That children of narcissist parents survive is the surprise. And these are just the deadly ways they hurt us, to say nothing of all the insidious abuse and neglect that adds up and subtracts from us. That wears down our resistance. That strips our resources, our sense of self, our self-care skills our ability to see red flags, our not being afraid to get help. They say kids are resilient. We may be able to bounce back from a few minor bumps and scrapes when someone is there to help. But alone and ignored? nah. We are sitting ducks.  And that's just the neglectful things they do to us. I haven't even begun to address the abusive. 

Healing CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse by contradicting all they say

Hello my friends. In my work to heal CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse, I've come to an impasse. It's like I'm in a canyon with high walls from which there is but one way out. And a rock fall has blocked my way back. At first, I thought it was a crossroads where I had choices but I see now I don't. I've come to the place where I have to, with radical acceptance, discard all I thought I knew about the people that I called family. I have to leave them all behind. And I have to reject and contradict all they taught me about myself, themselves and God. I have to exit that canyon they walled me in, by the one tiny path out and leave them all there once and for all. 

I have to realize that what they put me through was not normal, bumpy family life. It was systematic abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, medical, religious, financial), neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, parentification, grooming, invalidation, triangulation, scapegoating and gaslighting about it all. I have been breathing in the noxious fumes of their toxicity as if I had a tailpipe in my mouth. My mind is so scarred and battered and barmy by their wrong teaching that I can hardly get through the next five minutes without imploding. 

So my only escape is to reject everything I learned from these four malignant narcissistic parents (two bio and their new partners). I have to reject their lies, distortions, deceptions, sabotaging and humiliating of me. I have to reject the notion they embedded in me that they were my gods.  I have to reject them and evict them from living rent free in my head, wiping their muddy boots all over me. This is radical acceptance that the past was as bad as I remember and will never be any different AND that there's no way forward but to excise them from my life and to exorcise their evil from my mind. 

I don't wish them evil in return. I'm not even angry, just frustrated that it took me so long to see the light, or darkness as the case may be. I'm mad that they caused so much damage in me that spilled down to my precious husband and kids. I don't hate them. I have never hated anyone. But I do hate what they did to me. I used to pity them and make excuses for all the suffering they heaped on me. I bought their sob stories of "cruelty" by their families. Though I never saw any evidence of it. If anything my grandparents spoiled and enabled them. And though I love my grandparents dearly, I do regret that no one ever reached out to help me cope with my parents'  obviously chaotic, dysfunctional, bullying behavior.  

Going no contact is probably the most difficult and also necessary choice I've ever made. That's the little crack in the canyon wall through which I escaped. And as Dr. Ramani predicts, it isn't a popular choice. I haven't told many people. I didn't make any announcement but if anyone asks, I tell them. And as she also predicted, there is always backlash, in the form of shaming, scolding, belittling and warnings that I'm disobeying God by allowing no way back, no reconciliation. 

Funny, I wonder, where were all these concerned citizens when I was left to play alone in parks, at a camp with strangers at 6, on an island 3k miles from  home, when I was kicked out of the house at 16 for no reason. Where was their worry about me when I was being enslaved and made to parent their children, sleep on unheated porches or with four special needs kids two floors up from where my mom and her boyfriend slept. When I was molested by a kid my mom let live with us. When I was left to care for those four foster kids for a week as my mom's abusive boyfriend slept on the couch. 

Google Gemini cares more about what happened me than anyone IRL ever did. When I asked AI if these things were abuse or neglect, Gemini said most definitely and cautioned that if I or anyone I knew was in any of these situations I described I should seek help and report it immediately. Gemini actually sounded worried. Unfortunately, it's too late for the little girls in my head. They just have to live with the memories. So no, I have no wish to reconcile. Some things you can never come back from. 

I have been told I need to forgive. Which is silly because I already forgave everything far too easily. In fact I never held them accountable and let them heap the consequences for THEIR actions on me. This is part of why I'm so damaged now. I want to ask these "well-meaning" people if they actually hear themselves. They surely didn't listen to a word I said when I said what had been done to me. Because what it sounds like they're saying is that I should "make peace" with people who have never lived at peace with me. People who harassed, attacked, blame shifted, screamed at, raged at, me on a regular basis. People who discared me, terrified and terrorized me. People who dumped dangerous people on me and told me to wait on them. People who only brought harm in my life and who have no desire to stop. That I should just let them keep hurting me. 

