How people sabotage childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse

 

Hello my friends. Today on my path to heal childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm exploring how people sabotage childhood trauma recovery. They retraumatize you with dismissive shaming. It's not just a few people, the narcissist's flying monkeys or blind guides (ignorant, arrogant know-it-alls). The underminers hide everywhere in plain sight--in society, among friends and family, religion, even in counseling. And worst of all, it often happens with people you trust. 

How people undermine trauma recovery

• By ignoring and excusing child abuse. 
• By belittling, shaming, patronizing, minimizing or scolding abuse sufferers. 
• By siding with and defending the narcissistically abusive parents (flying monkeys).
• By blaming the abused for saying it happened, thereby exonerating the abuser. 
• By suggesting there were reasons for the abuse or that the child caused it. 
• By stonewalling, blindsiding, undermining any attempts at recovery. 
• By believing narcissistic parents' lies over the child's truth. 
• By ignoring abuse that is right in front of their eyes.  
• By passing judgement on a child who names abuse or cut ties with abusive parents. 

How blind guides participate in the original abuse

• By leaving the child alone to face these persecutors. 
• By  making excuses for, overlooking or defending the abuse. 
• By confusing the child into believing she deserves this. 
• By grooming her to expect poor treatment. 
• By pretending abuse isn't happening and it's all happy-normal in the garden. 
• By discouraging the child from seeking help or even saying what's happening. 
• By being unapproachable. 
• By doing just what the child expects will happen, nothing or worse shaming her into silence. 
• By telling her to "cheer up" and "smile." 
• By reminding her that other kids have it worse. 
• By staying silent, for whatever reason, there's no good one. 
• By comforting yourself you're helping the child by staying quiet.
• By never addressing anything that the blind guide knows is wrong with the child. 
• By making excuses that "times were different then." But abuse was always abuse. 
• By saying kids are resilient when they are wounded and vulnerable. 
• By acting like it's normal. 

Dead giveaways someone is victim shaming

There's actually a litany of gaslighting crap these blind guides say which gives them away. It sounds just like the gaslighting narcissistic parents do to their kids. 

• You're too sensitive. (this is the mantra of abusive parents)
• You can't take criticism. 
• They didn't mean it. You misunderstood. 
• That never happened. 
• They only did it because they cared (Beating, neglect, child abandonment, endangerment, coercive control, threats, bullying, slapping, humiliating, parentifying, enslavement, manipulation, exploitation, theft of childhood, set-ups, betrayal are NOT care. Just saying.)
• They didn't know any better. See above list. They knew and they went out of their way to hurt. Even when loving care would have been easier. 
• What did you do to cause it? See above list. A child NEVER causes these things. 
• You should forgive them. Why would I do that when they're not sorry and they'll just keep doing it again?)
• They made mistakes. Everyone does. (Nope, they made strategic hurtful choices).
• They are your parents. No they are cruel, enmeshed, arrogant, Machiavellian bullies I had the misfortune to be born to. I am their child (in the owned and obligated to them sense) but they were never my parents in anything resembling healthy parental care. 
• Every family has problems. Not like this they don't. And if they did that would be no excuse for perpetuating it. 

  ⚠️ WARNING

  Trauma victim shamers say they are just being blunt or brutally honest or "telling it like it is" and that they are not "telling you what you want to hear, like everyone else does." What they are, are just brutes who wouldn't know truth if it bit them in the nose. They aren't telling anything like it is, they are shooting off their mouths to make themselves feel relevant and important at your expense. They are kryptonite to your super power healing.

Gaslighting tools of abuse defenders

• They DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender) (You're hurting your parents by going no contact or naming what they did.) 
• They use FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) to trigger your trauma responses of fawning, people pleasing and letting people hurt you.
• They trample your boundaries by undermining, second-guessing and criticizing you for setting boundaries. Sound familiar? 
• They twist words like parents, honor, respect, duty, obligation, obedience and family. "They are your family. You owe them respect, obedience. It's your duty to honor your parents, blah, blah). When your parents didn't do their duty by you. They disrespected and didn't care for you. You were their possession when it suited their purpose but when you needed anything from them, they abandoned you. They groomed you to serve them and they served no one. They forced obedience to them and anyone else they dictated was in authority over you, like their equally selfish spouses. 
• They use your childhood trauma responses against to further enslave you to these people. They cause betrayal blindness by deceiving you with all their lies and gaslighting. 
• They say they are just "translating" for you because you aren't thinking clearly or making sense. What they are doing is talking over you and talking you down. Because they think they know everything when they know nothing. 
• They don't listen to you. 
• They back-stab you. 
• They start smear campaigns against you. 
• They use family mobbing. 
• They tell you they are just helping you. They are not. They are hurting you and hindering your recovery.

