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. 

Toxic positivity BS that Christians gaslight kids of narcissist parents with

 Hey friends. I'm going to start with a very frank admission. As an adult child with CPTSD from Christian narcissist parent abuse, I don't have much use for churches or Christians. I'm don't hold God responsible as such for their behavior. I've been told that through all their abuse and neglect he was there with  me (by people who weren't there and didn't experience what I experienced. And they may be right. I don't have a lot of memories besides bad ones. But I can remember this. It was just me in those situations and I didn't feel like anyone was there. No family. Neither of my parents. Not their new people. No church or friends. And that was a bitch. 

When I say I have little use for church, I'm not trying to sound above it all. I didn't arrive at this from any esoteric, intellectual quest but from a lifetime of pain, suffering, abandonment, endangerment, manipulation, exploitation, parentification, invalidation, cruelty, deprivation, humiliation. From living in in the impossible  hypocritical double standards of four malignant narcissist parents who were supposed to love me but didn't. I was their scapegoat. Nothing about the lives of normal people was part of mine. The only consistency was chaos. I had to earn any good thing I needed with unreasonable demands that I never managed to meet. I was a slot machine always paying out at my expense. 

So the nice Bible stories, prayers, songs and sermons never seem to apply to me. I can't hear the love in scripture because I was raised to make my selfish arrogant parents gods.  I don't hate anyone. I just don't get anything much from religion besides more shame and pain. Because, and let me be clear about this, most church people don't know jackshit about childhood trauma. And they care even less. I've been so damaged by so many "christians" in so many churches through my 61 years that I doubt I'll ever recover fully. 

My parents gaslit everyone, calling themselves Christians while treating me in ways completely contrary to the Bible. They lived immoral lives and were completely neglectful of me in the name of religion. They left me alone in strange  places starting at age 4, so they could do their "mission work." I have no idea what they did because I was never part of it. I was along for the arm candy I could provide. 

So all these sweet sounding injunctions about how to get along with people and how I'm supposed to act as this brain damaged kid. Most of it is irrelevant and best and toxic gaslighting and abuse at the core. Stuff like, kill them with kindness, rise above, be the bigger person, forgive. If you've been abuse you know that you already did and do all these things and it makes the narcissists more entitled and abusive. 

So before anyone even begins to try to advise a child or adult child of narcissist parents, they need to know their audience. Read the room. Watch this child's behavior. Listening won't tell you much because we abused kids are just one big trauma response, mostly fawning. We will not give you the real story about how they treat us. But it's there if you look. 

And please for God's sake stop with the toxic positivity horse crap. Actually don't do this with any child or any adult who comes to you humbly seeking help. If all you have is your religion's patois save it. Remember, fools rush in (with advice) where angels fear to tread. Just admit to them that you don't have experience with this but that you care and will hold space for them. Know that these are people who are hurting from decades of abuse. VALIDATE them because no one else has. 

Also know that suicide is off the charts high among kids who've suffered narcissistic parent abuse an neglect. Especially those of us whose parents said they did this in the name of God. We've endured so much deceit, shame, cruelty and gaslighting. Pause to consider that you may be their last hope before they end it for good. Do you really want to assist them on their way out the door? 

Narcissist parents lie and gaslight kids to damage the child's sense of self

, Hello my friends. Today I listened to a talk on Youtube by psychologist Patrick Teahan about how narcissist parents destroy a child's sense of self by creating a false narrative about the child embedding their wrong version in her mind. In laymen's terms, they lie to and about their child and gaslight her into believing wrong things about herself. That is spot on what my parents and their new spouses did to me. The image they painted of me was of a disobedient, stupid, mouthy, bitter, jealous, selfish, arrogant, stingy, lazy spoiled brat. I was too sensitive but also too critical, a show off and a liar. That's all so rich coming from them, I see in retrospect. 

