How I felt and still feel, growing up with four Christian narcissist parents

Hello friends. In my ongoing quest to heal from CPTSD, I'm having to face some hard truths about my life, family and parents. What I thought was loving and normal was abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exclusion, exploitation, scapegoating, Today I'm delving into how I felt growing up under the thumbs of four "Christian" narcissist parents, two biological and their second spouses who were also self-centered. First, why do I specifically say "christian" narcissists? Because they are a special breed who wreak an extra layer havoc in their children's lives. They break God for a kid and  remake Him in their image. They twist scripture and use it against their children. 

Afraid. But afraid of the wrong things.  Fear of letting my parents down. Fear or doing something to displease them, of saying something, anything, to set them off. Fear of displeasing God. Not, oddly enough, fear from the dangerous situations I was placed in and left to face on my own. Not scared, as I should have been, of the harm the scary people they shoved on me, did, only of displeasing them too. I just sucked all that up as how it was meant to be and that this is what  God expected of me. 

Ashamed. But again, of the wrong things. I was ashamed of my parents immoral, abusive and neglectful behavior as if I was the one who'd done it. Or caused it. Or brought it on myself. Or wasn't supportive enough of them. Or that I actually needed them to do things they weren't doing for me. When they both abandoned me and left me with strangers, when I was 6, I felt shame at being afraid and missing them. When they decided to divorce, I believed because I was led to believe, that it was my fault. 

Confused. When they hit me, yelled at me, shunned me, let others hurt me, I believed it was because I deserved it. But I couldn't recall exactly what I'd done to. I was told I was disobedient, showing off, lying, etc. They just got their version into my head first and I never questioned it. 

Anxious. From constant stress of their chaotic, bewildering behavior, the hurtful things they said and did to me. The dangerous situations they put me in. The lack of care and basic needs. The constant wariness of random expectations and fear of failing to meet them. 

Sad. But for the wrong reasons. I got used to being "Ferberized" (ignored and shamed for any self-care) and I stopped crying for myself at a very young age.  Instead I felt a way too mature compassion and empathy for my parents, their new spouses, new kids, etc. Compassion that was exploited in their lavish self-pity parties and weaponized against me (you're too sensitive).

Exhausted. Used up. Burned out. Weakened from all the constant zapping of resources. Brain damaged from the constant cortisol flow from their incessant and disturbing demands.  

Inept. Decades of being told I was wrong and screwing up has rendered me unable to make a decision without agonizing self-doubt. I feel guilty about everything. When I got rear-ended by a kid who was texting and driving, I felt guilty. It is always my fault. I can't get my brain to stop believing that. 

Lies narcissistic parents tell and ways they twist stories to their own ends

 Hi guys. Just finished writing one of the rawest  posts I've ever written. I'm working to expose narcissistic parent gaslighting for the lies they are. Now I'm calling out lies narcissistic parent tell and ways they twist the truth to their own ends, against the child, which is gaslighting. And they're very good at it. My narcissistic parents had me believing their horse crap all my life. It wasn't till I caught them at it, that I began to question other things they'd said. And you know how it is with discovering lies. Many more are hidden underneath.  It's like knitting. Unpick one stitch and others begin to unravel till the entire sweater reveals itself as one long string.  

I'm mostly doing this for myself, to stop the intense pain in my brain. To tell the truth, to myself, about what happened. If you find it resonating or helpful, join me if you wish but please beware. This is very triggering. I'm breaking a lifetime habit of mincing words, and it won't make for easy reading. Still with me? Here goes. 

1) Narcissistic parents spin doctor a version of events to paint themselves in a better light. My parents moved to Alaska when I was 6. They told me it was to be missionaries to the Indians. When we got there, they never worked and we were homeless. My dad would leave for long periods on what he called mission trips. Which I realized were just excuses to absent himself from us. Both of them left me alone a lot. My mom would say, to plan her Good News clubs. But those never happened. And she spent a lot of time with other men. But because I was told they were doing God's work, it was all okay.

 2) Narcissistic parents orchestrate senselessly disturbing experiences and drop you in the middle of them. They manufactures crises to elicit your pity. Then they scoff at you for feeling all the things they set you up to feel. In Alaska, my mom decided to divorce my dad. They had some random strangers dump me at 6, in some random summer camp for a week where I knew no one. They guilted me for being afraid saying that my parents couldn't work out their problems with me in the way. They got back and both went their separate ways again. Then she disappeared for a week leaving me alone and terrified and in another random place with more random strangers.  