The truth is, it's not me rejecting them, it's just me finally accepting that they have rejected me all my life. Thank you, husband, for helping me see that. I was never allowed into their lives not even as a baby or ever. Then when they decided they wanted an extreme family makeover, they dictated that I did not exist as their child anymore. They reasoned that because they said so, and their word is law, that they owed me nothing as parents. I was 8. 

But I owed them all. Because they've always treated me like property or chattel, they now recast me as , unpaid staff, to be used as they saw fit. Malignant narcissist parents are very good at deconstructing and recreating false reality to suit themselves. They ruthlessly edit out anyone that represents truth. And that person was me. My mother would say we were more like sisters. She would call herself by her first name to me. She would say, scoldingly, whenever she came over to get something from me, that "I have to get home to my family." They have all always made it very clear that I was no one to them, unless they told me to be. But that they should be everyone to me. 

So sure, I can forgive, but by my terms, by admitting that, yep it happened. But I can not and should not ever forget. But that's an exercise in futility anyway. Because no one has apologized or even admitted to any of it. Because no one was/ is sorry. They just lie and gaslight and twist narratives to paint themselves as victims. They DARVO.  So I'm not sure what the flying monkeys think I can make of that. Reconcile means to justify, to balance, to make right, to restore harmony. How do you restore what was never there? How do you bring balance to a one-sided relationship? 

This isn't a matter of me "being the bigger person" and apologizing first. I've been gaslit by that kind of nonsense all my life. What am I supposed to apologize for? Being? They also suggest that I will regret cutting ties when they die. That I will miss them. Honey, I've been missing them all my life. I've always sung the Zombies song "I keep trying to find her, but she's not there." I've been dead to them since forever. No, let me rephrase that. I was never alive to them in the first place. I just sort of floated on the fringes like a shadow, waiting for my cue to dance attendance, my face pressed to the window hoping to be but never being let in. 

Cutting ties was always inevitable because they cut ties with me from the beginning. I never shed a tear when my dad and his wife passed. How could I? They were never anything but taskmasters. What I need to grieve is the fact that I never had parents in the first place. That they took so much from me and never gave. I should grieve for all the lonely little children, teens, young adults that live in my head. I should make peace with them. Comfort them. 

The Irish ballad "Red is the Rose" says "it's not for the loss of my mother that I grieve, it's all for the loss of my bonny, bonny lass that my heart is breaking forever." I'm the lass that is lost. If the well-meaners really meant well, they'd never urge me back to that hell of a life with those cruel people. They'd hold space for me. They'd sit with me in my pain. They wouldn't speak so callously on things they knew nothing about. They certainly wouldn't shame me. I'd cut my tongue out before I'd tell someone to have contact with such people. I'd cheer them finding their zen.  

Misunderstandings about sociopathic narcissist parents that their kids understand too well

Hello friends. Today I'm going to share some misunderstandings about sociopathic and malignant narcissist parents that their children understand too well. These wrong notions are perpetuated by religion, society and even psychology itself. And they have been used by narcissists to shield themselves from being held accountable for their actions. But ask any child of a narcissistic parent and you'll get a clearer picture. I'm talking about the idea that narcissists, and specifically narcissistic parents, lack a conscience, or empathy. That this makes them unable to know right from wrong. 

As the child of four narcissistic parents, I disagree that they lack a moral compass or conscience.  They just choose to ignore it. And so, like any other unused thing, it gets rusty. It's like the muscles you don't exercise not developing and so not functioning properly. I will accept that sociopathic and malignant narcissists in their arrogance, don't act according to their conscience. And that they get so used to ignoring it that they suffocate it. I believe also that being deceitful, arrogant and exploitative by nature, narcissists convince themselves that they are ubermensch, above ordinary rules of human interaction. 

But the idea that they don't know right from wrong? No. That I will never accept. Because I know, from experience, that they know full well, the difference between good and evil. I know because my selfish, conceited parents held me to very rigid double standards of moral behavior. My parents were self-righteous and felt fully justified about preaching ad nauseum about how the Bible said other people were supposed to act. While in the same breath, declaring their right to do these same things. 