Myths about childhood trauma shamers

• People don't shame victims because they don't understand. They know exactly what they're doing, and continue to berate you. 
• Victim shamers aren't well-meaning. How could they mean well and still belittle an abused child?
• Victim shamers don't "accidently" shame. They go out of their way to stick their noses in with their stupid unsolicited advice on things they neither know nor care about. They intentionally say hurtful, demeaning and dehumanizing comments. Just like your parents did. 
• Victim shamers aren't nice people. They are arrogantly and self-righteously tell you off without having a clue about what happened to you and/or not giving a damn. They just like the sound of their own pratting voice. 
• Victim shamers are hypocrites. If they or someone they loved, suffered anything like what you did, they'd be singing a different tune. 
• Victim shamers talk the talk but don't walk the walk. They preach but don't practice. 
• Victim shamers are arrogant and entitled. They think they are owed a say on your trauma, like they have a side of your story or a right to an opinion on it. 

How their shaming retraumatizes you

• You know those earworms you have of your parents' cruel voices in your head? Well, these 2.0 abusers create even more. voices in your head. You can't do anything without hearing their self-righteous, hypocritical mocking, attacking, fault-finding and trash-talking. 
• It destroys your already fragile self-worth and violates your trust. Because these people lurk everywhere, they often show up as "friends" and "loved ones." But anyone who devalues you is no friend. They are wolves in sheep's clothing and should be avoided. 
• Because they seem so innocent or well-meaning, you let your guard down. And they get in  your head, just like your narcissistic parents did. They take up residence and pirate your defenses, trash your brain home, kick down your boundaries and stage a hostile takeover of your common sense. 
• They whittle away at your emotional resources till your resistance is non-existant
• They make you sick. Literally. Wearing down resistance leaves you open to infection. I actually have several auto-immune issues and structural damage from family of origin abuse. 

Why would anyone victim shame?

That's a good question. I can't see myself shaming anyone, let alone a childhood trauma sufferer. I think it's because more people are duplicitous than I would like to admit. They wear a caring or Godly mask. But when they talk, you can hear the judgmental disdain and holier-than-thou-ness. However childhood trauma survivors are betrayal blind to the original abuse and to anyone who calls themselves our friend or family. We are too trusting. We believe people when they say they have our best interests at heart even when the alarm bells are sounding that they don't. Our abusive parents conditioned us to trust dangerous people, to cater to bullies, and be grateful for crumbs and expect abuse as what we deserve. 

So where does that leave us?

You know what I'm going to say. That we have to stop driving past danger signs. We have acknowledge to ourselves when someone feels unsafe to be around. We have to take off the blinders and earplugs and see the wolf's teeth and hear the growl of danger. We don't owe them any loyalty, nor to let them hurt us. We deserve better than we got. We have a right and a responsibility to take care of ourselves. We have to stop believing people care and start expecting them to show it. We have to show up for ourselves. 

Radical Acceptance: Recognizing that those who hurt us do not have our best interests at heart is a powerful step. With that in mind, I am committed to limiting or cutting contact with anyone who sabotages my healing.

Childhood trauma mythbuster: Holding a grudge is crucial when you go no contact with narcissistic parents

 Hello my friends. Today in my childhood trauma recovery work, I'm going to bust yet another myth that "blind guides" (enablers) perpetuate. And that is, that not only is holding a grudge not a bad thing, it's also crucial for adult children who have gone no contact with their narcissistic parents. Maintaining a realistic remembrance, even anger and refusing to just "get over" it, is part of radical acceptance. It is the beginning of healthy boundary setting.  

What holding a grudge is

Think of holding a grudge like a bookmark. Why do we bookmark a page? We hold it open so we don't forget where we are in the story. Holding a grudge is remembering what happened to get us to the point that we had to cut contact with our narcissistic parents. It recalling all the details of our backstory, all the times they hurt, abused, neglected, exploited, endangered, scapegoated, triangulated, manipulated, invalidated, dehumanized, stole from and abandoned us. Holding a grudge means keeping the page open to the real version. It's not letting them rewrite our history with gaslighting, lies, DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender), smear campaigns, family mobbing, projection and other revisionist history tactics. It's holding space for our brain damaged inner child, to help her get safer and saner. 

📖🔖

Holding a grudge is simply remembering how they hurt you and refusing to forget or overlook it. 

