Healing childhood trauma by calling out euphemisms for narcissistic abuse

Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm calling out euphemisms for narcissistic abuse for what they are. They are not "kind" or "impartial" or "balanced" or "enlightened." These people who say them do not have special insight that the person experiencing abuse lacks (thought these people sure act like they do). 

They are gaslighting, devaluing, dismissive, diminishment of the narcissistically abused person's experiences. They are excuses people make for rotten behavior of narcissists. It's funny because as I was considering this topic, I listened to a podcast on YouTube by psychologist and narcissism expert Dr. Ramani. And we were saying exactly the same thing. Which affirms that these euphemisms are pretty universal. 

Sometimes, the people using these euphemisms are blind guides (ignorant, arrogant know-it-alls) or flying monkeys of the narcissist. Sometimes, they are used by people who are experiencing narcissistic abuse and are not able to call it what it is, so they downplay it. Invariably, however, those who "dumb down" narcissistic abuse with euphemisms, have not experienced the cruelty these folks are capable of. They just want to sound "nice" and understanding. (Often they are self-righteous and holier-than-thou hypocrites who would be furious if they had to endure what narcissist's victims endure). 

These blind guides aren't being "fair-minded" and "reasonable" as they would have you think. They are being incredibly unfair to the child suffering abuse by making her feel ashamed for "exaggerating it". They're being unreasonable in refusing to call abuse what it is. These blind guides are showing partiality toward the narcissistic parents by downplaying their actions. Their judgement is way out of balance against the victim by siding with the parent and justifying their behavior. 

I sound pretty P-O'd about this subject because I am. I've endured my narcissistic parents abuse, gaslighting, pooh-poohing, shaming, invalidating, twisting and deception all my life. And now when others make excuses for them, it just rubs salt in all those wounds. It reminds me how I made excuses for their mistreatment of me. It reminds me how alone I felt and how that was reiterated when other people in the family made excuses for my parents. 

So here are some of the euphemisms (defenses, watering down) people use for narcissists. Especially parents. 

You're just seeing their shadow self. What in the actual BS is that supposed to mean? So that's one I'd not heard often that Dr. Ramani mentioned. And it sounds about like the pseudo-psychobabble you hear so often. Frankly I think these folks who say this have played too many video games. What's hilarious is that if you've lived as long as me, you've heard many iterations on this bizarre theme. This is just another thing people say when they don't know what they are talking about but don't want to admit it. 

But for fun, let's deconcoct "shadow self" malarky. So let me get this straight. My narcissistic parents were not abusive, neglectful, manipulative, exploitative and cruel. They were just misunderstood? Oh, no, they WERE those things but only because their dark side was showing? Hmm, well problem is, that is pretty much all I saw. Soooo, it's moot point because their shadows selves were their real selves. And excuse me, but we all have a shadow side. We just don't give ourselves permission to torment other people with them. 

So one way and another, this is excusing bad behavior. WHICH people who say this would not be doing if they were suffering at the hands of the "shadow selves." Funny how the euphemisms only come out when it's someone else's experiences. That's one of my biggest problems with blind guides, flying monkeys, call them whatever. They only spread their judgmental toxic positivity about things THEY aren't dealing with. You might be surprised how "understanding" and "compassionate" toward my narcissistic parents people who didn't live with them, were. So I'm calling that out too, as hypocritical, self-righteous, double standard, smarmy-ass toxic shaming

Hurt people hurt people. This one goes along with my piece on gaslighting nonsense people say to excuse narcissistic parent child abuse. Yes, I said excuse. That's what all of this is. Enabling child abuse by defending the narcissist. Because NO NOT ALL HURT PEOPLE HURT OTHER PEOPLE!! If we did, the world would not be here anymore. Many truly wounded people with real emotional injuries, childhood trauma, abuse scars (not narcissistic injury) are more caring than they should be based on their past. They show fortitude, gentleness, peace, warmth, empathy. They do not repay evil with evil. They pay good forward. Which brings me to the next one...

She's just injured, wounded. Well cry me a friggin river. We have all been injured but we do not take it out on others. And I have to wonder how "wounded" she could be if she so callously and arrogantly inflicted pain. This wasn't because my parents didn't know better. They did because they were always preaching how I was supposed to live. They just didn't follow their own teachings. 

She's eccentric. That's just how she is. It may be how she is but it's not just how she is. She is also  abusive and cruel. I use "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" for parallels. When Caro tells Sidda about Vivi (Sidda's mother) "she's (mom is) hurtin' too, Bebe." I know they are just trying to bring awareness. But it sounds a lot like victim shaming. That's how I'd have heard it. Vivianne was wounded and Sidda says this. But she was also neglectful, self-centered and self-pitying. She abandoned her children multiple times. Google Gemini and Dr. Ramani a good point about how society not only excuses hurtful behavior based on unresolved trauma, it romanticizes it. My mother loved her role of martyr/savior/heroine. But she was a nightmare to live with. The tragic mother figure of pathos, who we all feel sooo sorry for, is often a real Medea behind closed doors. And this romanticizing just makes it worse for the children. 

He's a victim. Oh gag me. So now I'm supposed to feel even sorrier for my abusive, narcissistic father than he already expected me to, because he's suffered?? That is the human condition. He'd be the first to tell me I was just showing off for attention or having a pity party if I was hurt. I'm going to write another post specifically on the victimizing victim. And just what are these cruel people supposed to be victims of? Yeah, people never have an answer for that. Because they do not really know the person or his background. They're just sententious. I will also say that I knew my narcissistic parents pretty well, because they loved to talk about themselves. And if they had been abused by their parents, you can be sure I'd have been the first one they dumped it on. 