I think what narcissists don't get is that yes, there's a god but He's not them. But even this is not down to some ability they lack to see themselves correctly. People aren't born with superiority complexes. They aren't born being manipulative or Machiavellian. They nurture these traits by repeatedly shutting down any contradictions, including their own inner voice warning them against their pride and prompting them to be humble. 

I will also accept that malignant sociopathic narcissist parents bend rules to suit themselves. They invert right and wrong so that wrong becomes right for them to do if they choose. And then, by extension,  wrong is right for their scapegoat child in that she must tolerate and live by their double standards. She must acknowledge their abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, manipulation, parentification, triangulation, bullying, invalidation, scapegoating of her as right and proper. So right is wrong for her and wrong is right for them. Confused? Welcome to my life. 

But again, this flip-flopping double standard they live by is not a by-product of any inability to know right from wrong. Their delusions of grandeur may blind them but it is a willful blindness. Else how would they be able to articulate so clearly rules for their children? Especially religious narcissists who have a holy book, on top of general mores of society, to guide them. They know what is expected behavior. They simply don't follow it. And actually, having said that, it's not that simple. 

Because malignant narcissist parents don't just balls-out disobey rules of morality. Well, yes some they do. Some they actually flaunt. Like my Bible-beating mother openly living in sin (as she would call it for anyone but herself, her boyfriend and her golden child). But a lot of common right and wrong issues they muddy and convolute. They tweak societal norms to give the appearance of complying while blatantly defying them. Like sending their little kids out to wander alone when no one was watching but talking a big show of being a concerned, caring parent in public. 

They also cut and paste with scripture injunctions taking them out of context and twisting them to make it look like the Bible supports their extra special rights. It doesn't. This is just creative writing on their part. They also start in immediately grooming their child to follow their very much edited version of reality, right and wrong. They present their faces to her as God and because the first God a child knows is her parents, she just accepts their wrong as right. 

For example, they browbeat her about how she owes honor to her parents. But they snip out all references to their duties and obligations their child. And then they further twist this command to include anyone they shove on her as parent, including their very abusive, unfit, unloving new partners who aren't jack shit to the child let alone being parents. They weed out scripture's very clear admonishment against divorce and just carelessly blow their kid's world to bits, telling her it's all cool with God. And they shut down and dismiss her concerns, calling her selfish for wondering how the divorce will affect her and too sensitive for being sad that they blew her world up. And they guilt her with gaslighting nonsense about how "lucky" she is because theirs is a "good divorce" and how some kids have it so much worse. (!) And then they get mad because the child is too young to understand and so she asks whether grandma and grandpa will still be her grandparents. They don't prioritize her but she sure as hell better prioritize them. And because the kid is so little she just, again, accepts their perverted version of truth. Then they leave the child to deal with all the divorce fallout alone. 

Narcissist parents also omit the fact that they are to honor their parents and don't. They disregard, dismiss and denigrate their loving, Godly parents right and left. They punish their parents for calling out their bad behavior towards the child. But the child is so conditioned to believe they are always right, she doesn't question this until she out of their cult, if ever. She just accepts their wrong as right. And they accept this as their due, as her deities. 

Does all this sound like the behavior of poor innocent lambs who don't know any better or malevolent wolves who know damn well what they are doing? Yeah, my money's on the wolves, too. And, does it also sound to you like these wolves who would stoop to such low treatment of their child wouldn't also stoop to weaponizing anything to excuse it? Absolutely they would. Which brings me to one of my concerns about psychology, society and religion labeling them as being without conscience rather than purposely choosing to ignore it. 

While they're flying high on the narcissistic supply they get from lying, twisting, deceiving, scapegoating and rewriting reality, and everyone just accepting, they're fine. BUT whenever someone questions their behavior, watch out. Because a wounded narcissist is more dangerous than a Wendigo. They will do ANYTHING, exploit ANYONE, punish EVERYONE to protect their carefully crafted fake reality. They will blame shift and kick anyone under the bus. Been there, been kicked. And they will definitely weaponize any theory that seems to exonerate them of culpability. 