What holding a grudge isn't

Grudge-holding isn't dysregulated rage, pouting, passive-aggressive attacks or vengeance seeking. It isn't trauma dumping on everyone who will listen. It isn't punishing the narcissist by seeking retribution. Though with their DARVO and blame-shifting, they will probably say you are. Just let them rave, but don't let them gaslight you with all their double standards and self-righteous mumbo-jumbo. You are just  holding them accountable for their own actions, instead of being the fall girl who takes the consequences on herself. But it isn't humiliating them or wishing them evil. They will get plenty of that, if karma and God have their say. Narcissist parents do so much harm that it will come back to bite them in time. 

Holding a grudge is silent resistance

You don't and probably shouldn't tell them you don't forgive them. It's isn't about proving anything to them. It's about proving that you care about yourself. It may mean having honest conversations with them, but it doesn't have to. I won't ever try to discuss this with my narcissistic parents because they'll just do what they always did, lying, backpedaling, gaslighting, minimizing and shame-shifting. For me, it's about drawing a firm between us, not backing down from facts and making it clear that what I won't let them get away with again. This works best for me by actions. It's me finally defying their hold over me. 

Holding a grudge is about fixing you, not them.  It's protecting and articulating your truth, so it can set you free. 

Wrong things narcissistically abused kids are taught

So often "blind guides" aka flying monkeys or enablers, (in religion, society, family, even psychology) tell abused kids, wrongly, that holding a grudge, or not forgiving is wicked.  They prat to get over it, forgive, rise above and be the bigger person. They make excuses galore for the selfish, arrogant, cruel ADULT parents and then expect children to be paragons of virtue. But they never stop to ask about the hell we actually endured. They just go into preacher mode because, and this is important, they never did care about us. Many of these same blind guides stood by and watched our parents abuse us and did nothing. 

A warning note on blind guides

If these would be helpers had really cared, they see that that's ALL WE HAVE EVER DONE (rising above, forgiving, etc.) Our our enmeshed parents trauma bonded us into their narcissistic cult fantasy which gave us betrayal blindness. This cognitive dissonance with reality and the stress they kept putting on us, damaged our brain, leaving us with no protective resources and only dangerous trauma responses like people pleasing. It's all we know. So this hypocritical pontificating about "rising above" just translates to our vulnerable minds, that we are STILL responsible for fixing what our narcissistic parents broke. That keeping peace at any price and at our own expense is the right thing to do. That going no contact is somehow betraying, disobeying, disrespecting our parents. But they were never parents to us. They were enmeshed slaveowners who groomed us to provide them with narcissistic supply. All this perpetuates our betrayal blindness and exacerbates our childhood trauma response of fawning and people pleasing. 

Forgiving narcissists makes them even more entitled

So the opposite of grudge-holding would be forgiving, as per blind guides. But people get forgiving wrong too. Forgiving, correctly understood, is radical acceptance that the past will never be anything other than what is was and that it HAPPENED. Which is the opposite of our parents

 gaslighting indoctrination which lied it away or blamed us. Because, here's the rub. Our narcissistic parent never apologize or even admit they were wrong. They DARVO and twist. They aren't sorry. So just how are we supposed to "forgive" that? They expect carte blanche tolerance for all their bad actions. They blame-shift and foist consequences on us. And then tell us we have to forgive them cuz God says so. So us just complying and erasing the past, just gives them more liberty to keep hurting us. 

What forgiveness isn't

But radical acceptance isn't what narcissists or their flying monkeys have in mind when they say forgive. What they preach is rolling over for and letting yourself be kicked. They want you to do the 7 deadly E's: excuse, exonerate, expunge, exclude (them from rules) exempt (them from consequences), enable and endure further abuse. They have this naive fairytale view of families that doesn't apply to us. The way they preach forgiveness like it's a ruby-slipper clicking birthday wish that magics away all the  past bad. Like it never happened and it's all good. It's did and it's not. Interestingly, when the narcissist hurts them, they aren't so quick to forgive, either with the fairy dust kind or the radical acceptance. 

Narcissists and blind guides never "get over" anything. 

Why it's important to hold a grudge

When you hold a grudge, you hold onto the memories and the pain and damage they caused. And yes there is an element of anger. It's about time we abused kids got angry with them. Anger helps us keep our edge so we don't fall for their wiles again. Grudge holding is putting in the bookmark and letting it stay there. It's not holding doors open that they keep slamming on your foot. It's about retaining a healthy distance from hurtful people because you remember what they did. You wouldn't pet a rattlesnake because you hoped this time he won't bite you. They always bite. That's why they make the warning rattle. Ignoring it is foolish, just as ignoring and overlooking past treachery on the part of narcissistic parents is dangerous. They hurt because that's what they do. Letting those memories speak their piece, and not quelling them is one of the tasks to healing. It's moving out of their sites and getting to a safer place out of their clutches. 