3) Narcissistic parents tweak the truth to make it more palatable. There is an element of truth but it's usually nothing like what really happened. In Alaska, my mom moved us to a remote island, dropped the divorce bombshell and then left me there. She said she had to go to Seattle (3,000 miles away) for surgery on a bladder infection. She did leave. But not for the reasons she said, I'm pretty sure. It was easier for me and the people she dumped me on, to accept than whatever the real reason was. She was having a series of affairs and it could have been an abortion, given the year, 1970 and that Washington had just legalized it. 

4) Narcissistic parents lie to leverage and weaponize. My mother told her Seattle story in such a way that not only would we fall for it more readily, she could also maximize pity. Poor thing, she sick not pregnant! It's her bladder not an STD.  And bonus added, guilt me in the process. What kind of selfish daughter would cry when her ill mommy left to get medical care? 

4) Narcissist parent tell lies to cover other lies. And when the original lie no longer serves their purpose I only learned that she was lying about Alaska when I reminded her of it, at a recent doctor visit in which she had to list medical treatments. She said she never left or went to Seattle back then. And she annoyed and very quick to shut me up when I mentioned it.  

5) Narcissist parents use a lot of euphemisms to downplay their bad behavior. My mom called her boyfriends, friends. She wasn't committing adultery, she was "dating." They weren't making out in front of me, just visiting. It was an "affair" not cheating. My dad wasn't beating the tar out of me, it was "correcting bad behavior." He wasn't screaming abuse at me it was "constructive criticism" which I supposedly "couldn't handle" was "too sensitive." 

7) Narcissistic parents do crazy things, then craft a story to blame you. I had long beautiful hair that my grandparents loved. When I was 8, she had it all cut off in a pixie haircut which made me look ridiculous. The stylist warned against having it all cut off but she insisted. Then told everyone that I wanted it cut for swimming. I believed that all my life and it may have been true. Though I don't remember saying that or wanting it cut. I think now, maybe she had it cut because she was jealous of the attention I got. 

8) Narcissistic parents exaggerate the child's smallest transgression.  They twist normal kid behavior into horrific acts, then rain down their wrath. The slightest facial movement is outrageous defiance. Walking away is "stomping off" and punishable to the full extent. Closing the door is slamming it. Saying how you feel is disobedience. Coming home an hour late, at 16, warranted getting kicked out of the house on the end of my mother's vicious husband's boot. Having an opinion is conspiracy against them. There's never enough enough punishment to sate their savage anger. 

9)Narcissistic parents blame shift then get their version in first.  Because the person who tells the story first is the one usually believed, no matter how ludicrous or obviously self-serving it is. Especially if the person their spinning it to, wants to or has a vested interest in, believing them. They don't have to prove it. Anyone with a different version has the burden of proof. My mother left me alone with her new boyfriend, at 11, for a week to babysit her four special needs foster care children. When the baby cried and I couldn't comfort him, her boyfriend who was sleeping on the couch attacked me and accused me of "shaking the baby." My mother never questioned his version and I was severely punished. 

10) Narcissistic parents future fake. They make promises they have no intention of keeping to con their kids into doing things for them. In the previous story, my mother had lured me into (illegally) babysitting these four very young foster kids, doing all the work with no help from her unemployed live-in boyfriend with promises of $15 pay. She had quit her job and was going to a "training seminar" for some pyramid scheme toy company. After his convenient lies about me shaking the baby, she punished me by docking my pay. She made me feel so horrible that I told her she didn't have to pay me anything. Boom. Problem solved. 

11) Narcissistic parents lie by omission of truth. They don't speak up for you when they should. They fail to defend you and leave you vulnerable. They leave out facts that show up their wrong acts. My mom accepted her boyfriend's version when she knew how viciously abusive he was. She leveraged the fact that I was easily shamed, against me. 

12) Narcissistic parents trap you into silence with disingenuous lies. They promise not to tell people some horrible thing you supposedly did when what they are protecting is their own bad behavior. In the babysitting situation, she said we wouldn't speak of it again. Which at the time was a relief because I felt suicidally ashamed. She knew this and used it against me. It took me nearly 5 decades to realize that she was afraid I'd tell someone that her abusive boyfriend was living there, and that she'd left and put me in charge of four kids. 