She's just difficult, challenging, problematic. Okay first, there's a flaw in saying she's "just" difficult.  Like it's "only" or "simply" a little quirk. Using "just" creates a false bar. As if on their contrived scale of abuse, being "just difficult" is low and the victim is over-reacting. It spins abuse like a difference of opinion or or a clash of personalities. Saying the narcissistic parent is "just difficult" denies the child's much more serious experiences of abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, scapegoating, parentification, invalidation, cruelty.  It gives a false impression that narcissistic parents are challenges the child must accept and master. Like a puzzle or math problem. This puts all the responsibility for "fixing" or "just dealing with" the difficult parent on the child, while not even acknowledging that the parent is actually a problem. 

All these buy into the narcissistic parent's DARVO narrative. If anyone is going to "dumb down" what happened, it should be the person who experienced it. Not just some sanctimonious bystander. And to any victims of narcissists reading, please, DO NOT minimize or euphemize what they did to you. THAT is YOUR truth and, my dears, no one has the right to soften it.  

How I lost 100 pounds by learning that "No" is a full sentence

Hello my friends :-) today my journey to heal childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse and other forms of verbal harassment, I am exploring what it means to say that no is a full sentence. I'm also going to show how I lost 100 lb by learning that No is a full sentence. 

What do we mean when we say "no is a full sentence." Well, it has to do with setting boundaries around what I will and won't tolerate. It's about deciding for myself, without FOG (fear, obligation, guilt) what I will and won't do for people. It's about not complying with unrealistic demands, expectations or even requests unless I decide to. Actually, let me rephrase, it's about never complying with unreasonable demands or demands of any kind. And complying only with polite, reasonable requests if I choose to. 

Learning that "no is a full sentence" has to do with then policing those boundaries by setting consequences if they are violated. To take it back a step, it's about learning that I CAN say no and practicing that. It's about giving myself permission to set boundaries that I was never able to as a child, having boundary-crashing self-serving narcissistic parents. It's about unlearning old trauma responses of fawning, to develop healthier more self-advocating, self-confident, self-care responses. 

And then, after erecting healthier boundaries, learning that "no is a full sentence" means getting out of the trauma response habit of anxiously over-explaining and defending refusals. My tendency is to gaslight myself  that saying no is selfish.  Because my narcissistic parents gaslighted me that any refusal was unthinkably disobedient, disrespectful and dishonoring God. Even when it was an unsafe, unhealthy or immoral or illegal thing they demanded of  me. Which it always was. But I was so terrified of saying no that I complied with their very inappropriate demands. 

One way I'm learning that "no is a full sentence" is to allow myself to admit that other people say no all the time with no repercussions. My narcissistic parents and their golden children said no all the time. Often to things they should have said yes to. They refused to do things they should have done for me. Like stick around, not abandon me for weeks on end, get jobs, provide a house and a bedroom. Not make me do all the work. 

Those are extreme examples. But there are less extreme, normal examples all around. People say decline all the time: invitations, requests, tasks. It's perfectly acceptable to stand up for one's self. Some would say necessary and I would agree. AND, it is fine to say no without explaining why. It's essential if the person isn't asking but demanding and expecting you to go out of your way to do something that is in no one in your care's best interests. 

Example: mom demands her ex-husband's partner pick the mother's own child up from school. She does not ask. She doesn't check to see if it will work. She rudely TELLS the partner that she "has to" do this because the mother "can't." So picking a child up from school is one thing but it takes on a new dimension when it is expected. The partner in this case, may feel entirely comfortable to say, "no, I can't" offering no explanation or excuse. Just no. Even if the partner can actually do this, being bullied into doing it is good for no one. 

She may choose later to do the task because it is in the child's and the child's father's best interests. But it must be the partner's choice. She should not feel emotionally blackmailed into doing it. It is also not good for the mother because it sets up a dangerous precedent to let her think she can order others around and they will just comply. She has to learn that if you are not able to collect a child from school that you must make alternate arrangements which may be inconvenient, expensive or annoying. But that is life. It's what she chose when she had the child. Also, if she gets away with manipulating and exploiting everyone to do her bidding, she may manipulate, emotionally blackmail and guilt the child as he grows.

So what I'm advocating and trying to learn myself is that it is perfectly acceptable to say no and offer no justification. I got told a lot that when I would try to explain my side of things I was "just defending myself" (yeah, and? What you should asking is why I have to defend myself from loving parents?). It was also called "making excuses." Again, why do I have to give reasons why I do innocent, normal things, if my parents are so loving? But the result is that now whenever I legit have to say no, explanations feel to me like excuses. 

But what we need to learn is that excuses aren't necessarily bad things. They are reasons why you would exempt yourself from being held accountable TO OTHERS AND FOR THEIR CHOICES. It is not the partner's problem that the mother "can't" do something. She may choose to help but if the mother is weaponizing her "can't" to get people to cater to her, then that's  a different story. Even if she really is unable, it is HER problem to solve. And dumping it on someone else is not solving, it's playing DARVO. 