Hypocrisy of the traumatized child's duty of care to aging enmeshed narcissist parent

Hello my friends. Today on my path to childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm exploring the hypocrisy that religion and society feeds us. We traumatized kids are told we owe a duty of care to our aging enmeshed narcissist parents. But what they fail to account for, is that we have been caring for them all our lives and they have never cared for us. If this resonates, if you're sick of the FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) over what you supposedly owe them, hang on. Cuz we're gonna do some myth-busting about that "duty of care" and who owes and who doesn't. 

Neglectful AND needy-wanty parents

It's ironic how often the most demanding, expectational parents were also the most neglectful and exploitative of their kids. That's because abusive, enmeshed parents start out as they mean to continue, using the child as a prop, a tool, a slave, a parent (parentification) and a source of narcissistic supply. And they keep doing it throughout the child's life. There never was any reciprocity with narcissistic parents and there never will be. It's just take, steal, demand, expect with them and give, roll over for, tolerate and be abused, for the child. 

Deprivation, gaslighting and brain damage

In healthy families, there's a balance. The kids are cared for and then very often (not always and they don't have to) they care for their parents appropriately as they begin to age and need help. Good parents don't expect "paybacks. We don't bring up what we're entitled to. We don't think like that. But for kids abused by narcissistic parents, it's all one-sided with all good coming to them, with no payout coming from them. They strategically deprive the child of very basic needs then gaslight and confuse her that this is normal. Or that it's her fault in some way. The chaos of cognitive dissonance causes brain damage, lowers resistance and resilience and makes the child more vulnerable to abuse, which they exploit. Lather, rinse, repeat. 

Brain damage from abuse further victimizes us

The gaslit child grows into a befuddling adult who literally doesn't know right from wrong. We are trauma bonded and think it's fine for our parents to have used and abused us. That's what they indoctrinated us to believe. We have betrayal blindness and pretty much only operate on childhood trauma responses, of people pleasing and fawning, rather than healthy interaction. This makes us so vulnerable to further narcissistic abuse, especially by our parents. It sets a pattern of being taken advantage of and not seeing it. 

The FOG and DARVO traps 

Enmeshed narcissistic parents have a line of bullshit a mile long. They spin fairytales of FOG (fear, obligation and guilt)-- enumerating all we "owe" them because of all they "did for us." Our betrayal blindness silences any clear recall about  how they never did for us, except harm. They were never there for us. They abused, neglected, abandoned, endangered, dehumanized, scapegoated, enslaved and exploited us. But because we are so run down by abuse we don't have the energy to fight back. We can't see clearly how we've always done for them and they never did for us. We keep them full up on narcissistic supply because it's dangerous not to. We believe their DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender) lies which tell us we are the problem. And how we must spend ourselves making it up to them. 

Duty of care delusion

On top of all this pain, there's the way religion and society pressures us. In a reciprocal world, people help each other. But we were never on the receiving, only giving end of care. So our duty of care never ends. If we mention this imbalance, we're told "life isn't fair. Suck it up. She's your mom. He's your dad. Be the bigger person. She's old now. Forgive and forget. Let it go." And all this is hypocritical hogwash these "blind guides" preach but don't practice. Because blind guides give unsolicited advice (gaslighting) but they don't follow it. They're free with "shoulding" and stingy with doing. They're generous with your income, support, home, resources and cheap with theirs. They want to put your money where their mouth is. 

On the Myth of "Duty of Care"

"We traumatized kids are told we owe a duty of care to our aging enmeshed narcissist parents. But what they fail to account for is that we have been caring for them all our lives and they have never cared for us."

The never-ending obligations

My mother expects 24/7/365 care. I'm not exaggerating. She doesn't need it. She can walk, talk, hear, drive and navigate. She just fakes she can't for pity and attention. Before I "got sober" from her, she'd guilt me into taking her to the doctor. She did not need a ride and was perfectly capable of driving herself. But mother requires an entourage wherever she goes. She takes it as an ego injury or insult if you don't wait on her. Also, she gets far less pity mileage just going to the doctor alone. She can't play her little game of "poor me, can't hear, can't walk, can't think for myself" because there's no one to cater to her. No one realizes how special she is so she has to fend for herself. So, being used to being in mother's service, I fell for it. 