13) Narcissistic parents conveniently forget. I complied and kept the secret. The guilt got so bad it almost consumed me. I believed I should never have children. It came out a few years ago when I was trying to comfort her. She supposedly had no recollection of any of that happening. She had closed a door and moved  on. Leaving me alone and hurting in my 11-year-old brain. 

15) Narcissistic parents' versions morph and evolve. Shortly after this, the state closed her foster care home due to abuse allegations. She claimed that they were fabricated when I specifically recall her boyfriend switching the kids. Then she said it was his fault. As I remember she laughed when he did it. Then she said everyone overreacted and it was "just a little twig" he hit them with. There was no mention of me "shaking the baby" then. But there wouldn't be, because she would have been the one they found guilty. I see that now. I didn't then. 

15) Narcissistic parents backpeddle. When I mentioned what had happened, she denied ever even leaving me with the kids. Let alone with her boyfriend. Let alone me being forced to co-sleep in a tiny room with the kids while they slept two floors down.  Let alone my room being given to my uncle and his girlfriend. She said "I wouldn't have done any of that because I would have lost my foster care license." So she knew it was wrong at the time. 

16) Narcissistic parents make up scary fables about their children which they implant in their brains. My lazy, unemployed, sexually abusive stepfather who with my mother was living off my child support, would curse and rage at me about what a terrible person I was.  He accused me of unspeakable things, including but not limited to, the baby shaking. When he illegally kicked me out, he managed to convince me that it was my fault. He had me so traumatized that I damn near ended my life. It has taken all my life to begin to realize that he was actually guilty of everything he accused me of.  

17) Narcissistic parents accuse you of things they do. They concoct stories that direct attention onto their kids and deflect it from their bad behavior. My aggressively angry father and his passive-aggressive second wife told everyone that I was an angry, disobedient kid. The truth was that I was too biddable and they were exploiting my sweet  nature to make me unpaid servant. And routinely shaming me and blaming me for everything. 

18) Narcissistic parents embed memories in their kid's brain that never happened. My mother routinely slapped my face because she said I was "sassy." She say in an ugly facetious way, "listen here, Sister Sue, don't you dare talk to me that way!" I believed I must have been mouthy yet I can't recall saying anything. All I remember is the crack across the face, not what prompted it. In fact, I can't think what I could have said, being a cowed child who was very careful not to set people off. So I have to conclude that these are manufactured  memories though they seem real. 

19) Narcissistic parents defend their lies with lies. They can't keep their stories straight. My mother used to brag about slapping me. How I so provoked her. But it wasn't hitting it was just "correction". Then she said she had to stop because one time I raised my hand to "hit her back." Which I see now was just self-defense. But I was "hitting" and how dare you raise your hand to me when I'm  raising my hand to you! 

20) Narcissists use their past lies against you. They get you to believe something then turn it around to punish you. They hit you when you are down. I believed that she was right to hit me. And she would quote scripture about not sparing the rod and to punish my kids. And I, I'm embarrassed to say did spank them. I didn't feel right but she suggested I was failing God if I didn't. But then, when I had a nervous breakdown and checked myself into a mental health facility, she went behind my back and told my kids that I was abusing them. They reminded her of how she's hit me and she denied ever doing it.  So cunningly twisty. 

In summary, narcissistic parents constantly invent and reinvent lies. They play one endless shell game. They have to, in order to keep previous lies from surfacing. They inject their poison into their kids' little minds from the beginning. They infect them with evil till the child cannot think straight and cannot tell truth from lie. 

Exposing narcissistic parent gaslighting for the demonic lies they are (warning: raw)

 Hi there friends. For the last year, I've been discovering that a lot of what I believed about my parents and myself, was not true. I've been writing about the narcissistic parental abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, manipulation, triangulation, invalidation, parentification, shaming, scapegoating and gaslighting I was subjected to by four self-centered parents. So it's been a lot of heavy stuff. And today's post might be the worst of the worst. Because today I'm exposing narcissistic abuse for the devil's work it is and parental gaslighting about it, for the demonic lies they are. 

First, let's clarify this term narcissist. They're not just arrogant, delusional, self-centered and lacking in empathy.  They get off on hurting people, especially the covert and malignant narcissists. Narcissists believe they are God and not subject to rules and laws they hold other people up to. But  nothing could be farther from the truth which is that narcissists are agents of the devil. Because they gaslight (lie, deceive) with every breath. And we know who is the Father of lies. 