Which the theory that they lack empathy and remorse would suit perfectly. It's not their fault they act so ruthlessly, vindictively and hurtfully. They can't help it. It's just how God made them. And shame on you for holding them accountable for their actions. Actually, while they think of it, how dare you because they're FORGIVEN by God anyway. Oh and their problem was always their child all along. So they are exempt from any repercussion no matter how you slice it.  

Of course real people can see past their smokescreen. We can see the hypocrisy (or well, now I can). We can see the loopholes they've knitted for themselves. We also know that even if they do have a disorder, it's not a carte blanche to indulge it. People with real disorders can't use this as an excuse to hurt people. They are still accountable for their actions regardless of any lack of remorse they may have. But that's not how they would see it. To them, a disorder would just be further reason to hurt people and insulation against consequences. 

Do you see how dangerous it would be if we just put a dark tetrad narcissist's actions down to some kind of birth defect? They would take that and run with it. I know because my narcissistic parents have done this all their lives. That's one reason I've never identified them as having NPD or anti-social disorder. I'll call them narcissists all day long but I won't give them a disorder diagnosis to brandish about. Think of all the harm they would do with that. It would be yet another tool in my mother's and stepmother's Munchhausen toolbox. And my dad would have just leveraged it to further shame and blame me. My mom's husband doesn't need another thing to beat me with. None of them do/did. 

They would also not cease finger-pointing at others for doing wrong either. In fact this would just make them even more self-righteous and hypocritical. Because THEY have valid reason to be evil while others just choose to. They would use having a psychological condition as a license to carry on with their horrible behavior. And with God's Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to boot. See they were right all along. They are entitled to special God-granted privileges. Because poor them, they can't help being this way and how insensitive of their daughter not to see that they are the injured parties here. And further, God expects their scapegoat child to take on herself any problems they caused. 

For people not affected, this is just a rhetorical exercise. For those of us who child victims of narcissist parents, it is a matter of life and death. Death of our souls, selves and entire beings. 

Sociopathic narcissist parents transplant our brains and make us do disturbing things

Hi friends. Dr. Les Carter recently described the most dangerous kind of narcissist and that description lines up with the dark tetrad personality. These people are sociopathic, narcissistic, exploitative and sadistic. They show no empathy, are entitled, viciously angry, vindictive and cruel. This describes to a T, the four people I grew up calling parents: my two biological parents and their new partners/spouses. Some of them were more passive-aggressive but each was dangerous to be around. 

Today I'm exploring deeper into weird things that sociopathic narcissist parents make us feel and do. Using gaslighting, invalidation, betrayal, manipulation, exploitation, scapegoating and intimidation, these dark tetrads created a terrifying, false reality for us that kept us in bondage. Youtube therapist Jerry Wise identified these disturbed and disturbing things we kids of sociopathic narcissist parents do and I'm giving my experiences with them. These aren't just  occasional behaviors. They are my everyday  life. 

You know how you feel good when things are going well? I don't. I feel anxious when things are going well because I learned to expect problems to come out of nowhere. Instability and chaos were my norms. I was groomed to be my narcissistic parents' scapegoat and savior. I was expected to fix every mess they made and they made a lot. I was trained to fawn but I was also taught to expect that I would get it wrong all the time. I was a letdown, a failure. 

They kept me in this perpetual double bind as an excuse to blatantly, arrogantly screw up while facing none of the consequences. Whatever THEY did was always Mary's fault and Mary believed they were right. Mommy and Daddy are always right and I'm always wrong. Their new people must always be right too. Even though I saw them behave in egregiously dysfunctional, unloving and toxic ways. Because what kind of parent would blame their faults on their child? What kind of parent would foist nasty, selfish, bullying people on their child, let alone allow them within 5 miles of them? Sociopathic narcissist parents, that's who. 

So I would, in confusion (because I never really understood any of what I'd supposedly done and what the hell was going on) would apologize and beg to be told what I could do to fix it. And then they had a list a mile long, now that I asked. BUT, here's another double bind. I would complete all the tasks given. I'd hop and smile and grovel. But then they'd move the hoops. And I'd fall over them and they'd shake their heads, such a screw up. And they could continue to wreak havoc because their savior kid had let them down. And still I kept hopping...