And generally people who demand, boss around, guilt, DARVO are arrogant, entitled narcissists to begin with. And that's why you're needing to set boundaries. You can say "I'm sorry I can't do it." But anything beyond that goes down the over-explaining path. And narcissists don't accept explanations. They just want their way, like my parents. All they wanted to hear from me when they said "jump" was "how high?" Well, that's where learning that no is a stand-alone sentence is helpful. All they want is yes, so all you give them is no. There's no argument for that. It is a done deal. 

And weirdly learning to say no relates to how I lost 100 pounds. I used to feel such overwhelming shame and guilt if I said no (because I was shamed and guilted by self-serving narcissistic parents) that I would give in and do it. Just today I had to do it when someone crossed a boundary being demanding with me. I just stopped what I was doing for them and said no. I won't finish this task because you were rude and bossy. And I will not allow myself to be treated this way. I received an apology but I decided that was not enough because talk is cheap and actions tell me that this happens all too frequently with this person. Furthermore "I'm sorry" "I'll do better" has been used to manipulate and future fake me into going back and finishing what I said no to. 

It did not feel genuine and so I did not go back and finish the tasks I'd begun for him. I didn't do this to shame him into ceasing the rude, bossy behavior. That is on him. And survey says he won't change because this has become ingrained pattern to snap, apologize, snap, apologize many times within a short time. He has gotten very complacent and even self-righteous about the nasty-nice, hypocrisy of his behavior. And that's in part down to me not policing boundaries in the 44 years we've been together. 

I have said no and then gone back on my word. And he knows how to trigger me into doing that  by pushing my FOG (fear, obligation, guilt), hypervigilant, people pleaser, fawn trauma response buttons. So that relates to how I lost 100 pounds because getting healthier in one area leads to better health overall. Being a pushover is exhausting and though standing up for yourself is too, it's less so that letting people walk on you. 

How I lost 100 pounds has a lot to do with taking charge of my own life. It's about saying what I mean and meaning what I say, without apology, explanation or backpedaling. 

How I lost 100 pounds by seeing my childhood trauma brain damage

 Hello my friends. I began this blog to chronical how I lost 100 pounds without GLP-1 drugs or weight loss surgery. And then I had a series of epiphanies about my own childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse. And I started to see how weight loss, weight gain, obesity, anorexia were linked to childhood trauma brain damage. Today I'm sharing how I lost 100 pounds by realizing that I don't understand my childhood trauma brain. I'm beginning to see how accustomed to narcissistic parent abuse, toxic shaming, abandonment, neglect, endangerment, exploitation, parentification, bullying, dehumanizing, invalidation, scapegoating, blame-shifting, sabotaging and gaslighting I had become. 

Narcissistic parent abuse was more than normal. More than just my reality. It WAS reality that I had become so inured to that I could not see that it was crippling, deforming and killing me. And what got me seeing more clearly how deep in I was, is when someone asked me how I didn't see it then. How did I cope? Did I resent and fight it? Did I even know it abuse and not love my narcissistic parents were dishing out? And most important of all, how did it FEEL to be so badly mistreated. (by the way those are the terms questioners asked, not me). 

And the answer to all is, no, I didn't see, or know or understand. Because narcissistic parent abuse was hard-wired into my brain. I did not feel discomfort as a separate thing from routine comfort. Discomfort was all I knew. It was not comfortable but it was familiar. Like walking around with a stone in your shoe that hurts all the time, but I was used to it. This doesn't make it hurt less, if anything more with all the infection, concomitant injuries and extended damage. My trauma brain has adapted to pain as normal life. Like a blister that forms over the stone's constant abrading. I don't understand that there is life without the constant pain of the stone. 

And yet I do. Apologies for constant contradiction, but here's what I  mean. A traumatized child understands on some level that the hell her narcissistic parents are putting her through is not what other children experience. But her parents malignant weaponized gaslighting taught her that abuse is what she deserves. Because somehow she is not like other girls and not in the arrogant way we hear this phrase now. I was not like other girls because I wasn't worthy of the love and care other girls got. That's how I framed all the narcissistic parent abuse. Good enough for who it was for. 

This constant hurt created what I call an emotional leprosy in my childhood trauma brain. I've mentioned how a therapist said I have a "scary high pain tolerance." That is because pain is all I know so it has to be really bad for the stress and chaos cortisol damaged receptors in my brain to register it. What I had wasn't periodic or episodic experiences of pain. It was rare episodic experiences of joy, peace and feelings of acceptance. 

And wow does the religious gaslighting have a heyday with that. You don't feel joy?? Shame on you! Bad Christian, you're not praying, trusting, living for Jesus, etc. Which is really nasty to do to an adult, but to a developing child? My narcissistic parents used this on me all the time. Subjecting me to crazy abnormal, dehumanizing experiences and demanding that I respond not just with normal goodish responses but perfect, Christian responses. I had to do all the work without the resources. And, I might add, my narcissistic parents behaved with nothing like the Joy of the Lord, they preached about. They were petty, petulant, selfish, entitled, arrogant and cruel. 

I thought I was supposed to feel gross, ugly, fat, stupid, in the way, ashamed, exhausted from overwork, all the time. Not because children were supposed to. Because I wasn't a child but a three-horned monster like Caliban who had to be punished and beaten and enslaved. I thought that God had ordained that I be  miserable as a matter of course because I had in some way failed him and everyone. I was not just a second class citizen, I was an outcast. 

So what in the world does that have to do with how I lost 100 pounds? It  has to do with not realizing or not being able to articulate how much misery you are in. It has to do with being such an empath that I protected everyone else at my own cost. I body blocked and took on the sins of the family so no one had to feel any guilt or consequences. And I wasn't supposed to feel good about any of it. That would be attention-seeking pride. Like I said in an earlier post, they had a clapback for everything I did, despite me giving them nothing to clapback at.

