People and pitfalls to avoid on the recovery journey from narcissistic parent abuse

Hi friends. Today in my quest to heal from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm going to share some kinds of people and pitfalls that have tripped me up so we can all learn what to avoid on our recovery journey. Some of these traps seem and may even be innocent enough. But our dangerous to our trauma brain nevertheless. Others are just flat out purposeful stumbling blocks set by antagonistic people to sabotage our wellbeing. (Hint: think malignant narcissists much like the very people whose treatment of us, we're trying to heal from.)

The feigned friend.  Do you know anyone who claims to be your friend yet makes you uncomfortable?  They fake sincere compassion so you tell them things which you then find out they gossiped about. Or they say mean things that hurt but because they're "nice and friendly" you figure you just misunderstood or they didn't mean it that was or some other auto-gaslighting. They use the guise of friendship to get what they want. Once when I snapped at one of my kids (because I was pregnant, exhausted and burned to a crisp emotionally), my would-be friend seized on my low to say sarcastically "you think it's hard with four kids, wait till you have five." I never found out because I lost that baby. But I did learn a lot about ex-friend that day. 

The faker taker. Being told that self-care was selfish, we traumatized kids are very vulnerable to being played. Our hearts are too big and our arms too open. With people like this, we find to late that they don't care about us, just themselves. They're only interested in what they get from us. And they know how to use guilt to get it. So often, I've fooled myself into thinking that a friend was helping me. She wasn't just was just using me. 

The friendly neighborhood fix-it man. This person seems nice and helpful. They seem to care because they want to fix. But they don't want to aid the situation they want to fix you. They are avuncular, patronizing, infantilizing, condescending and VERY invalidating. You can't do anything without them, their approval, and pretty soon, if you're in their clutches long enough, their permission. They leverage your childhood suffering, abuse and neglect (!) to get narcissistic supply. Think Ibsen's "Doll House." 

The social climber. These are the folks who one-up everything you do, success or failure. They're the story toppers. If you succeed, they diminish it. They get ahead by leaving you behind. Ever notice how when you're down, they're up? And when you're up, they're down? Because they literally are. They climb you like a ladder. They ascend up your failure to make themselves look taller. And they descend down your success for pity and attention. 

The brave "truth" teller. This one also goes by "I'm just saying" or "I say what other people are too afraid to tell you."  Or I'm just brutally honest."  Nope. They're just honestly brutes. Hear and heed what they are really saying. It's not true it's their agenda. They don't speak for others, they just want you to think they do so you'll feel whatever bad thing they want you to feel. Usually ashamed or humiliated or foolish. And no, they aren't "just saying." They're mocking, gaslighting and shaming. They are tiny sadists who like hurt people for fun and personal gain. Run, don't walk away from them.  

The clairvoyant currier. This one takes "truth" teller nuclear. He proclaims to actually read your mind and motives, to know you better than you know yourself. Not only does he speak for "everyone" he does so ex cathedra. God evidently appointed him mouthpiece, to tell you what you need to hear. You should be grateful he deigns to read your mind and save you from whatever terrible thing you're supposedly doing. 

God's little KGB agent. These people have a self-appointed mission which they will gaslight you is from God, to weasel wickedness and sin. In people. NOT in themselves. Their fact finding mission is a cover for their own very flawed selves. And they only find what they go looking for. Oddly they never really uncover really big issues (like cheating, scamming, lying, cruelty, abuse, child neglect, endangerment). They never see those because they don't go looking. 

The blind guide. See also hypocrite, double standards, Pharisee. These people do exactly what they preach against. Arrogantly, blatantly. And with the same breath, they'll castigate you for what you very likely aren't even doing. It just makes a good blind for them. 

The deaf diviner. This is the one who, after you've  just poured your heart out (don't do this with any of these folks), proves they weren't listening (or were listening for what they could weaponize) by completely twisting it around. They make snap judgements without knowing any of the facts. They bypass trial going right to indictment. Like the KGB agent, they claim special God-ordained powers of divination that require no thought. 

The showman. These people have no love. Just arrogance. My dad believed that, despite being functionally illiterate beyond a few basic Bible verses, with no training, knowledge, research, study or preparation, he could just open his mouth and wisdom would come out. And everyone should flock to hear him. He would walk into unfamiliar churches and just stand there waiting to be ushered up to the pulpit to preach. It's so embarrassing it hurts. 

The sting agents. These people make it their mission to "out" other people. They collect intel and ferret out dirt. They plant evidence. They set up gotcha traps that you fall into. My mother and her husband who are both pathological liars claim they can always "spot" liars without them even saying anything. Well, it takes one to know one. They are also corrupt bent coppers, doing this to help no one but themselves. They exploit, extort and blackmail. ESPECIALLY  to their kids, their little fall girls. You only find out later that no one of the shit they "had on" you was true. But it was a very accurate portrayal of them. 

But you don't know until their brain damaging of you is done. You thought they were your parents who loved you. Ha. More fool you. They were your downfall and doom. And you're left bruised and confused. How do we not see them for who they are? Traumatized kids have a bad habit of believing what people say rather than what they do. We think they mean well even when they clearly show us otherwise. Because we were groomed ignore warning signs. 

How malignant narcissist parents create CPTSD and BPD in kids

 Hello my friends. Today I listened to a podcast by psychologist Dr. Ramani describing borderline personality disorder. And I saw that BPD along with CPTSD characterize me. And I also realized that my BPD is environmental being a direct result of narcissist parent abuse from the four people who called themselves my parents. Dad, mom, his new wife and her boyfriend cum husband: all of them exhibited extremely narcissistic behaviors in various stripes of covert, vulnerable, malignant and grandiose. 

If I'm understanding borderline personality correctly, or should I say this is how I manifest, it's intense self-hatred, dangerously low self-esteem, fear (particularly of abandonment, threat and angering someone) and suicidal tendencies. I've acted out with self-harm since I was about  6. I've experienced and put loved ones through panic meltdowns with some outward violence but mostly self-harm. 

What it looks like is irrational fear. Or what I believe it must look like. I've been so gaslit, invalidated, shamed and shunned by family of origin that I have come to think I'm as bat shit crazy as they've painted me. What they saw was me falling apart. What they didn't see was me holding it together for a scary long time, having a sadly too high pain and cruelty tolerance. Nor did they see my supposed caregivers exploiting, manipulating, coercing, raging at, violently punishing, abandoning, double standard, parentifying, endangering, neglecting and abusing me at every turn. And allowing each other to do so as well. What normal parents would protect their children from, my parents and their partners engaged in. 

