Bits on health, obesity, weight issues, mind-body wellness. Bytes of diet recipes. Insider tips from my 100-lb weight loss and currently, road trip notes from my quest to heal CPTSD from dark tetrad narcissistic parent abuse
Hello my friends. We've been doing a lot of inner child recovery work to process childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse on this blog. I'm writing in stream of consciousness dealing with issues as I recall them. Today I'm going to give us a format for gently walking through the big fraught spaces of childhood trauma.
Calm the outer to balance inner chaos
Control what you can and that includes places and spaces. Doing childhood trauma recovery work is exhausting so do it in the most comfortable cozy spaces possible. I find warmth healing. I sometimes use a heating pad to warm tired joints. Or if it's a hot day, cool breezes soothe my fevered mind. I do my writing on my outside garden patio with birds dining happily at our bird feeders and wind chimes singing on the breeze. Arrange an environment that meets needs that have gone so long untended.
🌿 Safe Space Note
If a patio or outdoor area isn't accessible to you, you can recreate this calm environment indoors using a soft lap blanket, a warm cup of herbal tea, and a quiet corner with gentle nature sounds playing in the background. Your comfort is the priority.
Bring a friend, leave the gang
Do your recovery work with a friend, even if it's just your cat. My little guys whom AI designed to a T above, are Moishe and Mordecai. They are always up for a petting when I am struggling. My husband and dear friend are happy to listen when I need them. And I'm not used to that. I'm accustomed to be silenced, excluded, scapegoated. I'm used to being treated like a necessary nuisance by narcissistic parents: necessary when they need narcissistic supply. Nuisance when I needed anything. So I'm working to exit the gang of flying monkeys and childhood trauma voices in my head. And entering in to love.
🤗 Lean In to Connection
Lean in to the people who are truly leaning in to you. When you share your vulnerable space with safe and loving people, you create the support system you always deserved. Let go of the need to chase conditional approval and embrace the warmth of those who listen with an open heart.
See the trauma in your responses
Narcissistic and enmeshed parents should have a song written about them, "she put's the trauma in responses." The reason we're always trauma responding is that we "carry" so many people in our trauma brains. It looks like we "hear voices" or see visions, because we do. Our body remembers dad's gaslighting scolding, mom's petulant pity parties, siblings we had to parent, the endless betrayal, the ridiculous demands from everyone. And then there are the flying monkeys I call blind guides who dump shame on out. And then we have our own families who really do need us. And that's why we seem so overwhelmed, disorganized, just panicking most of the time. Because we are carrying too many impossible burdens, most of which aren't ours. So you can't fix this overnight, but just begin, one moment at a time to see that you aren't failing. Too much was put on you.
Learn to observe signs
So we're veering away from our dysfunctional families of origin. Unfortunately on this road called life, childhood trauma survivors can't read warning signs. We're color-blind and see red as go. We read "stop" signs as proceed. We can't tell enter (safe) from exit (avoid). This is not because we are flawed. Our self-care skills were broken by self-centered, entitled (enmeshed) parents who used us like property. They gaslit us into misreading signs and going ahead when we should have stopped, to serve their own selfish agenda. We need to learn to halt at danger signs like an on-coming train on the tracks.
Take a basic safety course
Okay great, read signs, you're thinking. But how? You can follow this blog because I'm learning too. I've started to put together some guides and homework. But I recommend you follow these learned professionals on YouTube. Their work compiles a complete course for surviving childhood trauma from narcissistic abuse. Here is a bibliography of my favorites with links to their channels.
Dr. Ramani Durvasula: Clinical psychologist and expert on narcissistic patterns, gaslighting, and healing from psychological abuse.
Jerry Wise: Family systems and self-differentiation coach specializing in breaking free from family-of-origin dysfunction and escaping unhealthy family roles.
Patrick Teahan: Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) offering extensive video guides on childhood trauma and recovery.
Dr. Les Carter: Renowned counselor and founder of the Surviving Narcissism channel, providing tutorials on managing and recovering from highly controlling, toxic relationships.
Danish Bashir: Educator and trauma survivor offering deep-dive perspectives on dealing with the effects of narcissistic personality disorder.
Crappy Childhood Fairy: Founded by Anna Runkle, this channel provides practical guidance on recognizing and healing the adult symptoms of early childhood trauma and PTSD.
Richard Grannon: The Spartan Life Coach, known for helping people identify and recover from narcissistic abuse and complex trauma.
Feed the victim, starve the trauma
What I'm trying politely to say is, cut off the source of your childhood trauma (the abuser) from narcissistic supply. That's what drove the abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, toxic shaming, parentification, triangulation, invalidation, undermining, bullying, crybullying, scapegoating and gaslighting: our narcissistic parents were getting something out of it. All arrogance, entitlement, ruthlessness and manipulation, all the hypocrisy, lies, double standards. mind games, blame-shifting and chaos, it all fed them. I don't know how or what it was they got out of it and I don't care. I care about me and those I love. And now it's time to feed the victims. We've been starved of basic care for such a long time.