I have been able to regain or actually just gain, some personal autonomy and power since going no contact with my narcissistic parents. I don't make childhood trauma response decisions as much as I did. Yes it feels strange. My dad  used to browbeat me about how wicked I was by "leaning on my own understanding" anytime I showed any independence. Just another of his misquoted, preached rather than lived, Bible verses. But again, I didn't know that because Jack made himself God to me so I thought that going against him, no matter how wrong his teaching, was going against God. 

The story of how I lost 100 pounds is still being written. But the more I unpack the more I find childhood trauma responses and a broken, childhood trauma brain damage from narcissistic parent abuse driving all my dysfunctional behavior. 

The Anatomy of a Parental Smear Campaign: Pre-emptively Discrediting the Scapegoat Child

Hello my friends. Today as I work to heal childhood trauma, I'm exposing narcissistic parents and their smear campaigns against scapegoat kids, for what they are. I lived with shameful dehumanizing character assassination, which I believed I deserved. I'm going unmask the gaslighting and systematic lies as the blame-shifting setups and betrayals they were. 

To begin, read my two articles 

Beware of red flag dehumanizing invalidating things narcissistic parents say

Dehumanizing smear campaigns narcissistic parents wage on scapegoat kids

Now, on to the unmasking of these smear campaigns. One thing to know about smear campaigns, no matter who is waging them, is that they are centered on DECEPTION and DESTRUCTION. They are PURPOSEFUL and PURPOSE-BUILT strictly to tear someone down. The smear campaigners use false accusations, fabricated lies, planted evidence, evasions, distortions, misquotations, gang-ups, ambushes, sneak attacks, bullying, gaslighting, catfishing and a host of other disgusting behaviors. I had Google Gemini read through this and want to add a great point she made. Smear campaigners "pre-emptively discredit" the victim so that any defense she offers seems to prove the lies. 

So that would be difficult enough for an adult to deal with. Now imagine A DEFENSELESS CHILD being the victim of a smear campaign LAUNCHED BY HER OWN PARENTS. And you will have some idea of the constant confusing, destabilizing chaos of my life. What kind of parent does that and why, you ask. A dark tetrad, malignant narcissist parent. This isn't just nasty comments made to the child. It's devastating, H-bomb, agent provocateur sabotage on a Third Reich level. 

And I'm going undercover to show you just how and why they do this. It isn't pretty. It will be triggering and upsetting. Welcome to my nightmares. And we press on...

The malignant narcissist parents launch smear campaigns against their scapegoat child SPECIFICALLY to DEHUMANIZE and CRIPPLE HER. Yes, there is an element of personal responsibility avoidance, of DARVO and blame-shifting. But the larger goal is to destroy the child. Sounds conspiracy theory-ish? Well, consider this. 

In my previous articles linked, I explained how now that I see the smear campaigns for what they are, I also see just how planned they were. I remember the confusion I felt because my narcissistic parents seemed to have a ready retort for everything I said. A retort, for their child, as if they were ganging up on her. (because they were). And even things I didn't say, they had a prepared clapback for.  BECAUSE THEY DID. It was STRATEGIC and WEAPONIZED. 

My dad must have read the narcissist's handbook because he knew all the lines. He said I was too sensitive and insensitive, too critical and too easily offended, that I was an attention-seeking show off, that I lied, exaggerated and made up stories to malign him and also that he punished me for my own good, and then he didn't punish at all, that I was making that up. He told me I only felt guilty because I was in the wrong, that I was crying to get pity. And then that he could see into my wicked heart and knew me better than I knew myself. And that I was disobedient, disloyal and disrespectful and that he owed me no loyalty or respect. And that he was disrespectful of his parents because they were too critical of him. He threatened me with his suicide then told me to lighten up because I was too heavy. Anything I said was labeled "self-defensive" or "making excuses." On and on and on. There was no winning because I was never meant to win. Just to trauma respond. And funnily enough, I'd never said anything. I just went along with everything. 

We never talked about why I had to defend myself in the first place. He just barged his way past my boundaries, common sense and logical defenses. He went out of his way to make me look and feel crazy, rebellious, sinful and selfish. It was as if he had an answer for everything, because he did. He'd prepared his rebuttal speech without even hearing the defense, And why do you prepare scripted clapback when there is nothing to clapback against? Because you are paranoid and anticipating every eventuality. You are creating the illusion that the child has done or said the things you are accusing her of. You are dismantling the child's reality and implanting a false narrative in her mind. You are machinating a web of deceit to paint the child as unhinged, hysterical, dangerous, deceptive, cunning. So that anything she might say will just further that impression that she is the problem. 

But one thing that gives the narcissistic parent away is that they are never content. Their own greed and pomposity trips them up. They take it a smear campaign too far. Often, they contradict themselves in their zealous character assassination. They lie so much that they forget who they told what to. My mother told people she had to hit me because I was mouthy. Then she told others she never hit me. Then she said she only stopped hitting me because I hit her back. 

Do they, sooner or later, show their true colors so EVERYONE sees? I wish I could say yes. I wish I could promise that smear campaigners prove, by their own twisty underhanded scheming is that THEY are the devious connivers. That they are  hoisted on their own petards. OFTEN they do. Because on top of their scheming, they consider themselves very clever and able to outsmart everyone.  They think people believe their lies. They think they've placed themselves above reproach. 