No good deed goes unpunished

And entitlement only gets worse the more you keep paying out. It was like watching a quick change artist, in slow motion. Mother expects dutiful daughter to shepherd her along, hovering lest mommy trip and fall. That's true. She actually says she does it. She once told me how she would walk into traffic unless her other (Golden child) daughter pulls her back. Mom has been a Munchhausen's (Factitious Disorder) and Munchausen's by Proxy before there were terms for it. Now you might be tempted to say, oh poor mom and blame dementia. And she'd agree with you if she thought she could get something out of it. She does not have dementia. She fakes it. The fact that she knows she's PURPOSELY WALKING INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC demonstrates how far she'll go for attention. And she's been doing this for decades. I once walked downtown with her and she looked right at me and started out into traffic. I didn't do anything to stop her. I called her bluff which I know was a risk. (actually I wasn't purposely trying to out her. I just forgot this little trick she plays.) But she stopped and stepped back, then got angry with me for not pulling her back like her golden child does. What she was, was pissed off that she got caught in her theatrics. 

The Doctor Debacle

And if she's bad on a walk, you should see her at the doctor. Mom was always an exhibitionist "pick me." She was full-on sexy vamp with a string of boyfriends, plus pretty baby, plus preachy church lady. It was exhausting to be her child. Now that she's older, she figures if she can't be the sexiest in the room, she'll be the most pathetic. She feigns deafness and incapacity as it suits her. As her supporting cast, you must repeat and translate everything that is said. She can hear fine when even when you aren't talking very loud and she forgets she's supposed to be deaf. She speaks the language, she just pretends not to understand. You have to answer for her and patiently explain basic things like writing her name. She's capable. It's all an act she just plays the role for attention and to make daughter appear cold-hearted if she doesn't carry mother like a helpless infant. The receptionist will call her name and she'll look up, start to get up, then remember she "can't hear", look down again and put this imbecilic expression her face, waiting for you to tell her they called her. And we haven't even made it past the damn waiting room. 

The Breakfast Blindside

At this appointment, a nurse asked her if she'd had breakfast (I had not because I had to rush out to get her there, but I digress). Anyway mom pulled her little trout pout, lower lip trembling, side-eyed me and said she couldn't remember. In this galling fakey fragile voice. She'd eaten. She takes good care of herself. But it gets her more pity cred to make it look like daughter dearest had failed to "feed mom." (A grown ass woman perfectly able to feed herself.) The nurse scolded me and said I needed to take mother out to lunch immediately afterwards. Boy, did mom preen after that. I literally watched her face go from piteous to smug "gotcha." 

Note to healthcare staff: please don't assume everything the patient tells you is true. Be wary of dispensing advice or falling for your patient's version of events. You don't know the full story. Be mindful that this can make the child caregiver's already difficult life, worse. 

The ickiest part

But there's more to mom's posing than just weaponized incompetence. There's a sick, sexual side to her which proves her malignant dark tetrad nature. I thought we were there for a routine check. But come to find out, mom (a 75 y/o woman) wanted sex advice from the doctor. She snapped at me that "you won't want to hear this but I just have to ask." Which is true. I never wanted to hear all her gross sex talk, that I've been hearing since I was 8. I was expected to play sex therapist and she spared no gory detail. Now what the doctor should have said to me was, "how about you wait outside." Or I should have excused myself. But you know, fawning and people pleasing and wanting be what I was expected to be...Anyway, she launched into this weird discussion about how she wants to please her husband but can't handle sex because "he's so coarse." Blech. We both explained other methods which she (who was always free with favors including in front of me) pretended not to understand. Finally I said "bl-wj-b, mom!" And she smirked her facetious narcissistic smirk of "gotcha." It was then I realized mom gets narcissistic supply humiliating me and making me feel uncomfortable. She actually feels self-righteous while egging someone on to be "rude, crude and lewd" as she puts it. While allowing and encouraging her live-in boyfriend to tell dirty jokes, and say vulgar things to and about me, like calling me "blisters" in regards to my as yet undeveloped breasts. She just sat by and smiled smugly. She sets them up, then laughs when they fall for it. That won't happen again. I'm done being her sex toy. 

What about if they "really need" you?

Therein lies the way they maintain control over you. Because the older someone gets, arguably the more help they need. I say arguably because 1) narcissists are very "needy" (translation: wanty) all their lives. 2) They feel entitled to your resources but are selfish with theirs when you need something. 3) They play by a double standard two sets of rules. It's family does for family when they want something and business transaction when you need something. 4) your needs were called selfish wants and their selfish wants are called needs.  

But, you are a better judge of what they need from you than they are. Bottom line, they may actually need legitimate help but it's not your responsibility to provide it. My mom would come over to get something from me then leave when it came to her reciprocity. She'd say she "had to get home to her family." Well, now that she's older, we play the family card back on her. When she comes with her hand out (the only reason she comes over) we turn out empty pockets. What we are telling her in actions is " You have a family to get home to. Let them help you." And when she plays the pity card about how her second husband left her. Well, you effed around and now you are finding out. People get sick of playing bit parts in your show. Petty? Nope. Reality. 