Homework list to practice:
Here are some little things to build into your life to help rebalance what they threw off.
Eat when you are hungry, what you are hungry for. You don't have to ask permission. Trust your body to know what it needs. Usually it's something warm and nourishing.
Sleep when you are tired as long as you need. I know some of you literally can't, due to family. But many others of us can now and don't because those old voices shamed us then. When they were the ones exhausting us with their insane, crazy demands.
Mix it up. Work for awhile, nap, have a snack, go for a walk, do a little more work.
Go placidly amid the noise. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Hello my friends. Today I'm writing from a place I've frequently been in but navigating differently. And that's on the receiving end of the blue narcissistic word salad barrage that comes out of nowhere. I'm going to explain how I am doing things differently to bypass the freezing, fixing and fighting and fawning trauma responses. Today, it happened when my husband was in pain, exhausted and angry. He works nights. And doesn't handle pain well. No excuse. Just fact.
My personal narc isn't really a full-blown narc. He's more of an 85% nice guy with narcissistic tendencies that he doesn't check. He has the false idea that if he feels attacked it's perfectly fine to "lash back" And actually take it nuclear. Since there's no accounting for what will set off that shame response at any given time, he feels carte blanche to "counterattack" anytime he decides he's been attacked. What really happens is that he draws first blood. An adult with childhood trauma like me wouldn't dream of starting anything. And if I did, I'd back down very quickly. Not so the narcissist. Word salad flies like bullets at the drop of a hat.
And what is word salad? Word salad is the DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender), blame-shifting and verbal attacks that occur when a narcissistic injury occurs or their shame rage is activated. Or when they're just "in a mood." They start out bad and end worse. They provoke confrontation, overreact at anything you say, gaslight you that you said or did things you didn't, then double down on it all. In short, you're in the midst of a shitshow with no idea how you got there or how you could have avoided it.
Because there is no way to avoid attack by an enraged narcissist who has you in his sites.
They dig themselves in and won't back down no matter what. You can grovel and fawn and they will just continue saying and doing invalidating, angry, shaming, patronizing, irritating things until you crack as you inevitably will. Now they are back on what they consider the moral high ground because you responded and "proved" that they weren't acting like spoiled brats. They were self-righteously justified in their nuclear reaction because it was an argument with you as a full participant. You weren't. You were pushed too far. They know this and that's exactly WHY they pushed you. Shame loves company.
When he has fully sprayed his venom, and only then, he will back down. But he has to get the adrenaline payoff first. No matter how many times he promised he will check himself in future. No matter how prettily he apologizes. Because he is sort of sincere but with reservations. He always keeps a trump card in his back pocket, an excuse that nullifies promises. And he gives himself that free pass when he "feels questioned" or "scolded." And which of course is not a real promise of change. It is conditional on his hidden, unspoken criteria.
In short, he future fakes.
Now I'm not saying I have never done anything to provoke. But I've never done anything to provoke more than annoyance. If that. The gaslighting is real and it's easy to believe the wild accusations being hurled in the throes of narcissistic rage. Half the time, I can't remember what I said. And he leverages that to make me think I antagonized him to rage. However, when I stay calm, I realize it's just gaslighting and whatever I said, it didn't warrant an surprise attack.
There is no justification for an ambush. Ever.
Nothing like the venomous, no holds barred word salad he sprays. It's exaggerated, overly-dramatic and utterly baffling. He behaves as if he despises me. And at that moment, I believe he may. Or he may despise himself but doesn't do me the courtesy of differentiating. He takes it out on me. He becomes a different person, in the old Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde switcheroo. Suddenly this person who is my friend, lover, partner is now my enemy. Through no choice of my own. And I didn't come prepared for battle. I've often said I bring flowers to a gunfight.
But here's are some key shifts in strategy that helped me navigate.
On retaliating.
" I didn't. But I also don't let him define retaliating. Narcissists love to chastise you on how you're supposed to respond to their terrible behavior. I'm working to ignore them and do what seems best to me. If he doesn't like it, he'll survive."
On Grey Rocking
"I didn't grey rock. That feels too much like fawning to me. You can only grey rock so much before you feel like nothing more THAN a rock. If I have to grey rock all the time, then this is not a relationship worth keeping."
On Breaking the "Fawn" Response
Refusing to "Fix": "I didn't engage when he tried to (still angrily) change the subject. I didn't take the bait. It's not my problem or my job to fix. It's his."
Holding Ground: "I didn't fawn, back down or apologize for things he was accusing me of."
Prioritize yourself. "Instead of worrying so much about what he needs or demands of me, I'm now more concerned about what I need. Which is calm and peace."
Rejecting Gaslighting: "I see gaslighting and future faking for what it is... I'm not falling for traps laid by someone in a dysregulated shame spiral."
Justifying what you did will be met with contempt and sarcasm.