And I believed them that I was the cause of all their problems. I was continually working to correct these "character flaws" I supposedly had. I was too obedient, to the point of doing all their work. I kept quiet and rolled over for everything including neglect, abandonment, endangerment and abuse. I was so humble I groveled. I endlessly gave away things I needed to survive and they endlessly took, depriving me of even the most basic care. I welcomed any  new person they shoved on me and bent over backwards for them. When they raged at, threatened, hit, stole from, humiliated, mocked, kicked me out of the house, made me do all kinds of inappropriate things, I just assumed it was what I deserved. I have felt this way all my life. I was groomed to expect poor treatment. 

You might think this sounds a bit exaggerated and it was, but not by me. I downplayed it. All my life I did what I call the 6 Ex's of their abuse. I excused, exonerated, expunged, excepted, explained away, exempted all the wrong they did to me. I took on myself the consequences of their bad actions both in the harm they caused and by allowing myself to be scapegoated. I was blamed for every bad thing they did. The exaggeration of my "terrible behavior" was on their part. But they did their job well and their version of me is the one that sticks. 

I now have the onerous task of sorting out what was true and what was false and then trying to rewrite a more accurate understanding of myself. And I see that their scapegoating of me served their malignant narcissistic agenda. And as such it  renders everything they said, wrong. I'd have an easier time sorting fly crap from pepper than figuring out what parts were accurate. So I've decided to throw the entire thing out because it's all fake. I was framed as the problem to distract from their wrongdoing both to me and to a lot of people. Each of my four "parents' has burned through many relationships. Unfortunately, that didn't occur until later. 

When I was young,  they were able were able to con a lot of people. People who should have helped me but didn't. Either because they didn't care or  because they believed the lies. So this is how a narcissist parents creates a false self-image in their children. They design a fake ID of the child. They lie and get their version in first before the child is old enough to see it as fake. They hurry to tell others their false version because as you probably know, the first version of a story is almost always the one believed no matter how untrue or ludicrous it is.  That's how false accusations perpetuate. And the innocent victim of the smear campaign has a devil of a time changing people's minds. 

The liars don't have to prove their lies. They just accuse and then the victim has to disprove lies that if they'd never been told no one would even think about. Often the lies are so patently stupid that they're obviously wrong. But they're cleverly said by the liar to make them sound convincing. Narcissists aren't amateurs in the deceit game. They know what to say and how to say it. Such as my dad calling me "disobedient" when everyone knew I was doing the lion's share of the work in his foster care home. They knew because they said that them having an adult foster care home with young children was a terrible idea to begin with. 

They knew I was doing work that was far too heavy and dangerous. They knew that everything he was accusing me of was kid stuff that all children do. Stuff he did as a kid and even as an adult! And yet somehow, no one stood up to Jack when he would rage at me in front of them. Did no one else see the irony in that?? My dad raging, as in spitting in my face, about how I was angry?? But yet, they must have believed that I was the problem. At least that's how my 11 y/o self interpreted their silence. As consent. Ergo my wrong assumptions that it was all my fault. 

Narcissist parents also use partial truths or they tell half the story. The half that paints them as the hero-victim-martyr. And the child as the perpetrator. They say the child got angry but they don't tell how they enraged their child. My mother told everyone I was a liar and untrustworthy (that would be her). She said I was forgetful and that I lost things. To explain away why so many of my things disappeared when she was around. 

Now this is also obviously wrong and why they believed her, I don't know. Everyone that knows Nancy  knows she's "tricky" as one aunt put it. They also know she's deceitful, arrogant, entitled, haughty, demanding, two-faced, hypocritical, adulterous, serial cheater, neglectful and abusive mother, an exhibitionist, attention-seeking liar and thief. Definition of a malignant narcissist. But yet these same common sense people let themselves be gulled by her so often. They never, ever tried to help me deal with her. They never even acknowledged any of her horrible behavior to me. They (as in my entire family) left me to cope alone. Which is yet another reason I thought the problem was me. 