And for awhile, at least when they are young, it appears they are bulletproof. My narcissistic parents got away with shocking abuse, neglect, abandonment, exploitation, deviousness, I don't know how. I've been told recently that others were on to them. But none of that helped me, then or now. No one reached out to help me. So I believed they were right and I was the mess. They were so convincing in their smear campaigns, that it didn't matter if anyone believed them or not. Because I BELEIVED THEM. 

This is why it's taken me till 61 years old to start reexamining evidence and piecing together their web of lies. Damn near a posthumous exoneration. Too little too late. It took me till now to realize that I've been the victim of a smear campaign. But whether I'll ever be able to detox from the gaslighting lies, is another thing. 

I doubt I'll ever be able to come to terms with the level of contempt they held me in, to have treated me thus. It wasn't just them blaming me to shield themselves. It went to an evil I'll never comprehend. So people say that someone hating you doesn't mean you deserve it. Hmm, tell that to my trauma brain. They also say no smoke without fire. 

And the Tin Man says it doesn't matter how much we love only how much we are loved. Well, brother I am screwed then. It's hard to exist knowing you've generated so much animosity in someone. I  hear the Hakken-kraks howling every night. Okay so I probably didn't cause their hatred. Potato, potahtah. They sure as hell made me feel I did. 

That bravado you hear from me is mostly whistling past the cemetery (thank you Jerry Wise for reminding me of this apt metaphor). I freely admit that getting this shame and toxin out of me is probably never going to completely happen. Is that me distrusting God? I don't know. Where was God when all this was happening? You can say He was right there with me. But as a scared little girl alone, I could neither see nor feel him. That I know of. 

Maybe He was there, in Lake Michigan, in Whitey's Woods, with grama and grampa. Maybe that's why the intense grief at their passing. But it wasn't enough to silence the gaslighting voices of my parents. Just saying. 

 

Dehumanizing smear campaigns malignant narcissist parents wage on scapegoat kids

 Hello my friends. Today in the "healing childhood trauma" sphere, I'm looking at more dehumanizing double standards malignant narcissistic parents blame shift onto their kids. These are strange, out of nowhere, unprovoked smear campaigns that leave the child confused and destabilized. What I'm learning about this nonsensical rhetoric they heaped on me was that it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with them. But being self-righteous hypocrites, they could never admit to wrong. So they played the gaslighting DARVO game and blame-shifted it onto me. 

I have believed their smear campaigns and lived with guilt and shame which I understood was mine because they said it was. I've also lived in utter confusion about it all. I never even thought about it until a few days ago. I just accepted that their shame was mine. With strategic distortions, omissions and deceptions, they walled me in, brick by brick, to a prison of gaslighting lies. It's so bewildering that even now it's hard to recall or explore. All I remember feeling was intense unbearable emotional pain and shame. 

Let me explain what some of these disturbing things were that they said. And maybe you can see the faulty, deceptive illogic it took me so long to. First, here's a list of some of malignant, twisted things my narcissistic parents said in my article Beware of these red flag dehumanizing, invalidating things malignant narcissist parents say They are dehumanizing because they undermine a child's core, natural self-defenses, reducing her to a drone slave. And it is important to note that they say these things in series, because they are SYSTEMATICALLY tearing down the child's resources and walling her up in a shame prison. So they have scripted "comebacks" or retorts for anything she might say to defend herself. Yes it's very dark tetrad. Here is the litany. 

--How dare you (do or say whatever it is they say you've said or done). There's no answer for that because it is a setup. Anything you say will sound like backpedaling. The sneaky, surprise ambush is the indefensible position. The thing to note is that the child very likely didn't do or say anything wrong. It's all gaslighting designed to destabilize the child. She was framed to take the rap for the PARENT's actions. But if the child should show some courage and ask what it is she supposedly did, they come back with...

--You know FULL WELL what you did. Said by the parent with such vitriol that the child feels physically sick. More gaslighting. The child obviously doesn't know or she wouldn't be asking. And the PARENT DOESN'T KNOW EITHER because THEY ARE MAKING IT UP AS THEY GO ALONG. For NARCISSISTIC SUPPLY  and to leverage an already shewed power differential. But all they have to do is accuse the child and tell her she knows and she believes them because she is conditioned to accept their fake gaslighting version of reality. The levels of soul confusion this one comment has caused me. As if it wasn't bad enough, they double down...

--You  have no excuse. There's no excuse (for whatever it is I did). You're  just making up excuses. I heard that so often yet for the life of me, I can't recall what I did or what excuse I was supposedly making. But again, there's no comeback save trauma responses. Anything will sound like more excuse-making. I was a biddable child and didn't defend myself or talk back. That's why this blog exists now! So why did I hear this so often? I see now that my malignant narcissistic parents said this to me but were telling on  themselves. THEY had no excuse for their irresponsible, feckless, chaotic behavior. But they wouldn't admit that because they were entitled, arrogant, remorseless, Machiavellian control freaks. Someone other than them must always suffer the consequences of their rotten choices. And again, it didn't need to be true. They just has to INSINUATE that I was doing it and I believed their lies. 