And religious zealot narcissists are the very worst of all. I know because I was subject to two who divorced and married other narcissists to whom they enslaved me. I basically lived in two separate but equally awful cults. They fancied themselves preachers and teachers of the good news. But it was very bad news for me. For me, there was no salvation from their demonic torture. And if you think this is exaggerated, I invite you to try living with four people hellbent on destroying you. They said and did things that made me so miserable that I thought everyone would be better off without me

So how did they accomplish this? First you take a kid, when she is very young. The bible says, train up a kid in the way she should got and she won't depart from it. Well, it's also true if you teach her wrong. She'll spend the rest of her life fighting those demons.  So you start systematically hurting, endangering, exploiting, neglecting her. You scapegoat her, abandon her from time to time, let horrible people hurt her and make her responsible for parenting you.  Next, you gaslight her that it's not happening, she's making it up, showing off, or it's her fault, etc. You tell her it's normal and that you're a loving parent. And worst of all, it's God's will for her to suffer and she's just being rebellious and disobedient. 

Now that you have her well-seasoned and groomed with all her resistance worn down, boundaries stomped on and self-esteem shot to shit, she's putty in your hands.  You can do any awful thing you want and say whatever crap you want and she'll absorb it. And when you offer her up as a sacrificial victim to your new F buddies, they can do as they like too. Anyone can have a piece. She'll take whatever you dish out and sit up and beg for more. She will do anything to please and appease your insatiable appetite for harm. You can sit back and enjoy the pathetic show she'll put on for your viewing pleasure. 

Because now she now not only believes all your gaslighting lies, she gaslights herself. Others might, too. The devil is devilishly good at lying. .But there's one you can't fool and that's God. The real one, not the one you've styled yourself as. He sees your wicked deceitfulness and isn't amused. He sees how you damaged your child to the point of self-harm with your self-serving lies. 

You'd better hope there's a purgatory. Cause you've got a lot of work to do and you can't lie your way out of this. God will not be gaslit. 

Exposing narcissitic parent gaslighting about God's Will for what it really is

 Hi friends. I started a blog post which is becoming a series about how I'm unmasking abusive parental gaslighting by flipping the script. I'm rewriting their narrative by defining words correctly. The worst way my narcissistic parents gaslit me was with a false portrayal of God and lies about what they were doing and what He expected of me in response to them. This has been devastatingly destructive to me, a category 5 hurricane to the brain. 

My parents got divorced for no good reason when I was 6. They gave me no help processing and made it all about themselves. Prior to this they had been systematically endangering, neglecting and even abandoning me. They failed in basic care, parenting and love. At least one had been cheating on the other and forcing me to watch. The other took off for months, to years at a time. They were always homeless and jobless. Immediately after divorcing (which they blamed me for), they found other self-centered people to foist on me as "parents" to be served. 

So all of this was disturbing enough. But factor in that they both believed themselves good Christians. They quoted the Bible and went to church. Sort of. They changed churches and denominations frequently always finding fault with the previous one. It was like they thought themselves Bible detectives tasked with ferreting out and exposing hypocrisy.  They even believed that they were preachers, teachers and missionaries. Despite the fact that no church supported this and when informed, they left that church to find another, hopefully more gullible. We were a cult of three. And that was before the divorce. 

Afterwards, there was a lot of adultery and affairs. My dad, at 34, started dating a 17-year-old. My mother hooked up with a married man. Then she moved her new, very abusive, boyfriend into our home. She'd quit her job to open a foster care home, leaving most of the care to me. She made an apartment for she and her boyfriend in the basement, kicked me out of my room to sleep with four special needs kids under 5 and gave my room to her brother and his girlfriend. And trooped us all to church where she sat, sanctimoniously fault-finding others, under the guise of "ministering." 

My dad moved me into his home with his new wife, so that I could wait on her. Most of the childcare and all the housework fell to me. I became surrogate parent, spouse, servant and scapegoat. I co-slept with all their babies and did all the work in their foster care home. They were passive-aggressively and just aggressively violent towards me. I don't recall when my dad wasn't angry with me. I feel sick remembering all the shaming and scorn. And I was gaslit to think that all this was God's will for me and to fail in any of their demands was to fail God. 

The gaslighting is many-fold. They proclaimed to be Christians and to be serving God when in reality, they believed they were God and I was serving them. Can you see the hypocrisy in all this?? You probably can. It's just me that's late to the party. 