Or maybe outsiders didn't see me as the mess. Maybe that's the version I was told. As I look back, I can't remember ever daring to show anything but hoop-hopping groveling servitude. And I do remember a LOT of times my parents acting out. They were violently rageful, passive-aggressively cruel and blatantly abusive. They did outrageously immoral, risky, impulsive, thrill-seeking, selfish, unethical and illegal things. They lied, deceived, scammed and cheated a lot. And left the job of making it all look like normal family to me who had to cover for their entitled, arrogant, spoiled, immature, irresponsible and frankly creepy behavior. And I did as best I could. 

I got used to being afraid a lot. Afraid of rages, being left behind, letting people down, the police being called, dangerous creeps molesting me, the list goes on. And I held it together until I couldn't. When the seams split and the weight broke me, I fell apart. But not as often as I should have given my circumstances. Sadly it was never with the people who caused it and deserved it. It was always with my innocent new family. Because of course they were safe and my family of origin wasn't. And every time I did, I felt unbearable guilt. 

There was this sense of complete bewilderment every time. I could barely remember what happened. And I always believed the worst of myself. And my dreams bear me out. I endlessly trauma nightmare about my terrible, unspeakable failings. I have somehow let everyone down and they have formed a sort of tribunal of humiliation but will not tell me what I've done. Interestingly, what I didn't see in the dreams but was always there, was that my "failing" was in being unable to complete their ridiculously impossible, uncommunicated, nonsense demands. And me losing my shit is caused by confusion, guilt, shame and self-loathing for failing. It's never directed where and to whom it should be to the folks who caused the shitshow in the first place. 

Perhaps this was the narcissists' gaslighting grand design, to con me into believing I was the problem. That I was responsible to and for them not the other way around.  This was to distract from their own problematic behavior. If they could keep me dancing, maybe no one would catch on. And they could carry on with their awful actions, unchecked. That's the scapegoating. A poor little puppet doll. 

And the little doll didn't get any of this. She just kept smiling her sewn on smile, through unspeakable terror. They had so damaged her that emotional leprosy made her unable to feel anything but fear. Everything triggered and made her trauma respond. And the poor thing had no clue that that none of this was her. It's was the fucking puppet masters pulling her strings and laughing as she danced. They said jump and little doll put on her brave face and jumped as high as she could and it was never enough and she always fell on her poor painted-on face. 

And when you take this level of buried trauma with you into what passes for adulthood, it is not a healthy outcome. I see now too that it isn't just weird things that trigger me. Actually, it's pretty common sense. Another's anger, being shamed or blamed, someone else's dysregulation. The children's tears would physically tear me apart. Did I mention trauma survivors are often danger level empaths? 

I wish I could go back to when my children were young and comfort my younger self. I wish I could help her see that she was never the problem. She was caught in their crosshairs. I wish I could help her see thing clearly, to trust her instincts. I would have been a better mom and wife and happier person. But there are no do-overs. And for that I will never forgive my parents. For my trauma that they inflicted on me, that I without understanding how or why inflicted on my children. I want those years back clean. 

So the BPD: The constant fear of abandonment, anger, failure, driving, car washes, my own shadow. You name it I fear it. And that fear impels me, without my knowing it, to do what looks like strange things. Some of it hurts others. Some is just odd. It all hurts me. 

It hasn't been helped over the years by a lot of toxic-Christianity and pseudo- religious bullshit from the many churches whose pews I filled. God gets traumatized, gaslit, abused kids. Christians, by and large, do not. They make the pain soooo much worse with their smarmy victim-shame-blaming. I could have shaved decades off my recovery if I'd just not heard it. Better no church than bad church. And the same with counseling. I've experienced a lot of setbacks there too. 

Because the problem is not that most people don't get us. It's that they WON'T GET US. They want to fit our story to their agenda, preconceived notions, pet theories, worldview, mantra, etc. THEY DON'T LISTEN to us. They don't hold space. They hear what they want to hear and if it doesn't fit, they configure it. I don't want to be translated, talked down, talked over.  I don't want to be pathologized, psychologized. 

It makes me furious to think how many times I've let myself be minimized and invalidated. People who say stupid crap like "oh it wasn't that bad was it? Surely you had SOME good times? Aren't you exaggerating just a bit? You're over-sensitive, need thicker skin, personalizing, on and on. Now, you tell me, how in the blue blazes would they know how bad it was or wasn't?? They weren't there!!!!! No one was. 

How dare anyone scoff or pooh-pooh another's story? Keep your arrogant long nose to home if you can't say anything helpful. No, they do not mean well. They, for whatever reason, get a kick out of kicking someone who is down. And lest you think that I've dumped on these people, I haven't. At most I've made a comment or two and they just swoop in with their judgmental yammering. Actually, if you've experienced folks like this, you know exactly what I'm talking about. 

And worst of all is the way that an already vulnerable person hears their shamey-shamey scolding. They take it personally, duh! It shocks me to realize how often I've taken their invalidation to heart and then participated in my own auto-invalidation. That's why I've got such piss poor self-esteem and sub zero self-care skills in the first place. I've listened to the wrong people saying unhelpful hurtful things that undid any forward traction in healing. 

Never again, will I allow myself to be second-guessed, reinterpreted or explained. My words are gonna start standing on their own two feet. And if someone doesn't want to hear them, there's the door. Don't let it hit you in the butt on the way out. 

10 disturbing forms of humor Narcissist parents use to sabotage their child

Hello friends. Today in my mission to heal from malignant narcissistic parent abuse, I'll show how a narcissist outs herself by the things she finds funny. This will also help us understand how narcissist parents damage their children with seemingly good things like humor. Here are 10 weird forms of humor that narcissist parents use to sabotage their child's sense of self. Contradictorily, if anyone jokes in this way about the narcissist, they become enraged. Narcissists, especially malignant narcissistic parents LOOOOVVEEE to make their kid the butt of jokes but they HATE being the ass end of them. I'll list these 10 weird humor forms and explain what it says about the parent.