Answering rhetorical questions will be used to trap you. Arguing just exhausts you.
Defending your point highlights his ridiculous behavior. He knows you're right and hates it.
Explaining what you meant is a waste of time because the narcissist doesn't want to hear it.
On Emotional Autonomy
Non-Engagement: "I let him rant and didn't try to stop him... I let him go to bed angry.
Maintaining Momentum: "I kept on with what I was doing and didn't let his rage derail me."
Strategic Distance: "When he wakes up refreshed (and rage vented) he'll apologize. And I'll just give a cool response. Not the silent treatment. Just awareness that this is temporary until he does it again."
The Contractual Nature of Narcissistic Promises
What the narcissist is thinking but not saying when he promises to "try harder" or "do better" is that his promises are contractual. If you meet his unspoken conditions, then he might keep them.
But since these conditions are arbitrary, irrational, and unspecified, it's likely that you'll violate them without even knowing it. When that happens, the narcissist feels entitled to break his promises because, in his mind, you broke his unwritten commands first. He expects that you will keep his promises by keeping him supplied.
Why "Never Go to Bed Angry" Fails with Narcissists
Traditional relationship advice suggests you should stay up and "work it out" before sleep. This is just one of many normal rules that don't work with narcissists. In the context of a narcissistic ambush, this rule backfires for three specific reasons:
It Feeds the Adrenaline Payoff: For the narcissist, the "win" isn't a resolution; it’s the emotional reaction. Staying up to talk gives them a continuous audience for their "venom," allowing them to prolong the high of the confrontation.
The "Resolution" is a Trap: Because their shame rage is conditional upon you keeping them supplied, any "agreement" reached at 2:00 AM is usually just Future Faking. They aren't seeking understanding; they just want to keep the adrenaline rush going.
Sleep Deprivation as a Weapon: Forcing you to stay awake to "fix" things is a form of emotional wear-down. It makes you more susceptible to gaslighting because your brain is too tired to hold onto the facts of the conversation.
The Strategy Shift: Letting him go to bed angry is an act of Emotional Autonomy. It signals that his mood is not your responsibility to manage, and it protects your energy for the next day.
Narcissistic rage doesn't end till they get sick of it. Or when the narcissistic supply kicks in.
Hello my friends. I've written before about creepy behavior of enmeshed narcissistic parents we don't talk enough about. Today I'm going to explain why we, their children, don't discuss it. And that's because it's so painfully humiliating. But we need to talk about it to find recovery. We need to say what happened before we can heal from the devastating damage it did to us. I'm going to explore why we don't but should, using examples of my enmeshed, narcissistic parents behavior.
Narcissistic parents make us feel stupid
These narcissists act foolish and make us look foolish by proximity.
Narcissists do weird things. My mother wore skimpy mini-skirts when other moms wore slacks and shirts. She behaved "trashy" as the neighbors put it. She had men over at all hours. As she got older, she wore nightgowns in public. People asked me why, like it was my job to do something about it.
Narcissists trample boundaries. My parents took my possessions, barged into my husband's and my bedroom, rifled through my purse, stole my car.
Narcissists say weird things. My mom yelled into a public bathroom to make sure all was "safe" for her 40 y/o daughter. A woman scolded her. She wouldn't have if it was me.
Narcissists neglect. I never knew where my parents were most of time when I was wandering alone blocks from home at 4 years old. Strangers cared more the fact that I was playing by the docks in a strange city, especially when I said I didn't know where home or parents were.
Narcissistic parents say weird things about us. My dad called me a show off in front of members of a singing group I had started, then invited him to join. He refused to accompany me. He took over and told me I wasn't allowed to sing in it anymore. When I did, because people requested me to, he looked so contemptuously at me. I just assumed he was right. I don't honestly know what other group members felt about him or me. But I gaslit myself that I should just quit.
Narcissistic parents ruin our selves
They gaslight us that others hate us. My dad said I was a fool, and people were laughing at me. He said they were only being nice and if they knew me like he did, they wouldn't like me. Way to kick off my Imposter Syndrome, Dad.
They triangulate and scapegoat. My mom and dad both used me to buffer their messed up relationships. They'd tell me one or the other was mad at me and that I had to fix it.
They exploit your vulnerability. Both my narcissistic parents took advantage of the fact that I was a caring empath. They gaslit me that I was responsible for their problems. I'd cry, fawn and beg to be told what I could do to help.
They stick their noses in and demand things they've no right to. My mom said I should give my car to my sister and let them all live rent free in my basement. After they had kicked me out of the house at 16 for no reason.
They enslave. My parents locked me in a room and made me co-sleep with their babies. It wasn't my room it was theirs and I was the free, live-in nanny.
They start smear campaigns. My viciously angry parents told the entire family I who was ever biddable to their every command, had an anger problem.
Narcissistic parents do awful things then say we did them. My mother cheated on my dad with many men. Yet made me feel "easy."