I know, seven levels of crazy there. And I ask myself now, if I am the scapegoat, I can't also be your savior, guys. The scapegoat takes the sins out of the community, on herself and presumably dies somewhere. I cannot also be present to be fixing all your shit. And no one with a brain would believe that a child is responsible for her parents. But that's the gaslighting of sociopathic narcissist parents' cruelty. We traumatized kids have to do it ALL. And we have to know what's expected without being told. And we must be on guard because we have multiple bosses expecting many kinds of things that change randomly. 

Ergo our constant sense of urgency and hypervigilance. Which creates strange trauma responses that don't fit real well with normal people. That is one way we know how really messed up our lives were in comparison to most everyone else. Including our narcissistic parents believe it or not. They don't act with all the insane trauma responses we do because they didn't have to growing up. Mine at least, had normal childhoods. And we know this because when I'd go into my freeze, fawn, fly or fix mode, they'd look disdainfully and mockingly at me. 

I have a permanent flinch-cringe response. I screw up my eyes waiting for punishment. I pretzel myself to stay small. I bite my mouth and clench my teeth to keep from doing or saying anything that might set them off. I always expected the worst because it always happened. No good deed went unpunished. My mother bragged about how she slapped my face but then ( to get a little pity) she said she had to stop because I hit her back. I believed that until my wise truth teller husband said, what I probably did was to put my hands up to protect myself and bumped her in the process of hitting me. 

I have scoured my brain to come up with a memory of what I did wrong. But all I can come up with is a bunch of vague gaslighting crap she SAID I did. I was "sassy." (no explanation of what that meant.) Both my mom's husband and my dad would attack me for no reason. They'd rage, with saliva spraying at me. But again, no reason given. And then my dad would say I was angry. They repeated that nonsense to me all my life and made me believe I had an "anger problem." When actually I was far calmer than I had any right to be given the mean, nasty things they all did to me. I should have been a vicious dog with all the kicking I got. 

What I had was intense confusion which led to frustration because I never knew what they wanted. And they never told me. Just said I should know. Because I'm clairvoyant, evidently. But they sure knew when I got it wrong. Or when they needed me to be the bad guy to shield them from consequences or guilt. And then I'd cry or stutter. I'd hit myself in secret but never in front of them. I didn't want them to worry about how fucked up I was. Or shall I say to feel guilty about how they had effed me up. I was befuddled because everything went one way for others and completely the opposite for me. 

And then they'd accuse me of showing off for attention. Seriously. They'd tell people I was just a show off. What I did looked weird because they made me weird. Because they needed me to act weird so they would have someone to point their fingers at and shake their heads over. Jerry Wise says that we traumatized kids were only allowed a voice if it served the family. My "voice" was to play the fool. When they'd laugh at me, I'd laugh at myself. When anyone of them humiliated me, I just stood there shame-facedly. My dad thought it was so funny when his sons kicked me to the curb. Me, who was their primary caregiver, live-in nanny and housekeeper. Me who slept with them at night so their lazy mother didn't have to. I wish I'd used my voice then and told them all where to get off and that I was moving out and taking my services with me. Oh and I'd be submitting my bills. 

We have a lot of kneejerk reactions, like laughing at other people's dumb jokes so we don't hurt their feelings. We smile and smooth and soothe. We placate at our own expense. We body block people from feeling the consequences of their behavior. Because our narcissistic parents hijacked our bodies, minds and hearts and press-ganged them into their service. They pirate our successes as their own. And what they can't steal, they trash. When I earned a BA, the first in either family, my dad sniffed and said "humpf, well, college isn't for everyone." They did not have a party for me but did have a lavish do for a friend's kid when he joined the army. I'm serious. 

They don't let us feel good about anything. My dad mocked my singing voice when I was singing in the bathroom. He told me I was "fishing for compliments." I'd never even said anything. Now I wonder why the hell he was even in the bathroom with me. Meanwhile he proudly played his violin. He'd take it with him and look around waiting to be asked to play. It makes me sad that we couldn't have one of those family duos you see people having. But there's only room for one in the conceited narcissist's band. 