Just saying or gotcha jokes These are insidious demi-jokes in which the narcissist points out something in such a way that draws all eyes to the child. It's not a behavioral thing but it's embarrassing. That's why the narcissist points it out. The narcissist would choke on her own tongue before saying something positive about the child. She strategically does it at a time when the child can do nothing about it but feel embarrassed. Like my mother telling people that the doctor put me on a diet because I weighed 100 lbs. Or she announces after the window to fix it has passed. And she can't be called out on it because everyone would say the narcissist is just being helpful. She's not. She likes seeing the victim squirm. And she can't even be said to be mocking because she says it seriously. But she hopes others will laugh. She does not chastise her children for laughing (Yes I'm thinking of my dad's wife). And interestingly it's not anything anyone else would notice or if they did would tell the child privately and help her fix it not save it to make a laughingstock of the child. When I was 14, stepmother loudly announced at Christmas that I had a run in my nylons. She and my aunt scoffed behind their hands. I wonder how funny it would have been if I'd said, "Maybe it's because you make me buy my own clothes and I can't afford new??" What the malignant narcissist parent is saying about  herself is that she gets off on shaming her child. 

Teasing (heckling, kidding, razzing) I'm not a fan of teasing, period. Because it's never about something the person is proud of but embarrassed about. We don't jokingly say nice dress or good job on the math test because we mean it. What would be the point? If we sincerely mean it we sincerely say it. But the point of teasing is to make someone feel bad. Because the dress is shabby or the child failed the  math test. Now, if the child laughs along, it's no fun. So teasing always has to sting, to hit a nerve. And for that to work, the target must feel the sting and know she's been stung. Nice people don't tease. Ever. They don't like to see people feel ashamed. They make jokes about innocent things that make everyone laugh. A narcissist's outs herself by the fact that she finds others' discomfort funny. 

Lampooning, mocking, roasting, ridiculing. Call it what you will, it all amounts to shaming the child, by making fun of her for things she can't help. It's no different that a bunch of playground bullies playing monkey in the middle with the poor kid in polio braces. Been there, tried to defend that. Only these are grown adults who are supposed to be protecting their children FROM this kind of abuse, not leading the jeers! These aren't nice people. They are sadistic bullies who get their jollies making others feel small.  

Cynical snark and snide sarcasm. And other such above-it-all-ness. With feigned innocence, they point out (loudly in front of others) something they know the child would be uncomfortable about. Because anyone would. These aren't terrible things just mistakes that cause the child discomfort. But instead of sheltering the child as any good parent would, they exploit it. They find a chink and poke at it till it's a chasm. Again, it's almost always something no one else noticed until THEY the parents pointed it out.  My dad pointedly insulted me for something that inadvertently went wrong at a party for his son that I had planned. But when I began to cry, he got mad because he  was just joking and I was "too sensitive." 

Shaming dressed as gentle reproof. They try and fail to cloak as "for your own good" correction what are actually smug, spiteful digs. And you know it's just that because if it were kindly meant correction, they'd do it privately and in love. But no, malignant narcissists play to an audience. But they do it in sneaky underhanded ways that they think others will see as loving. Like my dad's wife sarcastically correcting me for eating all of one thing on my plate and then moving on to the next item?? Apparently that's bad manners. What I want to know is why she was watching me eat in the first place? I thought we were just out for lunch with friends. Well that lunch was ruined. And it's interesting coming from a morbidly obese woman who ate herself to death. So they say these gaslighty things in such a way that makes it look like everyone knows this except for the stupid child. Very often it's not or its exaggerated. But their "gentle tone" hides it. And they're careful who they say it around. My stepmom said it to her equally arrogant flying monkey friend. Sometimes other folks catch on, sometimes they don't. But the child always gets this sucker punch for what it is.  (Oh and by the way, English country house dinners are served in courses which are completely consumed before  moving on, so yeah. Who's the gauche one now, GINNY??)

Scolding mockery (loudly in front of others) They use this kind of "humor" as a form of public correction to make the child feel foolish and chagrined about something she did wrong. Usually it's a small typical kid thing they've blown up into something huge. Supposedly, feeling stupid will make her perform better in future.  I don't know about you, but humiliation never taught me anything except that I'm a worthless piece of shit who doesn't deserve gentle, loving parent correction. You've seen the parents on Youtube shaming their child (on the Internet, as you do) for some offense. But it always has the reverse effect of making the parent look like the idiot and the poor child someone you want to rescue from them. 

DARVO mocking. The malignant narcissist parent continually provokes a response in the victim. My parents, bio and step, would endlessly rage bait me with shaming, scolding, ambushing, harassing and set ups. They'd loudly demand I do ridiculously inappropriate things. They'd egg others on the attack me. They'd wear me by denying me basic necessities. If I cried, got mad or reacted they loved this even more. They weaponized my  reaction to DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender). Now the narc is the poor misunderstood victim who was innocently JUST JOKING! What's wrong with Mari? She's too sensitive! She can't take a joke? They then proceed to prove that they started it. Instead of apologizing they double down by mocking the victim for being hurt. 

Pranking. Malignant narcissist parents will set a child up to fall and then laugh like hyenas. These are the ones who shove cake in their kid's face at her birthday party. Or leap out to scare her and make her cry. Or who start food fights like frat boys. Which having made the comparison, some of their pranks are more like hazing. My mom would look on approvingly while her boyfriend (later husband) pinched my little finger in such a way that he almost broke it. It felt like he did. He'd say "holler Uncle" or I won't quit. Child abuse passed off as a game. So disturbing. Out of the blue, my mother threw a pie in my face and at one of my children at her company work party. The only one laughing was her jackass husband. And that led to...

Vengeance jokes The narcissist parent in her entitled arrogance, is the only one allowed to mock. If his target should turn the joke back on him or even if it just accidentally backfires, look out. A humiliated narcissist is terrifying. This is where the mask slips, revealing unbridled malicious cruelty. In the pie throwing incident, my narcissist mother's coworkers didn't respond as she expected. Because they were adults not immature exhibitionist attention-seekers. Instead of laughing, they looked disdainfully. She was reprimanded and oh she did not like that. Her "jokes" got even more caustic to punish me for accidentally showing up the egg on her face. This is where shit like revenge porn comes from. 

Terror taunting. Also called fear baiting. So here's where we veer completely off the path of humor to viciousness. This is kind of like revenge joking but more targeted. If the victim actually hits back the narcissist comes out swinging. But being cowardly, they do it in a passive-aggressive way which they call joking. But their jokes have sharp barbs and feel a lot like attacks. My dad would laugh while the rage glittered in his eyes. He was slobbering with fury and would say deadly serious things in a terrifyingly jocular way. He once threw a knife across the room with a smile on his face. I don't even have words for this. 