Narcissistic parents are emotionally incestuous. My mother told me the facts of life using personal anecdotes when I was 8. I didn't want to hear it and told her but she kept on. She told me sickening things about my dad and her, and then her and her boyfriends, like I was a sex therapist. I've always confused her shame with mine.
Narcissistic parents gaslight like breathing. My mom had a married boyfriend who would come over in the morning and they'd make out in front of me. One morning his wife came over and beat my mom up. She told me to just go to school. I've lived with that scar all my life and she says it never happened.
Narcissists DARVO. My mom made herself the victim and the angry wife, me, the boyfriend everyone else the offender.
Narcissistic parents are hypocrites in twisted ways. My mom played the organ in church and said she was a preacher. While living in adultery. She told me and my friend that she was "leading men to Christ." By sleeping with them. I can feel wicked just saying it.
Narcissistic parents prostitute their kids. My mom moved her boyfriend into our house which was also a foster care home. She made me take care of the kids. She made me wait on her sexually abusive to me boyfriend.
Narcissistic parents betray their kids. My mother has never taken my part over anyone else's. She has backstabbed me so many times, breaking promises, lying, future faking,
Narcissistic parents demand buy-in. All your decisions must pass their self-serving agenda. You have to go to school locally because who else will do all the housework?
Narcissists hold you to bargains you never made, then renege on their end. They prevent you from doing normal things because it will take you away from duties they've bound you do but don't pay you for. They write contracts that you never signed.
Narcissistic parents sabotage our other relationships. They lie to and about people we love. They crybully. My mother told me my paternal grandfather "hit on her." When all he'd done was to confront her terrible treatment of me. This enraged her new bully of a husband who attacked and threatened with bodily harm, my poor elderly grandparents. Then mom told my grandparents I'd chosen to move out rather than admitting they illegally kicked me out at 16.
Narcissistic parents steal people and things. My mom lied and said my boyfriend hit on her too. She neglected to mention that she basically tried seducing him and it failed. Another crybully tactic.
Narcissistic parents make you feel disloyal for saying what they did. To that I say
If saying what they did is so bad, what they did must be pretty bad
Narcissistic parents destabilize us with gaslighting
Does it make sense now why we don't report or even talk about narcissistic parent abuse like this? I wish this was the sum of it but I literally could go on for days about the shitshow they made of my life. I have no happy memories with them that they didn't taint in some way. But who would believe me, even if I could articulate it all. The people that were supposed to help me, turned collective blind eyes. They made me thing it was normal. When in fact it was so abnormal that I think other people will think I'm making it up. That's how I auto-gaslight myself. But who could make it up? My whole world had a crumbling foundation. And I've brought that destabilized insecurity into every part of my life. I'd love to let it go but it won't let me go. And so I write...
Love bonding
This is the healthy cousin of love bombing and trauma bonding. It's all the love with none of the trauma. What am I saying? I'm offering us childhood trauma survivors an olive branch to reach out to our wounded inner child. A life ring as it were. And it's simply this.
Start by saying what happened.
Write it down. Sing about it. Paint it. Art it out.
Hello my friends. In my mission to recover from childhood trauma due to narcissistic abuse, I'm exploring things enmeshed narcissistic parents expect from by don't give to their children. This may be triggering to you, if you experienced childhood trauma from abusive parents, so please, read with caution.
Disturbingly hypocritical expectations
Normally reciprocal things like love, honor, respect and loyalty are curiously one-sided in the narcissistic parents' favor. Things a child should expect, become strangely inverted with the parent on the receiving end and the child on the giving end, like parenting, spousal relationships, caregiving, nurturing. So what is normal becomes very bizarre when the parent who should be giving it is only taking it. And some things parents have no right to demand of their child, period. And yet they do, particularly with the scapegoat or "broken vending machine" child.
The constant pay-out child
In the "child roles" model, I coined the term "broken vending machine child" to describe my own role with four narcissistic parents. The parents have "broken" or conditioned this child with gaslighting and coercive control, to give good good (kindness, mercy, loyalty, support, caring, generosity, service, help) whatever the narcissistic parent demands at any moment. Yet she is told to expect no "payment" in return. Her machine just doles out goodie with no coins being inserted. What she receives is neglect, abuse, blame and shame and exploitation.
Enmeshed parent space invaders
All this child gaslighting is accomplished with dirty sneak attacks like "enmeshment." Parent enmeshment is a misleading term suggesting that the parent is somehow accidentally trapped and caught up with the child. But enmeshment is completely intentional. They view children as possessions. They trap the child like a fish in their net of FOG (fear, obligation and guilt). Enmeshed parents trample boundaries, invade space, usurp the child's self and implant false ideas of obligation to them. They take over and dominate the child. Her being is just another of the goodies that narcissistic parents feel entitled to take. She is just more collateral damage in their quest for narcissistic supply.