They were willfully going against God's laws, breaking every command routinely. But spinning it all as God's will. I'm aghast at how they were able to convince me that adultery was somehow obeying God? How I was at fault for their divorce. How abusing me was in God's plan for me? They were thumbing their noses at him while claiming to follow Him. 

I will be working for the rest of my life, to process all this wickedness and overcome its evil effects. 

 

Unmasking narcissistic parental abuse and shaming by flipping their script

 Hi friends. If you're following this blog, you know that I'm in the process of healing from a lifetime of narcissistic parental abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, manipulation, triangulation, scapegoating, invalidation, toxic shaming and gaslighting from two narcissistic parents and their equally narcissistic new partners. So today I'm exploring how to unmask abuse, shaming and all the crap I've been thru, by flipping the script. Instead of letting narcissistic parents and other invalidators define the narrative. Here are the real definitions of common things they gaslight you with. 

1) Love. And loving behavior. Narcissistic parents euphemize abuse and neglect calling it love. We don't  give you a warm, safe home. Or enough food or basic medical care. We abandon you in strange places. We leave you unprotected while we do our own thing. We force you to serve dangerous people. We backstab, exploit and humiliate you. But rest assured, we love you. Because we say we do. 

Real love is the opposite. Loving people don't exploit your pain. They don't shame, especially not for things that are not your fault. They affirm and build up. They think the best of you. They give you the benefit of the doubt. They are very intentional about doing what is in your best interests, not manipulate you into doing what's in theirs. 

2) Discipline. This is their joke word for tyrannical, narcissistic, unprovoked rages. Supposedly it's "for your own good." However, they don't take their own medicine and are, completely undisciplined, self-centered and immature. 

Real discipline is demonstrated and modeled, not bullying. We lead by example, not random harshly punitive attacks. We do as we say, in humility and don't expect blind obedience to irrational, unhealthy demands. We don't expect children to be adults while we act like kids. We don't bind them up to burdens we don't help carry. We discipline ourselves and hope and pray they learn. We do what's best for them, not us. 

3) Divorce. My parents felt so sorry for themselves because they "had" to get a divorce. But there was no reason.  They would both dump on and triangulate me against each other. Then tell me I was lucky they had a good divorce. They immediately found new people and never once worried about how it affected me. So I'm failing to see how they were the injured parties. From where I sit, they got exactly what they wanted. New do-over lives. I got the shit and shame. They actually weaponized it against me, saying how I made them feel guilty and how it was my fault for hindering their happiness. Soooo much bullshit. 

What divorce really is. It's a choice parents make to explode their child's world. To baffle and brain damage them. There is no such things as a good divorce. What monstrous arrogance it was to suggest that. And no matter how hard it is for the parents, it's worse for the kids. Especially when you make it all about you and give them no help. Or worse yet gaslight them that you are guilting them.  Or worst of all, blame them for YOUR faults. 

YOU BLEW MY FAMILY APART!! I didn't blame you, tho I should have, God did. You feel guilty? You should. You did wrong, selfish things. And your guilt isn't the primary concern. I am. And you left me to face all the horrors alone. As you waltzed off to find new people to exploit me. Which bring me to the next gaslighting words. 

4) Family. Parents. Siblings. My family was blown to bits by my selfish parents. Who then subjected me new people on me in the guise of "family" and "parents" and "siblings." They made it clear that I wasn't part of their new families. But also that I was supposed serve these people. I was their family but they weren't mine. Just like I was their child parent but they weren't mine. And like their kids were my responsibility but owed me nothing, even basic courtesy. 

Real family is loving and inclusive of all. Ohana means no ne is left our or forgotten. Like I was. A child is part of one nuclear family only, which was taken from me and only  me. Family is not a hodge-podge her parents have patchworked from fragments of other exploded families. She has two parents, not an assortment of authority figures you force on her. Your new kids aren't her siblings. And certainly not her responsibility. 

5) God's will. This one was the absolute worst for me. My parents gaslit me continually with lies about what God supposedly expected of me. It's so big and bad that I'll have to start a new post about it. And will probably need a few stiff drinks to write. 