Sexual harassment and dirty jokes. My mom and her husband used to tell dirty jokes around me from the time I was 9 or 10.  My mother once announced that I had pubic hair at a family gathering. She laughed when he made fun of my "queer" cat who "humped" balls of yarn (his words). They'd mock me because I didn't understand the crude references. She laughed along and preened when he called me "Blisters" to mock my small breasts. (all while calling herself a Christian minister and thumping her Bible, but I digress) Then they kicked me out of the house for not being able to prevent a stalker stalking me. So worried about me they made me homeless. It made me feel so gross, like I was the dirty one. I struggled for a long time with intrusive thoughts of sex that I couldn't understand. Not fantasies of it but aversions to it. I never really understand what was wrong till one day, I finally heard what my husband was saying all along how they were the pervy-creepy-deviants and I was just a child caught up in their moral depravity. 

For all their sick humor, narcissists can't take a genuine joke. They personalize everything. If ever my dad felt uncomfortable about himself, he assumed it was someone's fault. He would rant about how everyone was soooo hard on poor Jack. Jack who loved making others feel stupide. Jack who was the first to tell my how I was too sensitive was a snowflake that melted at the first breath. My mother would rage when someone slighted her. They didn't. She just liked the attention. My stepmother was enraged when I invited a friend to dinner that I cooked and cleaned up after because I forgot to ask her. She didn't want the friend seeing how she made me slave. 

My mom's husband started nailing me and my then boyfriend with snowballs. He packed them with ice and they hit hard and hurt and he cackled. When my husband threw a snowball back and it accidentally landed in the truck, stepdaddy dearest went ballistic. I guess hurting people was fine but getting snow in a truck was not. He would not speak to us for months. Over a damn snowball fight he started. Just one of the many times we should  have cut ties.  Narcissists have a self-serving sense of humor in which they are the ones laughing at others' expense. They can dish it out but they cannot take it. 

Narcissist parent abuse cripples our development and makes us behave oddly immature

Hello my friends. Today I'm writing what might for me be my most embarrassing post. I'm looking (possibly for the first time ever) at ways that narcissist parent abuse has crippled my development and made me behave in oddly immature ways. This is probably going to be a series because there are so many. Here's how that happened. And a BIG thanks to Youtube psychologist and trauma expert Danish Bashir for identifying this as a by-product of narcissist parent abuse. 

Narcissist parent abuse takes many forms: sexual, medical, physical, social, emotional, financial, plus  neglect, deprivation, exploitation, manipulation, child abandonment, child endangerment, scapegoating and triangulation (pitting people against us), bullying, invalidation, humiliation, gaslighting, double standards, inappropriate demands. It's both infantilizing AND parentifying, expecting adult behavior of us while acting childishly themselves, enmeshing with us and making us their slaves, overburdening us with too much work, the list goes on. 

And it is all backwards and upside down from the way kids around us live. Our very self-centered, entitled, self-serving parents teach us different rules for interaction. All we know is trauma responding, in my case freezing, fawning and fixing everything they break. And sometimes, fighting, when the pressure gets too high and we crack under it. And what is expected of us is not how they live. They are self-righteous, hypocritical tyrants who demand service and loyalty from us but give us none. We are taught no self-care skills and in fact, are told that self care is selfish. We're also groomed to keep their secrets. And we do. 

Even people who should be seeing and caring how awful our lives are, don't. My living situations were so bizarrely and obviously dangerous that someone should have noticed. CPS was called in at least on my mom, but that's only because she had a foster care home and she and her boyfriend were hitting the kids. No one thought to check on me who was at 11, the children's  the primary caregiver, co-sleeping with four special needs little ones. While mom and her unvetted, unemployed (he was fired for hitting a supervisor), abusive volatile boyfriend slept two floors down. 

That is one tiny scrap of abuse in the crazy quilt of my life. Both my parents before their divorce were insanely neglectful leaving me unsupervised from around age 4. They didn't provide even minimal care and both disappeared for weeks at a time to go on mission trips, taking me thousands of miles from home and then abandoning me with strangers. They were cheating on each other in blatant ways. Then when they found new people, the abuse escalated to 4x the amount from their narcissistic new spouses. I was forced to work like a skivvy for my dad and step mom. I was kicked out of the house at 16 by my bullying mom and jobless stepdad who were living off welfare and my child support. 

How did no one see how weird that was?? Why was it all okay? This happened in late 1960s thru early 1980s middle America, for God's sake!  My extended family were normal, law-abiding, loving, church going people who supposedly didn't approve of any of this. And yet they did by their keeping quiet. 

At least that's how I read their silence. As consent. Awful for anyone else but fine and dandy for me. I remember reading or hearing of kids in terribly abusive situations and grieving for them. I never realized that my own life was just as bad. Worse in some ways. I  never grieved for me because I assumed, because I was indoctrinated by narcissist parents that this was God's plan for me. It was his will that I was abused. That was the version of God I got. God was a cruel, hateful, vicious, unfairly demanding, bullying, spoiled brat that wore my parents' faces. 

Needless to say this was confusing. What most healthy things kids got and learned, I didn't. What I saw was kids being cared for and loved and what I lived was chaos and abuse. I'm not saying I'm the only one who lived in difficult circumstances, as my former therapist suggested I was  (in a rather condescending, judgy way)  Which is why she is no longer my therapist. I don't need more invalidation and patronizing,  thanks. 

What I'm saying is that what I saw other kids having, I didn't. Even if abuse was going on, they at least had enough food, a roof over their heads and a bed to sleep in. They did normal things and were involved in stuff. I had no time being too busy with housework. I had no ride because no one would provide it. I had to get a job to pay for my own Kotex, a ride anywhere, a bike, a car, shelter.  My college fund from grandparents and child support was stolen to fund my mom's new family. 

And again, don't hear what I'm  not saying. This isn't a contest to see whose life was the worst. No one wants that. It's not a pity party or a cry for attention. The days when any of  those might have done me some good are long since past. This is my story. And one which hid in plain sight. And one which I've never heard anyone experience anything like. That's the saddest thing about malignant narcissist parents. They manage to inflict on their kids abuse that no one could or would ever be able to make up. 