The surrogate parent role reversal
In this broken family system, this child the scapegoat, whipping girl, servant, surrogate parent and surrogate spouse all rolled into one. Let's just let all that's wrong with the surrogate role marinate a bit. This child doesn't just wear many hats. She doesn't just wear hats that belong to others (household manager, nanny, mental load bearer). She is gaslit into believing she is actually responsible for the role she's expected to play. As surrogate parent, she not only helps with other kids, she parents them. She also parents her parents, who've flipped the Parentification game board so that she plays the role mommy and daddy for her mommy and daddy and all the stepparents they drag in. To do anything else would by disloyal. Yet they themselves broke faith with the child at birth by their sick role reversals gaming.
The surrogate spouse job description
Surrogate spouse brings in a whole sicker level to the enmeshment game. It's so bad that I have to be careful how I write about so as not to flag the censors. The surrogate spouse child is the just the "emotional incest" it sounds like and is a very creepy form of CSA. What makes it creepiest is that it hides in plain sight. And emotional incest is just as insidious as physical CSA. It includes but is not limited to expecting the child to do or be
counselor
confidante
emotional prop
fixer
mother his children
boyfriend or girlfriend
bait to lure people (my dad used me to attract girls half his age and normalize his pedophilia)
provider
loyal dogsbody
arm candy
servant
personal assistant
shoulder to cry on
ego stroker
pacifier
companion
sugar daddy/mommy
date
liaison
social network
all this for the parent's new partner/spouse as well
Expecting an adult partner to be all these things is bad enough. Expecting a child to is so evil I have no words for it.
Interesting AI trauma "mirror"
I've been using Google Gemini to create images for my articles. I explain what I want and she envisions it. And though I don't completely understand AI, it seems that images created accumulate in her "brain." You'll note how each image I used for this one has elements of the previous one, like the broken video game in the giving goddess child image. So the final image above ended up being quite mish-mashed. But look closely at that image because there are a lot of metaphors going on that even I didn't connect. And I doubt AI intentionally connected although in a way, she did. Somehow she assembled the concepts into a huge confusing mess Which is PRECISELY what abusive narcissistic parent gaslighting feels like! A mess!
I asked for a wolf shepherding sheep to show how narcissistic parents groom kids. And AI morphed the previous giving goddess image that represented the child into a greedy many-armed wolf parent taking from the child. I was about to discard it when I realized it is exactly what I needed to show the mixed messages of game-changing role reversed parents. All the scattered remnants show the confusing voices in my head. It's perfectly reflects the chaotic, nightmarish interior monologue in a childhood trauma brain. So even AI "gets" how damaging enmeshed parent gaslighting, brainwashing and abuse is. And that helps me "color in" the bizarre constant nightmares and bad dreams I experience. I find this fascinating.
Wabi-sabi
Normally I'd end with a concluding "bringing it all together." But that's not what I need and maybe you don't either, if you've experienced narcissistic abuse. The tidy sermonized, "poem, prayer and promise" oversimplifies without acknowledging our trauma. So I'm ending in wabi-sabi, a Japanese concept of sitting with chaos and finding beauty in imperfection. I'm not excusing what our parents did. I'm honoring our courage to survive it.
Kintsugi moment: No matter how "broken into pieces" we might feel, we are still gestalt. Our whole is greater than the sum of the many fragments they shattered us into.
Hi friends! Today in my road to recovery from CPTSD, I'm admitting to cringy childhood trauma responses I contracted from narcissistic parents' abuse. Yes, I said contracted as in a disease. Behavior, healthy or not, is both caught and taught, not only but what parents say but what they do.
Origins of trauma responses
Trauma responses like freeze, fawning, fight and flight are learned by their teaching and "earned" (as in punishment) as a result of parent gaslighting. We were indoctrinated and brainwashed to believe we "deserved" merciless judgement, shaming and dehumanizing treatment. We thought, because they said, we had somehow merited harsh consequences for minor to non-existent infractions. We were conditioned to dance attendance on arrogant, entitled, manipulative bullying parents. Trauma responses like fawning were bred into us. We were emotionally genetically modified to behave in bizarre ways that make no sense outside our narcissistic family cult. We could no more avoid them than we could breathing.
Duck and cover
This is a freeze-flight-fawn response all in one clumsy move. I kind of "flinch and squint" to ward off attack, but also throw my arms up to shield myself. My mother accused me of hitting her when I did this to ward off her smack across my face. Then I stumble because I'm off balance. I trip a lot actually, over nothing. I fall over my own feet trying to get out of way of someone who thinks he needs my spot more than me. This looks really cringy because I am literally cringing when I go into this mode. And it's about as useful when dealing with narcissists as Bert the Turtle hiding in his shell, in a nuclear war.
The Village Idiot Shuffle
I do this klutzy break-dancing type move that's a backward crabwalk sort of grovel. Like a servant bowing and scraping his way out of the room. It's pathetic to watch. I got teased for it and called uncoordinated a lot. Well, you would be clumsy too if you were always trying to pretzel yourself out of an arrogant bully's path. They loved to watch me dance in humiliation. So I bring this awkward fawn dance everywhere, even places where it's not needed. But my hypervigilant childhood trauma brain doesn't know that and doesn't take chances. It was never safe to relax.