And if she ends up truly stranded, well now you know how it feels all the times you bailed on me as AS A CHILD. Also, you shouldn't have cried wolf so often. If that's cold-hearted, so be it. Hitting bottom would be the best thing for her. And if we keep enabling her and putting out the cushion, she will just get more entitled. 

I can quit anytime I want

Thanks to my loving husband, I began to see her gaslighting, humiliation of me, set ups and exploitation for what they were. And the flying monkeys, be they in the church, family, psychologist's chair, can keep their advice for themselves. If they think she needs help, let them step up. But be warned, she's blown through every relationship and burned every bridge and she will with you too. But that said, I doubt the flying monkeys will ever step up. Because flying monkeys are much better at talking than walking the walk. 

I don't owe care to those who never cared for me. None of my parents EVER WAS a  parent to me. I was always their parent, possession, spouse, surrogate, scapegoat and servant. And I can continue to serve pro bono and non-gratis. I can continue to pay the doormat tax (thank you Dr. Ramani for that term). Or I can stop. I chose to go no contact and stop. 

Not as sure as I'd like, but surer than I was

Some of my bluster now is whistling past the cemetery. I'm not as brave as I may sound nor as bold as I may look. I'm vulnerable to old gaslighting voices in my head. I second-guess myself on going no contact. But I'm also the most free and authentic that I've ever been. I see clearly now the gaslighting fog has lifted. I feel relieved, like a self-flagellating backpack full of rocks has been been lifted from my broken shoulders. It still hurts with a ghost pain that may be with me for life. But I will proceed. Once you see their abuse, you can never unsee it. 

Not the popular option but the necessary one. 

If you go no contact as I have, don't expect praise. Prepare for the blame-shifting shame society heaps on us. But also see it for what it is. They don't understand and haven't tried to. Ever. They are just repeating unhelpful nonsense. And remember, these are often the same people who stood by and held the coats of your persecutors. They saw how you were being treated and played dumb. So their voices now are just clanging cymbals you can feel free to ignore. When the hakken-kraks howl, stand tall in your shoes. Keep moving and if you can't move forward at least don't go back. I see and hear you. I'll hold space for you because you really do "got this." 

Dreams expose real perpetrators of childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse

Hello my friends. Today in my CPTSD recovery, I'm exploring how my dreams expose childhood trauma from narcissistic parent abuse. This is part of a series, based on trauma nightmares I've started to deconstruct. Last night's was one of the most horrifying I've ever dreamed and the funny thing is, I can't recall what happened, only the sick, sucker punch nausea I woke up with. 

PTSD and CPTSD nightmare reality

From personal experience, I've become quite the expert on trauma dreaming. Every single night, I have upsetting, confusing, sleep-depriving dreams. I wake up choking and screaming. Thank God for my patient, loving husband or I think I'd have gone stark raving mad by now. I've never spoken to anyone who dreams like I do. I've never found a clinician who can shed light. They're so bad that those I've told are shocked and traumatized themselves hearing my nightmares described. I've tried everything to stop them but the persistence tells me that radical acceptance of them plus some deep dives into dream origins might be necessary. 

Wrong ideas about trauma nightmares

Before I look at that, I'm going to explode a few myths about trauma nightmares. Most of these myths come from misrepresentations in books and movies. Others come from outmoded psychological fallacies like "dream interpretation." I'm a Freudian at heart, but his teachings on dreams are just categorically wrong. 

☠💀🕱I can speak definitively on trauma dreaming, having had more nightmares than real life experiences. 

• Dreams aren't always recurrent. There's an misnomer that people dream the same dream every night. That's not my experience. Mine have similar themes--floods, children in danger, fear, oppression, chaos, coercive control by malignant parents--but the scenarios are wildly different. My dreams have taken place on every street in our city. 
• Dreams don't  have one "hidden meaning." I believe that nightmarish dreams stem from brain damage from parental abuse. I don't have research to prove it, just experience. But I do know that repeated cortisol bursts from fear, stress and chronic anxiety of chaotic, hostile, antagonistic parents, damages the brain. 
• Nightmares aren't always based on a specific event but on an accumulation of frightening experiences. And a pervasive, threatening, antagonistic, highly toxic, destabilized home environment. This is what I call a "trauma lifestyle" that began in infancy. 
• Nightmares aren't always the brain reliving the experience but the feelings surrounding it. In my case, anxiety, overwhelming parental oppression, terror, too much responsibility and FOG (fear, obligation and guilt). 