No kid that I knew (or anyone else I've spoken to knows) had to care for her mom's foster kids while her mom and boyfriend absented themselves. Or had to do all their dad's and stepmom's work because they demanded it. And then didn't feed or house her right. None of the folks I've talked to know of kids in those days whose parents were divorced. Let alone who had boyfriends, one-night-stands, girlfriends, step-parents, new families etc. Not to mention foster care homes where they didn't provide care and me do the heavy lifting. 

A friend recently validated just how extreme it was. She recalls her mother being worried about me because my mother had left me with the aforementioned boyfriend and four special needs foster kids to care for. While she went to some pyramid marketing scheme workshop for a week. My friend's mom said they had to step in because caring for one special needs child was too much for an 11 y/o, let alone four overnight. My friend said she and her mom were both shocked at just how difficult the child was to care for. 

The agency told my mom he had been battered so badly that he was blind, deaf, retarded (the word used then) or all three. And she lied and said she could handle him. She didn't nor would her lazy boyfriend help. They left that all with me. And this is just one of the children my mom left me to care for. And not just for that week. I had to sleep (or not sleep) with all these children and he cried all night. 

I'm not saying other kids didn't have it rough. Obviously. I'm saying no one experienced nor understood just how oddly rough my life was. It was only when the friend had to walk in my shoes that she could understand. And she had a loving mom to help. Not her fault. My life was so weird that it made no sense to anyone. In fact,  I was ostracized because of my parents' bizarre, immoral, reckless lifestyles. Even family sometimes questioned me why they did what they did. Like I was supposed to know. And I always defended them so no one looked deeper. 

And because no one did, I assumed that this private hell was for me alone. I was smart enough to see how different it was for those around me but also damaged enough to think we each got what we deserved. They got good because they were good kids and I got shit because, well, good enough for who it was for. But being a conscientious kid, I didn't hold myself to lower standards, even though I didn't  have the resources or capability to meet the higher ones. I expected that I could make bricks without straw (or proper nourishment, a bed, home, adequate living conditions) because my narcissist parents always expected me too. 

So where does that leave me? With no ability to distinguish love from harm and a lot of weird coping skills. I somehow managed to keep up surprisingly good grades, despite not having time to do my homework until bedtime, being so busy with their housework. For a kid who had to get up at night with siblings so their mother could sleep, I was able to get up and function. Sort of. I fell asleep a lot and in dangerous situations. I ended up having to rely on a lot of scary unsafe people for things like rides. I ended up in bad situations because my parents neither protected me nor taught me I should protect myself. If I'm honest, they threw me at wolves and made me feel unChristian if I didn't let them take advantage of me. My loving now-family wonders how I survived. So do I come to think of it.

This has been a long, but necessary, explanation or maybe apology for my weirdness. And a plea for understanding and holding space till I can get better. If you see someone cringe in terror over minor things, don't judge. They probably lived in fear of constant retribution for no reason. If you see someone crumble and cry over an innocent correction, don't assume she cant' take criticism. She may have been beaten down by constant unfair attacks and character assassination since childhood. She may have been trained to cower by bullies who scapegoated her for everyone else's offenses. 

Because what narcissist parent abuse does is to destroy their child's ability to grow and develop normally. I have a permanently damaged spine from doing needlessly back-breaking chores too young. I've struggled with arthritis since I was in my teens from all the deprivations I suffered with. I can't do the simplest things like put gas in the car because I'm plagued by intrusive thoughts of disaster. Because I lived from one narcissist parent induced disaster to another. I'm always looking over my shoulder from all the times I was stabbed in the back, betrayed, targeted and ambushed by the people who called themselves my family. 

I'm perpetually confused. Because I was told to do one thing and shown another. I lived in my narcissist parent's parallel universe where right was wrong for me and wrong was right for them. They said they were doing God's will and serving him by violently and unpredictably punishing me. For things they did themselves. My mother's husband raged at me for "disobeying him" by not preventing a creepy stalker from stalking me. When none of them had ever protected and put me in the path of dangerous people, including themselves. They kicked me out of the house for coming in 15 minutes late. This man who wouldn't even hold down a job and who sexually harassed me as my mom laughed.  They were so concerned for my safety that they put me out on the street. Hmmm. 

I can't make decisions because I was faulted for every single thing I did. And then told I was too sensitive and too critical and manipulative and and lazy and attention-seeking and too angry and too needy and too demanding and too selfish, the family problem, immoral and a show off and a liar. By deceitful, oversensitive, overcritical, twisted, cunning, scamming, rageful, self-centered, self-righteous, hypocritical, exploitative, exhibitionist, morally degenerate, indolent, vengeful, bullying trouble-making slavers. 

So if you see a nervous, jumpy or people-pleasing woman, don't assume she's a weakling. She's probably been too strong for too long under too much pressure and stress in constant narcissist parent created chaos.  If she's terrified of guns, don't brand her an idiot because she wants to control them and keep people safe. She's seen too much violence in her life. She's been the target of unbridled narcissist parent rage. She's shell-shocked. She's not trying to control you. She's wants you to be safer than she's ever been. You're welcome. Is this a plug for gun control. Damn right it is. And it's a plug for protecting kids from arrogant, violent, AGRO narcissist bullies. 

Crazy things narcissistic parents say about their kids that prove wrong by their craziness: part 1 lying

Hello friends. Today in healing CPTSD from sociopathic narcissistic parent abuse, I'm looking at crazy things arrogant, entitled, manipulative parents say about their kids that prove to be wrong by their very craziness. The weird exaggerated nonsense itself showed by its own weirdness,  to be just self-serving lies, projection and scapegoating. The narcissist parent's purpose is to distract from the fact that they are the ones doing the things they accuse their victim children of. But it backfires because by their very oddness, these accusations served to point the finger back at them. Kind of a skunk smells his own smell first thing. Here are some of the more outré hypocrisies. 

My four narcissist parents called me a liar. Not just that I occasionally lied as kids. Or that I learned to lie to diffuse their anger and humor them. Or that I lied and said I didn't go in the bathroom where a pedophile hung out when I was FIVE and sent to play alone three blocks away. Or that I lied and said it was okay if my dad abandoned me in Alaska 1800 miles from home to go on some vague, probably non-existent "mission trip." Or when I, at 11, took the fall for my mother leaving alone with her boyfriend and four special need foster kids under five for a week so she wouldn't lose her license. Or when I faked it was all fine and told no one about the hell they put me through. Those were the kind of "lies" I told. they didn't hurt me when they did so they wouldn't feel bad about the hell they put me through. No, they claimed I WAS a selfish LIAR personified. Despite no one else in my life ever seeing that. 