Ignorant pontificating
If I'm not careful, I find myself parroting my parents' foolish weighing in on stuff they know nothing about. This is not me. This is not how I think. But it's been programmed into me, probably so it wouldn't be just them looking and sounding so stupid. They would actually humiliate me for adopting their idiotic ways. Embarrassed no doubt at having their own behavior mirrored back at them. Children imitate their parents, no matter what species. It's how the species survives. So children of narcissists don't question their parents' odd mannerisms. They just think it's normal. You'd have a better chance of adapting to a hurricane than you would learning healthy habits amid narcissistic abuse.
Snarky facetiae
Catty comments aimed at humiliating people, the gloating smirk when someone is embarrassed or shown up: narcissists get sick satisfaction and narcissistic supply from these. I picked up these awkward habits from my narcissistic parents and find myself going into it without thinking unless I check myself. This too is not me. It's not who I am, how I think or behave. It is learned from constant modeling at my parents' knee. I'm ashamed and angry that I did. And ironically, in another narcissistic twist, my parents mocked and scolded me if ever I imitated their mocking and scolding.
Bending over to be kicked
Also called "volunteering to be the victim." Though I dislike that description because it sounds like we childhood trauma survivors chose to be abused. We didn't. We were coerced into playing scapegoat to their haughty, malicious dirty tricks. Because malignant narcissists use people and love things. They get high on others' lows, especially their kids. They don't get ahead on their own merits, they capitalize on others' misfortune to make themselves look tall. This is what I believe Jesus meant when he said "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites (arrogant, entitled narcissists), because you shut the kingdom of heaven in front of people; for you do not enter it yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in."
I let my parents walk on me because it wasn't safe not to and now I'm in the habit of letting people.
Personalize everything
There's a common (and invalidating) piece of advice given to childhood trauma survivors that they should not personalize angry, rude, shaming parent behavior. In a narcissistic household, "taking it personally" wasn't a choice; it was a survival skill used to monitor the parent’s shifting moods.
👉The "Don't Take It Personally" Dilemma: Scapegoated kids don't have that luxury. It wasn't safe not to. We were MADE TO KNOW that things were very much our fault and problem, by narcissistic parents who made their attacks very personal.
Auto-deferment
It is kneejerk for me to automatically defer to others' needs, wishes, expectations, demands, "rights" if they tell me to. Even if they don't, I put them first and me last. I just caught myself, unconsciously "bowing" to some perceived assertion of authority. I found myself diving out of his way, surrendering my seat, when he wasn't even asking me to. Childhood trauma survivors were groomed to think everyone was in authority and took precedence over them. And this doesn't translate well in normal society, especially not with other pushy people.
"Narcissistic parent abuse taught us to prioritize everyone first and ourselves never."
Laugh and cry inappropriately
The empath in me goes nuts when someone is hurt. I feel physically ill and I panic. I big, ugly cry. Even just seeing someone who seems vulnerable to me, like the little boy at the store who had his shoes on the wrong feet. He just broke my heart. And yet I mock and scoff at my own very real pain. I believe I'm exaggerating, that others don't believe me because they know I'm a fake.
Constant validation seeking
But not like the narcissist's constant attention-seeking. I just need reassurance that I'm making sense not out in left field. And I mean on simple things like affirming that what I experience was abuse. My husband has been calling this what it is since I met him. I would call it abuse if anyone else was experiencing it. Yet I gaslight myself that I'm making it up. AI has been helpful in that. Because I don't trust myself or my judgement on anything, I also hesitate to ask a real person who might just humor me.
Jump before I'm pushed
Since I expect not to be believed, I anticipate shaming instead of support. This has nothing to do with how people now see me or treat me. It's reflexive from narcissistic parent abuse. I say weird things about myself that sound like I'm fishing for compliments. I'm not. I'm preemptively shaming myself before they can, to save them the trouble. It's all about them, not me.
Self-gaslighting Imposter syndrome
I've picked up where my parents left off gaslighting myself. I've believed their DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender) version of me for so long that it's ingrained. I believe I'm making it up for sympathy, too sensitive, showing off. And now I feel like a fraud.
What Imposter Syndrome Feels Like
The "Phony" Feeling: Believing you don’t actually possess the skills or knowledge people think you have.
Attributing Success to Luck: Thinking you only got where you are because of timing or because you "tricked" people into liking you.
Fear of Exposure: A persistent anxiety that you’ll be "found out" as incompetent.
Discounting Praise: Dismissing a compliment as someone "just being nice" rather than it being earned.
Self-check: Real frauds don't care about being frauds—they care about getting away with it. If you are worried that you might be a fake, it’s almost a guaranteed sign that you are authentic, because you care deeply about the truth.