--You should be ashamed of yourself. Shame on you. I can still hear my mother's exaggerated, melodramatic pearl-clutching voice, dragging out the words in shocked horror. I can recall feeling very ashamed. But never why. Those details were always missing. I used to auto-gaslight myself that I knew what I had done to deserve such shame. But when I try to call it up, there's never anything but her scornful voice. I learned recently that "shame on you" is a tell-tale phrase narcissistic parents use on a child. And boy, do we feel it. It floats menacingly just below the surface of our cognizant memory. And the horror of it threatens to devour us on the daily. Yet we have no clear idea of what it is or why it is there. It was implanted there by cruel parents who would not take responsibility for their own actions. 

This Narcissistic parent quadfecta bombardment renders the scapegoat child helpless. It's effectively sucker punching, kicking her legs out, kicking her in the back and stomping on her when she tries to get up. It haunts us all our lives. It keeps us in dark places to deep to reach. Next I will blog about how, though I can't yet understand or feel it yet,  I know that it was all gaslighting self-serving cover ups. I'll expose their dirty little smear campaigns for the lies they are. 

People pleaser scapegoat kids make life too easy for everyone but themselves

Hello my friends. In my journey to heal childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse, I heard a simple phrase that made things much clearer. People pleaser scapegoat kids make life easier for everyone but themselves. Not just easier, too easy. I don't just mean we make family, parents, siblings, stepparents lives easier by being the toxic sponge, fixer, etc. I mean that EVERYONE in our sphere benefits from us being the subservient scapegoat: extended family, friends, school, workplace, in-laws, neighbors, people in social groups, churches, everyone benefits but us. We shoulder the mental load. They all owe us a huge debt of gratitude. You're welcome. 

Scapegoat kids of narcissistic parents are targets for toxic shame, blame shifting, invalidation, dehumanization, abuse and neglect, parentification, abandonment, isolation, enmeshment, enslavement, endangerment, manipulation, gaslighting, triangulation, exploitation, theft, etc. Arrogant, entitled, remorseless narcissistic parents heap all the undeserved responsibility for everyone's poor choices and bad behavior on the scapegoat. They go on their merry way feeling exonerated without feeling any guilt or experiencing  any consequences. They teach everyone in the family to use us like this. 

We scapegoat children, learn only people pleaser fawn trauma responses which make us prime targets for further abuse. We are conflict avoidant, hypervigilant soothers and smoothers anticipating everyone else's needs and wants and jumping to provide. We are too reliable, too accommodating. We are driven by parent indoctrinated FOG (fear, obligation, guilt). We are the emotional regulators of everyone's chaotic, dysregulated meltdowns. We humor, body block, excuse and cover for. We were expected to buffer with our own suffering, anything and everything thrown at us. 

So everyone wins when we do this, in our childhood and as adults. Our narcissistic parents are walking nightmares. But we keep them in a semblance of order by feeding them constant narcissistic supply and soothing their inflated egos, at our own expense. We learned as toddlers, to do this. I would almost argue that we learned in utero that what was waiting for us, was going to a bumpy ride. It was inbred in us to cater to our narcissistic mothers, by osmosis. We learned to expect no protection. 

We shield our narcissistic malignant parents' true natures and everyone from seeing them, by lying for them, pasting on a smile and faking normalcy. So everyone else can pretend all is happy normal. Or just thinks it is because we are so convincing. They don't have to deal with the awful, nastiness of our narcissistic parents. BECAUSE we are keeping narcissists supplied and masking their truly toxic selves. The real coup de grace is that we are so good at covering for them, that people actually believe they are nice people. And if we call out the narcissists, we get backlash because we've made them look so good. People don't believe us because we've so successfully hidden the bruises. Damned if you do or don't.  Crazy and crazy-making. 

My husband recalls how I would gaslight him that very disturbing, dangerous, illegal things my parents were doing were fine. Because I ALWAYS stood up for them. He remembers thinking, wait, what?? That's not normal. That's child abuse!! No parent as the right to do this to a child! Even his dad who barely knew me, would call out what they did as "bullshit" and inhuman. 

But I would just say, no it's all okay. I deserved it. I brought it on myself. I was just being normally punished. By being kicked out of the house at 16. He describes that feeling of knowing beyond a shadow of doubt how wrong they were. But I never could see it. Till now. I appreciate  more than I can say, having him for a truth teller all these years. 

My parents and stepparents were raging, off the charts narcissists. But they could semi-function in life because I was propping up everything behind the scenes. I was making their sham play-acting look plausible. But like with any artifice, it was all costumes, lighting and backdrops. None of it was genuine. Their lives were stage set with them as main characters. 

I made them look normalish when they were anything but. They could kick me to the curb and live their shiny new lives without guilt because I was absorbing and tolerating it all. I kept coming back for me. I kept letting them define reality by their gaslighting lies. And everyone was willing to buy this, even though they knew is was wrong, because I was there to make it all palatable. Because at the core of believing lies is a willingness to believe. To suspend doubt. And also ease and convenience. It's just easier to fake-believe all is fine that to confront a bat guano crazy narcissist. 

It meant everyone else could stay in their comfortable, complacent bubbles, because I wasn't making noise or shattering  their illusions by telling the truth. If I had just told one of the egregiously wrong things they did, the entire house of cards would have collapsed. Which they should have seen. They were blind or stupid or uncaring. I think, like I said, it was just simpler to play along themselves. They shouldn't have. Because it did unspeakable damage to me.  