My mother and dad would say that no one else knew me like they did. I was cunning and had grandparents hoodwinked, they said. They were gulled by my lies. I was untruthful by nature and weaponized deceptions. Funny, they expected grandparents to pretty much raise me. My parents spent virtually no time with me. If I was so awful, why let me spend time with them if they expected I would lie so much? I think now the problem was they were afraid I'd spill on all the dangerous, scary, abusive things they did. They  needed have worried. I was loyal, far too loyal. If I lied at all, it was to protect my parents from censure. 

And then they double dealt, too. They hinted that I was untruthful, expecting them to believe and not trust me. To plant seeds of doubt. It's all very twisted and far above my paygrade as a kid to figure out. So I just assumed they were right and I did a lot of things I didn't know I did. This explains the horrible dreams I have every night regarding situations such as this. I dream that everyone has formed a tribunal against me and found me guilty. But they won't say of what. I just know it unspeakable. People are always angry with me for failing to do all the impossible tasks they've set me to and given me no tools or help with. It's endless expectation, moving hoops and tyrannical demands. 

The craziness of these dreams shows they're probably more memory than dreams. Because this is my parents' modus operandi: vigilante smear campaigns, witch hunts, kangaroo courts, water-boarding, posse ambushes.  Being very arrogant self-righteous Christian "evangelists", they believe they sit in judgement from which they are exempt. They think they know peoples' minds. They believe they are God's little KGB agents sent to sniff out duplicitousness in others. They went looking for dirt and if they didn't find it, they planted it. Immorality, disobedience, commandment-breaking, sinning, they were tasked with unearthing it all. 

Which is all really ironic because there were no commandments or rules my parents didn't flout. They got divorced for no reason in a time when it was not cool. They had affairs, lived in sin, fornicated, had and paid for abortions, were convicted on child abuse charges, stole, cheated, lied, exploited, kicked their parents in the butt, scammed, dealt drugs, evaded taxes, allowed their children to be harmed, you name it. All while sanctimoniously playing the organ in church. My dad, after abandoning me in Alaska, felt entitled to preach in any church he wished, just cuz he was special. How they got away with it all is the boggling things. A jobless man leaving his neglectful wife sleeping around while the child wanders alone, penniless, hungry and homeless 3K miles from the child's home so he can "preach the good news." I challenge anyone to find a precedent for that. But don't forget I was the lying bad seed.  

Now that one is just funny because my mother lies so much she can't keep her lies straight. I'm not sure now if she ever really told the truth or if it all was devious deceit. Because she lies like breathing. I've caught her in or remembered so many it's exhausting. Her lying nature is and has been so prevalent that even she finally admitted that she has a "little trouble with the truth." A minimized understatement, to be sure. And one which required "God to reveal to her" before she'd fess up. She never enumerated the actual lies (no one has that much time). Nor did she apologize for all the hurt her lies caused. It was just another of her plea-bargaining pity moves. My other three parents just never admitted how many times they bent the truth to suit themselves. But the damage  is already done, like with so many of the awful things they said about me. I believe them that it's my fault. I'm the problem. 

This lie proves itself untrue just by its very self-serving, exaggerated, gotcha-ness. Now that I'm a parent and grandparent myself, I see that. I didn't then. When they accused me of things, I was so confused, bewildered and shell-shocked. I couldn't think straight. I still can't see through the clouds of gas. I didn't remember doing anything wrong but then my memory is notoriously fuzzy. Gas poisoning will do that. And they attacked with such venom and anger that I figured that no parent would do that unless what I did was really bad. What I see now is that GOOD parents don't. But self-important, haughty, cruel, Machiavellian ones do. 

I try to be a good parent. So I don't go looking to entrap kids in lies. I don't put them in situations in which they have no choice but to lie. I don't make it unsafe for them to tell the truth. I don't take other peoples' part against my children to set them up. I don't allow my partner to falsely malign my child to feed his ego. I don't let my partner make up shit about my child to shame her into being a groveling servant. I don't exploit weaknesses. I don't dump my crazy shit on my kid to break her spirit so she'll be more amenable. I don't expect her to take on adult responsibilities and do all my work and then cut the legs out from under her. I don't patronize or condescend to humiliate her and then gaslight her that she's too sensitive. I don't lie myself and expect her to cover for me. I don't triangulate or manipulate or put her in the crosshairs. Like my authority figures did. They called me a liar to shield their entirely false fabricated fantasy cult. 

You can be sure any parent that accuses their child publicly of being a liar is 99% certain to be a pathological liar themselves. You have to ask what does the child stand to gain versus the parent. Children do it because it's expedient, either to protect themselves or because they have no one to advocate for them. Anytime I have discovered that a kid lied, it always has a common sense reason. If they do frame someone else, it's not to be cruel. It's because in the child's mind, they deserved it. And with a little mercy and guidance the child can be helped find healthier patterns. Sometimes it'd just a matter of hearing and acknowledging them. Not true the lying narcissist parent. They lie purposely to throw the kid under the bus because they don't want to admit to the abusive, neglectful, endangering and exploitative things they are doing. 

Ignorant invalidating nonsense I've been told about my experiences with narcissistic parent abuse

Hi friends. Today on my path to healing CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse, I'll share some stupid things people have said to me in response to hearing my backstory. I come from a Christian background, so a lot of it is quasi religious and said by fellow church members. Some of it is just faux positivity nonsense. It was all said in in hypocritical, ignorant arrogance (a deadly combo). And all of it has hurt like hell, kept me in confused conformity and set me back decades in healing. This gaslighting invalidation happened even in counseling which I why I quit going. It convinced me that I really was the problem my family said I was and that keeping silent was the only option. 

So to start, I rarely ever tell anyone outside of a few trusted people and this blog, about the neglect, endangerment, abuse, abandonment, scapegoating, invalidation, enmeshment, manipulation, exploitation and cruelty I experienced from my four narcissistic parent figures (two bio and their new partners). And for the very reason outlined above. I have rarely ever experienced compassion, just shaming, blaming and self-righteous judgementalism. And if I needed more of that, I'd just go visit my family of origin. 