 

Weird behaviors developed from childhood trauma and adult CPTSD (I tick every box)

Hi friends. I just listened to a great podcast by Youtuber Jerry Wise, outlining signs that you've experienced significant childhood trauma. These are CPTSD behaviors. And I tick every box. I'm starting to see that I did not have the normal, healthy, happy or functional family I was gaslit into thinking I had. Just the fact that my parents divorced (blew up, ripped apart) my nuclear family and started new families, is dysfunctional, unhealthy and abnormal in itself. I'm still dazed that they could even suggest it was normal. I'll blog more on that later. 

What I had were four narcissistic authority figures (sic parents) who subjected me to a kaleidoscope of abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, scapegoating, triangulation, manipulation, exploitation, toxic shaming and gaslighting about it all. These are dysfunctional behaviors I have developed as a result. And while they are very dysfunctional, they're not me. They're defensive coping mechanisms. I am capable of functioning well, which the very fact that I survived, is proof of. I need to keep repeating this to myself as a mantra, continually. These CPTSD behaviors are in no particular order. 

1) I shift behavior when someone comes into the room. I go into what I call placating "perma-grin" mode, hoping to please others and ward off their expected anger, shaming, punishment and abuse. 

2) This is because I dwell in perpetual guilt and shame. The amount of adult expectation on me, from narcissistic childish "parents" was boundless. Which of course being not only a child, but also not being taught how, I constantly failed them. And the demands changed constantly. So as a result...

3) I'm unbalanced. The give side of the balance sheet is endless while the receive side is empty. I did not get the basics they owed me as parents.  I was expected to parent parents as a child. I was simultaneously a burden and a crutch. They demanded obedience like parents and care like children, service without serving. Consequently..

4) I'm always exhausted and depleted. They were ginormous parasitic battery hogs, continually sucking all my everything. They stripped my resources and broke down my resistance, leaving me with broken autoimmunity, emotional and physical. Because of that...

5) I startle easily. I'm jumpy and nervous. My dad conditioned me to be ever-vigilant to his and his wife's "needs" (demands) and to jump to their every expectation. He randomly hit and screamed at me. She passive-aggressively pouted which he blamed me for. Then he accused me of being "too sensitive" and told me to lighten up. So now, 

6) I'm too biddable with authority. I expect unreasonable demands, shame for failing to meet them and ridicule for being so "weak" and compliant. And that led to

7) Difficulty forming healthy relationships.  Not being able to recognize and so tolerating abuse. Being victimized by dangerous people. I was exploited and taught that God wanted me to let people take advantage of me. But also not allowed to make friends. Because they would keep my from all my "family" "duties". Being the family servant and scapegoat, 

8) I'm both childlike and parental with parents. They taught me that was their child (as in possession) but they were not my parents. They had no responsibilities to me but I had endless responsibilities to them, to be both child and parent. I was taught to give them whatever they wanted at any given moment. You need me to act childish to prove your superiority, you got it. Oh now baby needs me to be mommy, sure. And this chameleon behavior made caused to

9) Have no friends. My weird fawning adult-child behavior didn't fit well with normal kids. And not having things most kids had, made me even weirder. And my parents were so weirdly embarrassing I never wanted anyone to see. Any friends I did make were shamed and scorned or made confidantes of my parents. My mother dumped on my one friend and made her very uncomfortable. And then shamed her to me, behind her back. And now I 

10) Struggle to understand who I am, what I need, think and feel. I was so enmeshed in them I didn't know where they ended and I began. They so trampled any boundaries I might have had, that I did not know that I existed separate from them. And yet, they all excluded me from their families. I've become a kind of Caspar, the friendly ghost, always there but never seen, until someone wanted something. 

All this has led to me being very disconnected from reality. I had to dissociate or go mad, from the constant and constantly shifting trauma that came at me from all ends. I existed in a fugue state which I find now, almost impossible to get out of. I don't know how to make decisions, or maybe it's just that  I'm terrified to. I was so gaslit, second-guessed and undermined that right is wrong and wrong is right. 

The worst weapon invalidators use to sabotage your healing from abuse

Are you trying to heal from hurtful situations? Do you have "that" friend who while seeming to listen and care, actually ends up making it worse? Someone who purports to give"well-meaning" advice from scripture which turns out to be shaming and guilting? I call these people religious invalidators. And I recently wrote about 5 passive-aggressive ways invalidators gaslight you about abusive situations you've experienced. And then I realized that there were actually six weapons and the last one was so bad that it required a post of its own. 