Just one bad thing they did was bad enough. My dad could fake the put-together Christian preacher (he wasn't, it was just a narcissistic fantasy) because I was placating his insane anger. I was giving him a target for it. So everyone else could see the supplied Jack. If I had told how he abandoned me, multiple times, didn't provide basic for me, stole from me to give to his golden kids, how he stalked a 17 y/o (he was 35) others (including my beloved grandparents) would have been forced to accept he was an unreliable, irresponsible, negligent pedophile. These are just a few of the things he put me through. 

His wife was able to avoid looking like the passive-aggressive horror she was because I was doing everything for her. I was raising her kids, cleaning her house, cooking her meals, waiting on her, taking the brunt of her wrath. All she had to do was snap and I was told to come running. Which of course worked for my dad and her kids, too. They could just blithely live their lives because someone other than them was appeasing the monster. 

My mother narrowly avoided censure, ostracism, excommunication, prosecution many times because of my silence. She could play the good Christian lady because I was keeping mum on the physical and sexual abuse, adultery, neglect, the fact that her boyfriend was living with us in a state sponsored foster care home, scamming, kicking me out of the house at 16, etc. It made things so convenient for her and those around us. They didn't have to look too closely or get involved because I was, at great personal cost,  wallpapering over her heinous behavior. 

And people pleasers carry this poisonous behavior into adulthood. And that works for everyone besides us, too. We're the ones who'll take the jobs no one else will. We work overtime to others can go home early. We do too much so others can do to little. We make everything neat and tidy and nice, while eating crumbs off the floor. And they often exploit our over generosity. They take advantage of our too-willing self-sacrifice. They take for granted  we will always absorb all the bad and never speak out. We let them treat us in reprehensible ways and never confront them because  we were groomed to expect abuse. 

And these often aren't the malignant narcissists are parents are. They are just a bit high and mighty and self-deluded. And lazy. They don't look closer into why we are taking on so much and how damaging that is. They like the comfortable, complacency we provide. They like us in our scapegoat role, as our parents did. Our silent suffering works for them. And though I said they aren't malignant, those "nice" people can turn really nasty if we step out of line. We are protecting their false image, just like we protected our parents false image. 

But it only works if we make it happen. When we stop people pleasing and dispensing treats like a broken slot machine, very often the true colors show through. Then starts the gaslighting, browbeating, scolding, ambushes, threats and punishments. There are too many people profiting from keeping us in our place. They feel threatening by our self-advocacy. And anyone who feels that shows their selfish, entitled, arrogance. 

People pleasers literally keep the complacent world spinning because most of the world, sadly, is sad, distorted illusion. Life  isn't neat and tidy but we, by our scapegoated nature, make it appear so. We allow the apathy, self-congratulatory hypocrisy, ridiculous double standards, laziness, smug self-righteous nonsense to continue. We scapegoats keep keels even because we don't rock boats. We, in and of ourselves, over balance so others can irresponsibility rock away. We are always tense, anxious, racked with pain from standing guard. The seas are choppy. But no one feels it because we have anxiously absorbed all the turbulence into ourselves. 

So for all the peace-keeping, people pleaser, scapegoated taking on of everyone else's burdens, you're welcome. But do know that it ends here. It may work for others but it's deadly for me. I for one am going to stop over-regulating dysregulation. It's time to grey rock the selfish demands and go no contact with others-created chaos. 

Childhood trauma from malingering Factitious Disorder of narcissistic parents

Hello my friends. Today on the path to healing CPTSD, I'm exploring childhood trauma from malingering and Factitious Disorder behavior of narcissistic parents. So malingering and Factitious Disorder may be different, but they have similarities when combined with narcissism. And in both malingering and Factitious Disorder (aka Munchausen's Syndrome), the person knows they are faking medical symptoms, for attention, pity, to get out responsibilities and for financial benefits. And the impacts on childhood trauma are multiple. 

Both my narcissistic parents showed signs of malingering but my mother was and is the most extreme. She has classic behaviors of Munchausen's and Munchausen's by Proxy (faking and exaggerating a child's illnesses for personal gain). She has many mystery ailments which don't respond to treatment (usually because they don't exist). She doctor hops when she doesn't get the results she wants. She is cagey and tells different people different stories. 

Her narcissism shows especially in the seductive attention seeking sexual nature of ailments. Since I can remember, she has discussed her vagina, vulva, clitoris and breasts openly in mixed company, to me and at family gatherings. It's often men she targets, including her son-in-law (my husband) and even her grandsons (my sons) or my daughters' boyfriends. 

She calls her body parts by their correct name and also by little nicknames picked up from her husband and her golden child daughter. She thinks it's cute to say "hoohah" or however you spell it. She calls penises, "pee birds." Pause for cringe. If her golden child uses the c-nt word she laughs. When I once repeated it as something someone said, she feigned shocked virginal modesty and jumped all over me. So a lot of hypocrisy and double standards.

A further contradiction is that faked innocence I alluded to. When I took her to the doctor, she asked all kinds of sexual questions such as how to please her husband without intercourse. (gross). Then when the doctor and I tried to explain, she went all innocent and pretended not understand when we were using clear clinical terms. Then finally I blurted out "bl-wojob." And funnily she understood that loud and clear. But giggled like a child. My husband said she just wanted to hear us "talk dirty." So she could feel a sense of moral superiority. He's probably right. 

The doctor certainly was annoyed because it wasn't that kind of visit. Also, I could see the doctor was thinking "why are you asking this at 79 years old?" I could tell her why, because my mother likes bringing up sexual things to make other people feel awkward. She likes to preen herself that she's a model of virtue while behaving very sexually off. 