Which leads me to the next gaslighting trick narcissist parents use against their child. They rely on the fact that the things they do are so outrageously, egregiously, blatantly wrong that no one believes any parent would or could do these things. But believe me they can and do. Just the fact that my stories sound so outlandish (like them abandoning me alone at 6 3K miles from home with strangers) should be proof that they happened. I could never make this up! 

They also use the aforementioned exaggeration and manipulation to make the child's normal behavior sound like selling state secrets. That's what actually got me understanding where the problem lay. I think of how I do things with my children and grandkids, that were the opposite of what I experienced.  And terrible things I'd never dream of doing were done to me. And I realize that I was a child too. 

Exhaustion and ill health from narcissistic parent abuse follows us into adulthood

 Hello my friends. I am exhausted and I have been for as long as I can remember. I could sleep 12 hours and wake up more tired than when I went to bed. I can't breathe when I sleep. I wake up choking. I nightmare all night long. This is not laziness. This is from chronic expectation, demands and abuse from narcissistic parents that has followed me all my life. My brain hurts from the constant gaslighting, invalidation and shaming. 

Normal things require far more energy than they should. I don't eat right because my stomach hurts and if I do eat, I can't stay awake. Every muscle aches and burns. This is not exaggerated. It's downplayed. I've felt like this all my life but it took me 6 decades to articulate it. And I've not let it slow me down. I'm the power through girl because I had to be. There was no excuse my mom and her husband or dad and his wife would except for not doing their work. 

And I do mean their work. My "duties" as a kid were not kid appropriate. I had far more chores than anyone else I knew. I see now that I didn't just do my work but everyone's. And under conditions that no one should have had to do. For example, twice a week, I had to mop the floor on my hands and  knees when mops were readily available and cheap. If they'd done it themselves they'd have used one. And they  made me vacuum with huge heavy antiquated vacuum when everyone else's family had a lightweight upright. So it must have been some kind of sadistic thing watching me crawling around with a rag or lugging a heavy industrial size vacuum. My dad would say "well I have to use this, you can too." But he didn't. Nobody did but me. 

I had to make supper and clean it up, set and clear the table and do dished, plus make lunches for everyone. I was still in the kitchen at 8pm while everyone was in front of the TV. And I still had all my homework to do. I wasn't able to participate in any after school activities because there were always chores to be done. I had to babysit whenever they demanded it. I had to co-sleep with their babies because my dad and his wife "needed their rest." I was locked in with one of them. 

And then there was all the ironing to be done. And clothes to fold. My husband he remembers helping me fold clothes while my siblings played and my stepmother watched TV. In fact, she'd sit there on the couch ignoring the three baskets of clothing waiting for me to get home from night classes in college s o I could fold them. I was taking a full load of classes plus teaching full time and doing homework. And I was still responsible for them. 

I also had to clean the bathroom (including when they had a foster care home, cleaning up after four adult men). I was responsible for dusting their furniture, feeding the pets and cleaning the cat box. I had to help shovel snow. I had to help put groceries away. I changed diapers and bathed the children. I read them stories and tucked them in. I got to thinking not too long ago. If I did all that what other housework was there to do? And I realized, nothing more. My step mother did nothing. My half siblings did nothing. My stepfather did nothing. My mom and dad puttered. So I feel justified in saying that I ran their households. 

But I didn't understand that till just recently. My husband has persistently said that they overworked me and subjected me to inhuman conditions no one else in my two families lived with. I was exploited and manipulated, parentified and scapegoated while also being abused and neglected. And now I have the back, hip, shoulder and neck problems to prove it. And autoimmune and arthritis and breathing problems. These didn't just start. I've had them for as long as I can recall. 

It's frustrating because now I can't enjoy the things I should be able to because I'm so burned out. That's the image for it, too. Not just burned but burnt out. Used up. I've cut contact with my narcissistic parents but they still have a hold over me from all the gaslighting, invalidation and deprivation. I would love to let it go and I have but it won't let me go. I'm writing a lot about this now to try to evict them from my life. To purge the indoctrination, the trauma memories. 