And that's religious gaslighting.  This is the most insidious and therefore hardest to spot. It's also the most dangerous, in my mind as it's kind of a combo of all the previous ones (questioning, minimizing, lightening the mood, toxic positivity and brutal  honesty). And it sugar-coated with weaponized Christianity. 

Here's an example. You tell your friend about something that is hugely and horribly upsetting. She pretends to listen but then adopts this snarky, patronizing little frown. And says in a shame-y way "The Bible says God wants you to be joyful" "you need to trust God more" " are you reading your Bible daily?" "have you tried praying about it?" and "I think it's best of we just let the Lord lead." Which was breezily said to me by a woman on her 10th kid when I shared grief over losing my baby.

And for being so "helpful" it's about as hurtful as it gets. And it's meant to shame and guilt. They say these things at their best when you're at your worst. They preach what they don't practice. Really, you're going to guilt me with misquoted platitudes when I just told you I'm bloody well miserable? You try being joyful when you're hurting. I don't remember hearing much about the Bible when you were ranting about  your husband. 

Why would you suggest that I don't read scripture? Why you make it sound like a failing? I am suffering. Why would you make it sound like I had wickedly abandoned God? Who are you to know what I do or don't do? Does it make you feel better about your own lagging faith? Maybe you  need to look in the mirror? Cause you sound like a sanctimonious prig. 

Oh and you may want to take your own advice. I have actually read the Bible. Jesus speaks very strongly about the dangers of self-righteousness. We're also called to bear one another's burdens. And weep with those who weep. And that our joy comes from God, not in some fake pasted-on smile. And joy and sorrow coexist in us. They aren't mutually exclusive. We can obey God but still be sad. Our Lord wept, was sorrowful and even angry sometimes. 

What are all these weird attempts to undermine me really about? Why do you assume I'm not trusting God? Because it makes you feel somehow superior? Way to capitalize on others' misery. That's unBiblical too, btw. I also trusted you, to share my burden and that was clearly misplaced. And just pray about it? Oh what a great idea? Why didn't I think of that? And right back at ya when you were venting your spleen on me. If I'd said just pray about it, you'd have thought I didn't care. Oh, wait...

And thank you for the acid in my face, mom of many.  I'm so grateful you deigned to catechize me in accepting God's will. And why would you say it in a way that suggests I have not? It's not enough you have a baby and I don't. You've got to have some moral high ground too? Clearly, I have had to accept it. I just thought you might offer a crumb of comfort with your smarmy advice. More fool me. I may as well have peed into the wind. 

Tell me you don't think you're holier than me because you  have more kids. You obviously feel yourself entitled to pontificate on matters which you know nothing about. Tell me you don't think God measures your awesomeness in the number of babies he sends. Cause it's  hard to hear your humility through your smug self-satisfaction. And how easy it is for you to "accept God's plan" when you're holding a living baby. That's not you nobly obeying God and surrendering your will. It just you getting your way. Try cradling a dead child and see how it works.  I'm the one who should be preaching to you about accepting God's will. 

My friends, I want you to be very careful of anyone who behaves in this way. You might already know who they are or they might surprise you with unforeseen callousness. My friend with the large family completely blindsided me with her comments. Having already low self-esteem, I'm an easy target.  I always assume others are right and holy while I'm wrong and evil. 

So I was especially vulnerable when it came from someone who'd always been so kind. Or who I thought was kind. I didn't really know her. I assumed I must be really bad if even this paragon had to shame me. But then I stopped and thought about  what I'd do in that situation. I'd cut my tongue out before I shamed someone for losing a baby. And I realized that  I was used to shame, to excusing other's cruelty to me, to assuming I'd misunderstood it. I was taught to mistake harm for love.  

I assumed that because she sat in church she was a loving person. So when love didn't show in actions, I figured it was me with the problem. But then I recalled scripture that speaks of wolves in sheep's clothing and that a tree is known by it's fruit.  

And this put a whole new light on things. Now I'm working to believe someone when they SHOW me who, despite what they say.  Invalidators don't stutter. On some level, it's intentional. They aren't your friend. They don't have your best interests at heart and are not acting like loving Christians. They are exploiting your pain for some twisted end of their own. And it says a lot about them and nothing about you. 

Don't be gaslit by them, into doubting yourself or God's love for you.  It's okay to examine yourself, but not because someone else is questioning you. I've done this all my life, believing that others were always right and just and I was wrong and wicked. It hurt so much that I considered ending my life. And that is not God's plan for.