And it's not just medical issues of a sexual nature. My mother tells everyone that she sleeps "in the buff." It comes up at every gathering, just in case there's someone new who doesn't know. She did actually sleep naked when she came over to stay. And in fact came parading out, in the altogether.  . I see now that she is trying to get them to lust after her. She tells stories of men hitting on her, with a side eye to her husband (ex husband now) to rile him. 

He would attack at the person she accused (including my elderly grandfather) and then turn on her, saying she cheated on him.  I used to soothe her saying it was in his head. Now I wonder if she did. She certainly has a history of cheating and adulterous affairs. Now I think she rage baits, spreading lies and rumors to smear one person and egg another on. 

She basically told us she sets people up. When they were first married she boasted how one she would run around the house naked while cleaning (as you do). One of her husband's friends came to the door and she "forgot" she was naked and answered it. She is also very flirty, which is weird enough but adding the nudity references and sexual talk, it's obvious she wants men to lust after her. 

I only use this archaic term "lust" because she uses it, to point out what other people are doing wrong.  She is a self-styled Christian preacher and very loudly and proudly talks her religion to anyone who will listen. She uses it to shame and browbeat. Which is quite the contradiction to her very sexualized behavior. She says she likes to shock people, that God calls her to "startle people out of complacency into conversion." This is a very strange perversion of what the Bible actually says and she is nothing like the kind of person called to do this. 

My mother is a hypocrite with contradictory double standards. And I think the part about God calling her to shock people is a cover for the fact that she is an exhibitionist, not a evangelist She does melodramatic, bizarre things simply to get attention. Which is in complete contradiction to the Biblical call to preach the good news by living a holy life. It's God we're calling attention to, not ourselves. And God says to do that by showing love, mercy and kindness. Not flashing people!  

The ones who are complacent (arrogant, entitled, holier-than-thou) are people like my mother. It's they who need a wakeup call. And in no way shape or form is someone trying to lure them into sin, a call to conversion. The two cannot coexist. If we have grievous sin, we're called to confess and stop it. Not brag about it. And that's if we're not preachers. Ministers have a calling to be even more righteous. She's just playing both ends for the middle and that's heretical gaslighting. 

Life with my mother has been a nightmare, with all the sex talk alone. Not to mention the sexualized behavior. She had many boyfriends, several of whom were married. She would make out with them in front of me. One woman came over, caught them and slugged my mother. I was horrified but she said just go to school. I did and we've never discussed it since. 

She did actually explain to me as a kid that she was leading men to Jesus by sleeping with them. Can you imagine how confusing that is for a child to hear? So now it's mostly just inappropriate sexual references. If you remind her of past behaviors, she will lie and twist and pretend she can't remember. She says it in the fake pitiful voice that makes you feel guilty for questioning her. She's fake humble too, saying if we want her to say she's sorry she will but she doesn't know what for. (Bullshit, DARVO, bullshit)

She talks as if not remembering erases it. It doesn't. I remember. But her gaslighting is convincing. You might be surprised at the outrageous stuff she says she forgot, like kicking me out of the house at 16 and leaving me with her abusive (to me) boyfriend and making me take care of four special needs foster care kids while she went away for a week. That's part of the Factitious Disorder, pretending to have dementia so no one holds her accountable for her past crimes. And to get pity, oh see how Marilisa is, making her accountable. She tried that gaslighting game with her now ex-husband, lying and saying she never did things she did. He divorced and now she still plays the DARVO game. 

Now I think of it, she's always DARVOs. They could have invented that term just for her alone. So cue to the weird sexual medical references which just sound so Munchausen's. She makes everyone uncomfortable talking about it  but if I say anything to check her, she gets on her high horse and scolds me for not letting her share her ailments. Or she pouts and sulks. Which does kick in the old guilt. So I started asking other people if it was weird she does that. And survey says a unanimous VERY!! 

No one is shaming her for having medical issues of a sexual nature. Although I do wonder about how convenient they are to get her out of doing things. She's always so frail when anyone is watching. Or when there's work to be done. Or when there's attention to be stolen. My mother doesn't just upstage the bride at weddings. She has upstaged the deceased at their own funeral with her faked feebleness. . But when we go to the restaurant afterwards, she's spritely and runs up to the buffet. So malingering if not completely Factitious. 

She upstages babies at their baptism wearing nightgowns for pity and to look like patient. She kept everyone wondering and worried not showing up and not calling for her great-grandson's baby shower, just for attention. She leaves early because she "has a stomachache" at holidays just when it's clean up time. She did this at her grandson's wedding. And another's rehearsal dinner (after she ate her free meal, of course). She had to be rushed to ER with a faked injury just to upstage that wedding, too. She pulls NCNS (no call no show) all the time. So we quit inviting her. 

So how does this cause childhood trauma? Because all these years I believed her, let  her get away with murder because she was "sick" or "weak." Didn't hold her accountable for her selfish behavior. Took care of her when she was supposed to be taking care of me. Oh, and one other thing I must note. 

Hypochondriacs and malingerers have no interest in anyone else's very real ailments, only their own fake ones. Their scapegoat kids get no help and their goldens get a Munchausen's by Proxy so no real help either as that's just about the star attraction narcissist parent. When I had insanely painful (where I fainted) shoulder surgery, my mother pooh-poohed it and talked about her hangnails (serious). She leaned on my bad shoulder and I screamed in pain. Then she scolded me because she "might have fallen." 

And that is just one reason I've gone no contact. I'm sick of the drama.