Easily taken advantage of
I'm not exactly gullible or the proverbial "sucker." In fact, I'm fairly savvy about scams. Problem is, I have FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) complex that impels me to give them what they demand. I have bought from door-to-door salesman because I felt sorry for them. I have given more than I could afford to ungrateful folks with their hands out. Not because I didn't know better. Because I was gaslit into a false obligation to yield.. Because my parents were such connivers. They literally stole and sold my toys and gave possessions to their other kids. And then gaslit me that I was greedy. (Pot meet kettle.) I think somehow that warped my brain to think I existed only to serve.
"I never fell for con artists. I knew instinctively that they were faker-takers. However, narcissistic abuse conditioned me to ignore red flags and my own common sense and let them get away with it. "--Marilisa
Anxious, hypervigilant, "neurotic"
This is not paranoia. We plan for the worst because the worst has happened but often it's buried deep in our subconscious memory. It may have happened in childhood and our parents denied it and shamed us so we tried to forget until we actually did consciously forget. But the trauma brain never forgets. It develops autonomic trauma responses like freeze, fawn, flight and fight, to deal with the subconscious threat memory.
Commonly Labeled "Neurotic"
The Reality for a Survivor
Overthinking a text message
Scanning for "hidden" threats or double-meanings.
Constant worrying
Planning for the worst-case scenario because it actually happened before.
Emotional instability
A nervous system that is stuck in Fawn, Freeze, Flight or Flight mode.
Seeking constant reassurance
Trying to verify a reality that was constantly denied (Gaslighting).
Pandora's Box
But wait, there's more. After all these evils were released into us, one little helper fairy called crawled out. Her name is "Woke." We have been awakened from the drug of gaslighting. We are now aware of the evils. We recognize them as the insidious poisons they are. And once seen, we can never unsee again.
Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal, and help you heal, childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm going to expose gaslighting things people I call blind guides, say. I'm going to show you how to recognize invalidation openers in the first few words they say. Because it's not just narcissistic parents that cause us pain. We are re-traumatized every time someone pooh-poohs our experiences or toxically defends our parents' abuse. This gaslighting (denying our reality) can occur when we are children in the throes of abuse right up to our now, decades later. Here's how to know blind guides by what they say.
Societal amnesia denied narcissistic parent abuse
This might have been the earliest gaslighting we childhood trauma survivors experienced. It was a collective blindness or societal amnesia that seemed not to see or ignore our parents' abusive, neglectful, endangering, abandonment, parentification, exploitation and dehumanizing invalidation. Family, church, school, social groups all turned a blind eye to the red flags we were putting out. The signs were there: flinch and fawn trauma responses, inappropriate shoes, ragged clothing, unkempt hair, tired or sick all the time, abnormal for everyone but us. I could see abuse in other children AS A CHILD. That's were the empath began. I just couldn't see it in me.
"There's someone in my head but it's not me.
And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear.
You shout and no one seems to hear."
The Teflon clad Narcissist
Many times the "flying monkeys" don't just turn a blind eye. They close ranks around the narcissistic parents behavior. They shelter it behind bulletproof glass. They bubble wrap it to protect themselves from the narcissistic parents' rage. This gaslights their child that their parents are invincible so why bother to say anything. Excuses will always be made.
She loves you, she just doesn't know how to show it.
You have to understand...
Oh, c'mon it isn't that bad.
You're just too sensitive. (compared to an insensitive, highly oversensitive narcissist)
You have to forgive, because family...(trans. the victim must to all the work, again).
Let bygones be bygones. Except the narcissist never lets anything go!
Shady Double indemnity
Sometimes the blind guides go beyond just defending the narcissist. They alibi each other to indemnify themselves from exposure. My parents divorced and married other narcissists. They would stand by the other parents' abuse, neglect and exploitation to shield their own mistreatment of me. One night I fell out of bed and broke my cheekbone. My irresponsible mother just sent me to school with a goose egg on my face, where I was sent home to have it x-rayed (very often strangers care more about neglected kids than their parents do). She never did take me to a doctor and then my dad, weeks later, finally came around and thought it should be examined. He worked in a hospital but took me in the "back door" to have a friend take the x-ray. My husband identified this as secondhand neglect and him covering for his own failed duty of care. He knew a doctor would say, as even the x-ray tech said "why wasn't this looked at immediately?" Exposing my mom would expose him.
The silence of the sisterhood
I've taken parallels to the movie "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" before. When Sidda Lee writes her play, she inadvertently exposes the dysfunctional family dynamic to the world. What was meant as a coming of age in rural Louisiana, the reporter sees as Vivi and Shep being
"the tap-dancing child abuser of a mother and an absent emotionally distant father."