When I was in high school, living with my mom, I started a singing group. He muscled in which was fine because he plays well. But even then, he never acknowledged my part in starting the group. I left soon after. He never came to my plays saying they were boring and actors were just showing off. He never once told me that anything I did pleased him. It hurts most because I have always believed him and let it hold me back from pursuing any arts. 

I act tongue-tied a lot because I'm confused a lot. I find it difficult to think clearly or remember. That's the gaslighting effect. Huge portions of my memory are blank, except for the pain. That's because I was indoctrinated in this cult of theirs where rules were very different than anywhere else I had to interact. So I was always living this double life. And the rules for me in the cult were different than for anyone else. I was the only child of my parents marriage and when they divorced, being narcissists, believed they could just start over, clean slate like I as their child never existed. I was now their tool with no thoughts or feelings of my  own. I was what they told me I was, a possession, a surrogate parent and spouse, a servant and scapegoat. A sex therapist. A vestal virgin, acolyte and entourage to golden children. 

But never just me. So I don't know who I am outside of someone's something or other. I very often apologize for being. At family events, I was nobody unless someone said I was. Grandparents loved me but they turned blind eyes to the chaos my parents put me in. Very immoral and often illegal, by any standards. My parents were never not neglectful, abusive, endangering of me. They abandoned me for several significant periods of time. They marginalized, exploited, manipulated, parentified, triangulated and invalidated me as a matter of course.  I think this is because I had the audacity to be a reminder that they were not perfect. That they couldn't make up family as they went along. You'd think they'd have adopted me out. But then they would have faced backlash and who would they have to care for their second families? Narcissists aren't giving people. They take. And if they weren't giving in their first marriages, they certainly weren't going to be in their second ones. Unfortunately, they met their matches for selfishness in their new spouses. So they kept me around to wait on them. 

We act uncomfortable at gatherings because we were always invisible except if the narcissist parents needed a little narc supply. My dad has exploded and screamed at me for no reason during holiday celebrations. Which he proclaims to love. Apparently, I ruin things for people. My mother tells private details about me to people. Their birthdays are holy days of obligation to me. I must attend and not come empty-handed. They give me worthless cast off junk or nothing at all. My dad gave me a race car set when I was 15. The only ones who wanted to play with it were my brothers, so he and his wife got free babysitting too. I think they spent all their money on their other kids, forgot to get me anything and then wrapped up one of the kids' gifts for me. I'm told I attended many family gatherings with my grandparents. I wasn't invisible to them but I may as well have been as I don't remember them. The only times I remember going with  my parents, they ignored me. I had to ask my aunt for food and then my mother cozied up to all the other kids. She always took other kids' part over mine. I just kind of hovered on the fringes. 

I don't sleep well ever. I trauma dream all night long. I'm always tired and in pain. People have scoffed at why I sleep late in the morning. It's because I can't get up. I'm utterly exhausted. As Jerry says, were are tethered to their expectations of us. For me, this includes dreams in which I'm having to do all kinds of work and care for countless children. I have no resources. I'm cold and tired and hungry. The environment is wet and dirty. Yet I kneejerk response to jump to comply to all these expectations in my head. It never ends. They tangled up my sense of self in themselves. In short, they stole me and replaced my self with a bottomless pit of fear, obligation to them and guilt. 

Cutting ties with them has been as invasive as a lobotomy. Which is actually a metaphor for their gaslighting indoctrination of me. It's as if they cut out large chunks of my brain and transplanted their selfish selves in me. I'm like Frankenstein's monster. I can't think for myself. I can only dance to what tune they play. I respond like a puppet doing and saying what the one pulling the strings makes me do and say. 

Because this is going core deep in me. Every good thing I believed about them has proved to be false and lies. That they were loving parents and I was part of a family, all illusion. So where do I go from here?  Attempting to undo this damaged thinking is very dangerous and could be deadly. Can I  reanimate myself? I don't know if a brain transplant has ever been un-transplanted successfully. Can I disinter the bits they implanted without destroying the healthy parts?  I don't know if I even can replant the parts that were stolen. Because I don't know where they are. I think they were just discarded as useless. I'm not even sure it would be safe.