Trauma lifestyle

My childhood and adult life with four dark tetrad narcissistic parents was a Sears catalog of abuse, neglect, endangerment, chaos, abandonment, triangulation, manipulation, violence, aggression, scapegoating, enslavement, parentification, dehumanizing and gaslighting about it all. It was consistently inconsistent. I was shuffled around through 40 different homes before age 20. I understood none of this clearly because trauma bonding caused betrayal blindness. I didn't see how bad it was, but my dreams did and they remembered. 

Early dream iterations

Because home life was so frightening, and family was so hostile, I did a lot of compartmentalization, cognitive splitting and drowning out memories. I kept silent till I lost my voice and power of accurate recall. My earlier dreams alluded to this parent abuse, but didn't dare to expose the real perpetrators. The dreams put different safer faces on my abusers, to shield my mind from total collapse. I had what were called back then, a series, or maybe one long nervous breakdown. I was able to hide it by internalizing and absorbing everything but it leaked out in self-harm episodes and dreams. 

The masks are slipping

Over the last year and a half, since really digging into childhood trauma recovery, my dreams have shifted. My dreams are showing me the real faces, of the four people who called themselves my parents, who were behind all the pain and suffering. They've been revealing their true colors and wow, it's so much worse than I even remembered and what I remember is pretty bad. The malignancy, vindictiveness and malice is there in all its unvarnished evil. And the shock and nausea I feel aren't from fictional horror but reality. I remember now exactly how malevolent they were, feelings I'd squashed because it was just too much to contemplate. 

My husband, who has been helping me unearth the nightmare sources, and who knows my backstory, says these aren't dreams but recovered memories. 

Dreams drive recovery

My dreams are holding nothing back. They're outing the truth behind the web of gaslighting. They were showing me as a victim, not the problem their DARVO twisted me into. As awful and painful as all this is, it is also a relief. Before, nothing they said seemed to fit or make sense. It was all so dark and confusing. The gaslighting made me feel I was walking blind. Now I can see more clearly that all the terrible things they said about me, were actually true of them. I am not perfect, but I'm also not an evil monster. I am a shell-shocked survivor. 

My path forward 

In light of all this, I'm going to...

• Let the dreams play out. Let them have their say. Listen and watch what is really happening. 
• Stop defending, justifying, answering for, denying and explaining away THEIR hurtful actions toward me. 
• Stop auto-DARVO-ing them as victims and me as the offender. 
• Fumigate the toxic gas of gaslighting. All their lies, blame-shifting and perversions have left my little house filled with poisonous fumes that need to be purged.
• Hear and talk back to their shaming voices in my head. 
• Go no contact with anything that drags me back to those dark days. 
• Know that I'm not perfect but that I don't  have to be. 
• Continue to act in accordance with my own ideas and personal code of ethics.  

Love to you all and thanks for reading. For more geek speak on childhood trauma brain damage and the CPTSD nightmare connection, read on. 

Narcissistic parent hypocrisies: The vindictive, jealous, judgmental "pick me" parent

 Hello my friends. Today on the path to childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm exploring the hypocrisies of the backstabbing, competitive, jealous, judgmental "pick me" parent. Both my parents and their second partners were narcissists. Mom is malignant, grandiose turning vulnerable as she ages. Dad and stepdad are grandiose with malignant narcissistic rage. Stepmom was covert, passive-aggressive vulnerable narcissist. Today we'll look at the jealous, vindictive "pick me" aspect of the narcissistic mother. Then I'll connect how she uses religious gaslighting, "Virtue signaling", triangulation, enmeshment and weaponized Christianity to maintain her perceived moral high ground while acting very immoral. 

Why all the descriptors for narcissistic abuse?

So that was a lot of jargon, because the narcissistic parent does so many audaciously nasty, underhanded things. She's a mess of contradictions, sneaky tactics, dirty tricks, control freak power plays and flip-flopping double standards. She has a complicated arsenal of weapons that she strategically employs like a general with a complex battle plan. A narcissistic parent doesn't parent. She doesn't nurture. She doesn't do any of the things that healthy parents do. She does the opposite. 

A malignant narcissistic parent ambushes, deceives, gaslights, parentifies, bullies, harasses, terrorizes, invalidates, dehumanizes, manipulates, exploits, neglects, abandons, harms and endangers her child all as part of her grand scheme to employ and then destroy the child. 