And yes, before you say it, I've prayed. Oh how I've prayed. And I'm too empty to have any more words. I'm tired. I just want to sleep well and heal from all this. My narcissistic parents  have never suffered any consequences. They just maintain their entitled arrogant denial of it all. My mother endlessly lies and distorts. It's bad enough to be abused as a child and teen but for the abuse to continue hurting the victim and never the perpetrator is just so wrong. 

Malignant narcissist parents systematically invalidate and gaslight their scapegoat kids to break them

 Hello my friends. Today, I watched a Youtube vlog by Dr. Ramani explaining how narcissists invalidate (shame, dismiss and criticize)  and gaslight (lie and twist to deny someone else's reality) and the difference between invalidation and gaslighting. Today I'm going to explain how dark tetrad malignant narcissist parents invalidate and gaslight  their scapegoat kids. They don't just do this occasionally. It is their modus operandi. Using a cocktail of invalidation, coercive control, deprivation and gaslighting, malignant narcissist parents systematically and strategically break their scapegoat child. 

They are playing a long game of death by a thousand cuts, with the intent to destroy any good thing their child has, thinks, feels or does. They parentify the child, making her responsible for them and anyone they drag into her life and subject her to (hookups, boyfriends, girlfriends, new spouses, new kids). They also infantilize her, undermining her confidence, shaming and criticizing how she parents them. Yes I said that. They force the child to take on their adult jobs and responsibilities which the child isn't capable of doing. They also don't model, assist or give adequate resources for completing these tasks. The child is expected to complete tasks like an adult while being given no authority or power. They demand all kinds of unreasonable things of her. They indoctrinate her to believe she owes them everything and they owe her nothing. My husband has said that all four of my narcissist parents treated me worse than an indentured servant in that I could never work off my indenturement. 

They also use coercive control plus deprivation to weaken the child and cripple her ability to see what they are doing or protect herself. They move the child far from any support.  They deny the child basic needs and rights as a family member. They cut her short on sleep by making her co-sleep with babies in cramped rooms. They deprive her of a proper bed. I've spent many nights on couches, sleeping on the floor, in camp cots or on the ground. I rarely had any space of my own. There was not enough food provided for me while they had plenty. I didn't take a bath for my sixth year of my life because no one saw to it I had a roof over my head let alone running water or a bathroom. We were not poor. They had just decided to up and leave to be missionaries. What they ended up doing was abandoning me and then divorcing. 

I've been tired and exhausted since childhood. I can't sleep without trauma nightmares. I'm too weary to fight it and they know that. They are not weary because they have always had me to do the heavy lifting. They are energized by their own arrogance. They are well fed at my expense. They've always seen to their own medical care even to the point of factitious ailments. Yet neglected my basic care which has rendered me even more run down. I have back damage on par with someone on a chain gang or who did hard labor. 

Then they swoop in with the gaslighting and invalidation. They lie and manipulate memories painting the child as the problem. They deny that what happened happened. They downplay it. Or they twist it into something it wasn't. And they blame-shift. My memories are very, very confused and distorted. I've forgotten large chunks of my life. What I do recall is very bad. This is the effect of gaslighting and invalidation. I sometimes call gaslighting gassing because it damages the brain so badly. But they can't gaslight away the nightmares and physical damage they caused. 

These conspire together to squash the child's sense of self and then to create a false sense that the child is nothing more than their scapegoat, slave, surrogate spouse and parent. The child is groomed to believe that she is not a unique self but just a possession to be used by her narcissist parents however they want. And as a possession, separated parents enslave her to any new person they decide to hook up with as well. So affair partners, boyfriends, girlfriends, new spouses, new children. And they categorically deny and ignore all that happened as if it never did. My first 21 years of life might never have been because no one has ever acknowledged any of the crazy. It's like they were keeping me around for their convenience yet trying to erase me as a person. And they succeeded in many ways.