The most baffling things people have said in response to things I've shared is to immediately defend my parents. No matter how shocking their behavior. Like abandoning me or sending me to play alone at 5, 3 blocks from home in a park where a known pedo hung out. Or exposing me to sickening sexual deviance. And openly having affairs and living "in sin." Like making me slave for my dad and his new wife on my hands and knees. Like leaving me with strangers in a strange place 3K miles from home, so my mother could go God knows where. Like dumping me at a camp, at 6.  Like my dad leaving me alone with a very dangerous mother for two years while he went on a "mission trip." I put that in quotes because turns out it was just a big adventure. Like mom turning a blind eye and quietly approving her boyfriend screaming and threatening me. And then leaving 11 y/o me with him and four special needs kids under 5 for a week. All while marching us all off to church weekly, and praying, preaching and Bible beating. These are only a few of the terrifying things they did. 

I don't dare to tell anyone because they somehow always seem to find a reason why these behaviors weren't so bad. Well, the few I've told. I've learned from experience not to share because I only end up getting burned. I'm serious. I told a church friend about my dad abandoning me to be a missionary to the "Indians" his words, in Alaska. And she said "oh that's so noble of him (!)." Noble? To leave his 6 year old daughter??? 

My father has also, since I was 5, been threatening to kill himself. To me. I was the only 6 year old who knew what suicide meant. I would cry and beg him not to and say how I'd miss him. And he glibly said he didn't care. He weaponized his own self-proclaimed depression to get me to exonerate the bad things he did to me. He told me how no one understood and everyone was so "critical" of him and then called me "too sensitive" when he continually berated and bullied me. But when the few people I've told always feel sorry for HIM! Oh poor Jack, how he must have been hurting. Now I see it was just a power move to groom me into feeling sorry for daddy and letting him exploit and abuse me in anyway he wanted to keep him alive. The one who actually self-harmed, and didn't tell anyone, was me. I've contemplated ending my own worthlessness so often. Alone. But God forbid Jack feel any guilt for his actions. 

After moving us to Alaska when I was 5, ostensibly to mission to the Indians, their neglect of me went off the charts. No one saw to it I ate or had a bed, clothing or a place to go to the bathroom. I have almost no memory of either of them being around much. I have no idea what they did. I do know that my mother and probably dad was cheating on the other. And on me.  In a town where I  knew no one. I wandered by myself down by the docks. The random fishermen who happened to be there were more concerned for my safety than my parents. 

Then, out of the blue, my mom decided to divorce my dad. I didn't know what this meant. I'd never heard of anyone getting divorced. No one I knew was.  Another word I  had to  learn to young. She coldly told me and said to get over it. And so I did. No one has ever since asked me how I coped. Except my husband and a friend when I was in my 50s. 

And being their only child, and them being narcissists, they set about remaking their "best new lives" without me. Well, I say that but really it was without responsibility to me. They were never what you'd call responsible but now they rewrote it that their marriage was a  mistake and so apparently was I. And  one they could just erase on a whim. Yet I was expected to be completely obedient, subservient and cultishly loyal to whatever new reality they chose to dump on me. And what's really galling is to realize, at 61, how they managed to con everyone else with this nonsense. 

I've since realized that they didn't divorce each other as much as they divorced from me. I didn't know that children are the biggest losers in a divorce. I didn't know because the focus was always on my "poor mom and dad" and how they'd suffered. Even though there were no real grounds. And believe me, if there had been, I'd have been the first one they dumped it on. I see now that my narcissist mother just wanted a cast change in the Nancy Show. She was bored. I was actually told I was "lucky" because theirs was a "good divorce." Whatever that means. 

But there again, people always get the wrong end of the stick. I said before that I knew no one whose parents were divorced. It was so uncommon in our time and place that there was no real frame of reference. And I was harassed by kids who didn't understand. I must be spoiled because I had "two homes" when actually I had none. And then factor in them getting remarried and having new families. There was no one to talk to about it because no one understood anything about it. 

But now that we've all grown up,  these same people whose parents weren't divorced, who have no clue what it was like to live with back then, suddenly are experts on it and very shaming, invalidating ones at that. I've actually been told "oh lots of kids' parents were divorced. You're not special." I never claimed to be but, yeah, now that you  mention it, I am very unique. Because when I say "name me one." And then they gape like fish out of water because, looking back, they can't. They have to admit that yes, in that time and place, it was very strange. 

And then add stranger to strange, living in 34 different places before you were 21. Being bounced from place to place. Having a dad running around on some frat boy long vac, claiming to be a preacher, unable to contacted, and a mother just running around. And then bringing in a string of boyfriends and making out with them in front of me and accusing me of being jealous and them moving the most vulgar abusive one in with us and quitting her job to have a foster care home in which she didn't take care of the kids and I did. And letting him sexually harass me. And then a dad dating a 17-y/o when you're 9 and then marrying selfish, lazy tyrant who used you as a servant and surrogate parent to her kids. I was deprived of all the basics, enough food, rest, shelter, medical care, a decent bed. A space of my own where I didn't have to co-sleep with their latest baby. And for all this I provided them, being the ever-lasting scapegoat, bullied, humiliated and blamed. Being both parentified and infantilized. Being expected to be the parent and adult as a child, with no power or control to actually do what was expected. While being treated like a child with no rights or privileges, by immature, irresponsible parents. And the list of weird goes on and on. It's so bassackwards my brain hurts trying to wrap it around. 

And the worst, the very worst part of all, is that NOBODY DID DAMN THING TO HELP ME. Not one person acknowledged how very strange and difficult, neglectful and abusive this was. They, who were good Christian people, turned a blind eye and let me believe it was all fine and part of God's will for me. They just rolled over with my parents con job that I was their possession but never their responsibility and that their shiny new people were their real family. That they could use and abuse me at will like some kind of gardening tool you let rust in the shed till you need it. That I was just an oops and not a real person. 

And so I did likewise. With no one to tell me otherwise, I just accepted all their chaos, endangerment, lies, gaslighting and exploitation like it was normal and healthy. I assumed I was just their drone, no life, no goals, no hopes or identity. And I spent my life in servitude to them all, despite their despicable treatment. Because no one said anything against it. Ever. These good Christian people all turned away like the Pharisees who walked on the other side to avoid the injured man. And what do we know about silence? It implies consent. 