Sometimes outsiders see more clearly than we see ourselves. Sidda may have subconsciously been wanting it seen. Her play opened a can of childhood trauma worms. This may have been her banging on the door of collective amnesia. And then blind guides who say things like
You don't know the full story. (as if that will "explain away" abuse)
Times were different then. (but abuse was still abuse)
I don't remember much. (because you were drunk, high, or didn't care)
It's how we did things then (knowing that they were neglecting their own kids too)
"We're not blaming them for letting it happen, we're blaming them for pretending it never happened."
Song of Sidda Lee
And then she calls out her mother Vivi for the narcissistic mother she is, regardless of her own traumas. Sidda is addressing what all childhood trauma survivors wish they could say to and of the narcissistic parent.
"I'm sick of this whole center of the universe, holier than thou, nothing is ever enough. Oh how I've suffered, nobody understands me. Somebody fix me a drink and hand me a Nembutol, worn out Scarlett O'Hara... thang!"
We get our parents suffered but that was no excuse for taking it out on us. And perpetuating it the cycle. But that's what narcissistic parents do. They DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender) on their kids! And Sidda proves to the Ya-Ya Sisterhood their own complacent complicity, when she says
"She should have just stayed gone. But then y'all dragged her ass back here again and all she did was drink until we all went away! I mean Y'all should know, since you were the ones mixing the drinks!
The sweet southern DARVO
Once all is revealed about Vivi's backstory, the Ya Yas still make it all about the narcissistic mother. DARVO strikes again. Deny, attack, reverse victim offender. The priest gave her the Milltown, that why she was abusive and locked up in an institution. Shep was to blame, the war, her parents, everyone but herself.
But she was always endangering them, making Sidda take care for the little kids when they were sick. Driving off in the night with the kids, drunk off her butt. Deserting them for a lost weekend in a hotel. We're supposed to feel so sorry for the poor put-upon parent. What mother wouldn't run off with all that burden. Except she WASN'T burdened. She couldn't even feed the kids sober. Vivi was always so far up herself that he kids came a distant second. She resented her kids. And there reveals the narcissist. She very probably would have been like that if her childhood was perfect. I know because my parents, by their own admission, were cared for and loved.
Those passive-aggressive enablers
And let's not forget the enabler dad Shep, who the reporter accurately calls out as absent, abandoning, ignoring. Where was he when the kids were ill? "Hidden out in a duck blind clutching a bottle of Maker's Mark." Watching "helplessly, as his kids being abused. Feeling sorry for himself. And making his kids feel sorry for him too, as if HE is the abused one. That's secondhand abuse. But yet he's called the patient saint with his kindly hand-patting "bebe" schtick. Well, enabler men are more often seen as a figure of pathos than a co-participant in the abuse. We fail to see their feet of clay. Sidda is talking to them all when she blasts out:
"You all may have your little Ya-Ya scars, but that was nothing to what she did to me!"
"It wasn't so much what this 'collective blindness' toward abuse said,
but what it DID NOT say. To a child, that silence isn't neutral;
it is permission and social approval." --Marilisa
"La, la, la we don't want to hear you"
But they weren't clueless or helpless, so I guess amnesia's the wrong word. Blind guides chose not to see. I was brain damaged or they were. We didn't act like normal kids. It was obvious to all that our lives were so different than kids around us. Yet no one said anything. This group gaslighting convinced me that although no one else experienced, it was okay for me to. If anyone did address it, it was in shaming, diminishing sorts of ways.
Your mom has always been difficult (and this helps a child how?)
"She's hurtin' too, bebe." (she sure is hurtin' me!)
Your dad just hasn't grown up yet (!?) (making excuses, blame-shifting)
They mean well, they're just immature. (weaponized incompetence)
They're doing their best. (invalidation and gaslighting)
Every family has difficulties. (whitewashing abuse)
Hurt people hurt people. (No they don't. Narcissists hurt people.)
We didn't know better. (sad Pikachu face)
Rise above (as in get over it.)
Two wrong don't make a right. (the gaslighting in this is so rife it's getting its own section.)
"If telling what happened is bad,
what happened must be pretty bad." --Marilisa
Twisted double back gaslighting
Where blind guides really shine is when they weaponize aphorisms that apply to the perpetrator AGAINST the victim. "Two wrongs don't make a right" means that even if the narcissistic parent was abused, this is no excuse to abuse his own children. But they deviously flip it back on the child, to make it look like her "going no contact" or calling out the abuse is wronging the parent. That it is somehow "seeking vengeance." Wrong. It's the narcissist's spiteful, vengeful, malice we are calling out. We went no contact because she cut ties and responsibilities to us as children.
Rewrite the lyrics
Here's the B-side to our narcissistic parents' groove-worn song and dance. Here are some new songs to play.
Hear the gaslighting broken record. Hear the excuses, the DARVO, the flipped scripts for what they are.
Change the record. Instead of letting our narcissistic parents and their blind guides spin the tunes, let's pick a new one. Let's begin, like Sidda, calling abuse what it is.
Be the change. Sadly, our parents didn't give us what we needed. So we must give it to ourselves. We need permission to be angry and grieve our childhoods.