When once I asked an aunt and later an uncle, I got nothing but more silence and/or backpedaling. These very people who eschewed all the things my parents did, just enabled it all. You'd think that 60 years on, someone could have at least thrown me a bone and said, yeah, it was wrong. They were wrong. Or we were wrong to let you think this was okay. I never expected anyone to fix anything for me. But a word of support would have helped. 

But even in this, I get more toxic positivity shit about forgiveness and rising above and understanding them. Cut them slack, you mean. Say it. You think and you have always thought, that it's my problem and not  yours. That I've always known. So then why are you defending my parents? If you've kicked me to the curb, fine, get out of the way so I can try to move on. Stop shaming and invalidating me. 

And then, more shaming. Oh, well, they meant well. They probably didn't dare to, were afraid, yada fucking yada. Okay so they were afraid of my parents. Well how do they think I felt?? THEY WERE GROWN ASS ADULTS AND I WAS A KID!! My sympathy for adults who can't hack it, leaving a kid to cope alone, has worn thin. Sorry not sorry. 

I'll never get any help from my narcissist parents. Two are dead and the other two are soul dead. And I wouldn't want their eleventh hour repentances if they would which they won't. Save it for your God. You've slammed the door on me all my life and I'm just removing my foot from it and letting it stay closed. Unforgiving? Eh, realistic. 

I think the reason that my family dismisses me is that they know they dropped the ball. They left me to carry it alone. And they are ashamed. But instead of being honest they gaslight. Fine. I don't care. At least I know now where not to look for support. I think the ones that piss me off the most are the ones with no knowledge of me or my background or family, pontificating out of their asses about how I'm supposed to handle it.  . 

I have no patience for belittling of others' experiences. I have less patience for judgmental, self-righteous advice. I have least patience of all for condescending, pretentious Christian pratting about what God expects of us. It's so damned pompous and ignorant and misguided. You notice they don't say we should do these things only YOU should do these things. Where were you when I was alone and suffering? In your own comfortable world. And until you have walked 61 years in my, just shut it. You do not know what you are talking about. 

My religious narcissist parents' shockingly hypocritical double standards make my story extra weird

 Hello my friends. Today I'm going to show you how my Christian narcissist parents' abusive, hypocritical double standards make my story unique. Now, if you know about narcissists, you'll be asking, aren't they all hypocritical, holding themselves above rules they place on others? Yes they are and do. But the Christian narcissists take it to the next level dressing up their arrogant, entitled expectations as gospel truth and placing burdens on people that they don't carry. And then Christian narcissist parents level it up again, by grooming their child in the parents' self-serving, self-styled cult. And then my parents (all four, two bio and their new partners) took it nuclear. Here's how my backstory of abuse differs radically from any I've ever heard. 

So your garden variety religious narcissist is an inflexible, bossy, binary know-it-all. It's their way and nothing else. They gaslight that what they are teaching (or beating you over the head with) is God's way but it's not. Because by their very rigidity, they violate basic Biblical principles. BUT they also, at least ostensibly, live by these principles. Sort of. 

For example, they preach against abortion and would never take someone for an abortion. And they would NEVER have an abortion. Or at least if they did, they admit and recant. My mother did both (having and taking someone for an abortion). While still preaching that it was wrong for everyone else. She never admitted to doing this nor did she repent. But I remember because I got left behind alone with strangers on a remote island of Alaska while she went to Seattle. My father was wandering around in the wilds of Alaska and she'd had at least two affairs. She said it was for a bladder infection which she would not need to have traveled 1,800 miles to have treated when there was a clinic on the island. And I know about her taking someone because I sat in the car and waited.  It was just another rule she felt entitled to pontificate but not practice. 

Mainline religious narcissists also preach against adultery, pedophilia, divorce, infidelity, promiscuity, fornication and "living in sin." And so, ergo, don't do these things. My mother and father did all of these with various other people while married and after divorce. Blatantly. Openly. While still Bible beating and actually preaching and even doing "mission work." 

Now having said that, I'd not be surprised if other judgmental, self-righteous Christians lived hypocritically. We know the anti-abortion folks of MAGA for instance, have had and paid for abortions. We know that they get divorced, remarried and cheat while still telling others not to. But the difference is, most of them are clandestine about it. A dear friend's husband was able to keep his adultery secret for years. So, while not defending him, at least he felt some shame about it. 

My parents felt none. Zero. My 36 y/o dad "dated" a 17 year old and took me on dates with them. I remember sitting on her bed and seeing all her stuffed animals lined up. And my pushing-40 preacher dad arrogantly claiming this was all fine and dandy. He gaslit me saying this was all part of God's plan. My church organist mother had a series of affairs (such a nice word for such a disgusting behavior). She made out with her creepy boyfriends in front of me. She accused me of being "jealous." I was 8.Then she moved her boyfriend into our home and  made an "apartment" for them in the basement. 

She was running a foster care home and kicked me out of my room and made me sleep with the four special needs kids under 5. (I said you can't make this up). She allowed several unmarried couples to sleep together in our house, one couple in my room. This was NOT kosher in our quiet family friendly neighborhood. And yet she read her Bible daily and ostentatiously prayed and bragged about leading people to Jesus. In fact, that's how she spun having her affair with a married man: witnessing to him by sleeping with him. 

Mainline Christian narcissist parents may be PITAs to live with but they do at least provide basic care for their children. By basic I mean food, a bed, shelter, clothing, medical care and safety. They don't make them do all the chores, including heavy housework, co-sleeping with the babies and waiting on them and their new spouses like a servant. Mine did not provide much of anything. I've been pretty much on my own all my life often not having a clue where my parents were. My dad went on a two year "mission trip" when I was 6. I just learned last year that this constitutes child abandonment. 

This is a very small snippet of the insane chaos I've lived with all my life. But don't hear what I'm not saying. This is not a competition to see who has the worst story of parental abuse. It is me trying to get myself fumigated from all the gaslighting so I can be healthier. And it's also about me recognizing that my personal story is so extra weird that it's uncharted territory. I've never been able to address it because it's so hard to explain because there's no precedent for it. 

And because people bring their own life frame of reference and mine doesn't fit in any. What they can't understand, they minimize, invalidate, deny and gaslight. Instead of just accepting that wow, Marilisa, you've lived one hell of a nightmare. I've been dismissed and pooh-poohed often enough to make me disbelieve my own experience.