Everything is reversed and weaponized

Upon hearing the insane chaos and abuse I lived with, people ask "how could a mother and father do this?" Listeners struggle to believe my stories because they don't fit anything like normal,  healthy parent-child relationships. That's because they didn't parent and had no intention of  parenting me. To them, I was a utile possession, not a child. Everything was backwards for me. I was parentified AND infantilized (a common double whammy kids of narcissists experience). There were two ever-changing sets of rules. Wrong was right for them to do, and right was wrong for me. I had to do a four-way cognitive split to accommodate not only two narcissistic parents but their bullying narcissistic new spouses. The cognitive dissonance this caused me was unbearable pain and later led to dissociative splits and dissociation. 

The jealous, competitive, enmeshed narcissistic parent

I was trying to remember good times with my parents that didn't come back to bite me and I couldn't. I recall a few isolated happy times, always surrounded by so much chaos and hurt that it made those few times worse. Because life with a narcissist, especially a dark tetrad malignant narcissistic parent is like living in Mordor. Nothing is as it seems or should be. Each day is fraught with gratuitous peril, just because they are so bent on destruction. They lie, compete with and extort from their child. They are jealous instead of proud of her. They one-up, fault-find and undermine her.  Her goodness is something they attack and dismantle. They get off on seeing the child humiliated and set up smear campaigns to make that happen. They create an atmosphere of FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) then DARVO and make the child feel responsible and at fault for their sick, perverted actions. 

Why? 

That's a good question. And the answer differs depending on the type and at that period of time, the gender of the narcissistic parent. Women were assigned rigid roles of motherhood that my mother didn't want to follow. Fair enough. But she wanted her cake and to eat it too. She wanted the perks of motherhood without the work. She was needy-wanty, attention-seeking and self-pitying. It was always the Nancy Show. Current terminology (thank you Reddit) would call her a "not like other girls" "pick me" with "main character syndrome." She was also loose, easy and immoral and got around (those are the old terms for it). BUT she was also self-righteous and religious. My dad had a lot of these traits too. They made everything all about them and indoctrinated me in their narcissistic fantasy cult to do likewise. And I did. 

Why did I let them hurt me? 

Gaslighting is real, especially parental gaslighting. Narcissistic enmeshed parents start as they mean to continue when a  child comes along, grooming her to serve them. This abnormal-normal was all I knew. It was too dangerous not to give them what they wanted. My very life depended on keeping them full up on narcissistic supply which meant taking on myself the consequences of their abusive actions and being their fall girl. You might well ask, wasn't this worse for you than just rebelling? My own history of depression, self-harm, anxiety, hypervigilance, dangerous people pleasing and fawning trauma responses, and self-abandonment would prove that true. But I didn't understand till I was nearly 60 because trauma bonding induced betrayal blindness that is very potent. I thought this was my lot in life, that I deserved. 

Fake "Christian" persona effs things up further

I used to say both my parents "fancied themselves" good Christians and even preachers and missionaries. Now I say they wanted us to fancy them as Christians. It was entirely performative virtue signaling. They got their story in first about what good Christians they were and how they were doing God's work when they were just pursuing selfish ends. By telling their version preemptively, anyone else, like me, who might tell the true version would be more likely disbelieved. The onus of proof would be on me. Who's to say God wasn't calling them to be missionaries? Well, the church they were in for one. Family for another. But even say He was, they did nothing to prepare because they felt entitled to do it "their way." Which meant letting other people do the work of caring for me, feeding, clothing and housing them while just talked. 

People have a bad habit of believing what they're told over the evidence of their own eyes. 

More on virtue signaling and how it confuses people

Virtue signaling is the public expression of opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s own good character, moral correctness, or alignment with a particular social or political cause. Said simply, it is faking and portraying yourself as something you're not. 

The term is often used critically to describe actions or statements that are perceived as being done more to gain social approval or "moral status" than to create genuine change.

Key Characteristics:

• Performative Nature: The focus is on the act of being seen to care, rather than the impact of the action itself.

• For the camera. Or now for social media is the only time you hear about their supposed beliefs. Their actions don't line up. They preach but don't practice. They share posts but don't write their own. My mother was always mugging for the camera but never actually around for me. 

• Social Currency: It is often used to signal belonging to a specific "in-group." By publicly stating a position, an individual reinforces their status within a community that holds those same values.

• Low Personal Cost: Critics of virtue signaling often point out that it frequently involves actions with very little personal risk, effort, or sacrifice—such as changing a profile picture, sharing a hashtag, or making a quick statement—rather than engaging in deep, sustained, or private work for a cause.

Why it is controversial:

• The Accusation of Insincerity: The primary criticism is that the person doing the "signaling" may not actually be committed to the values they are projecting. It suggests that they are using a serious issue as a prop to make themselves look like a "good person."

• The "Holier-Than-Thou" Effect: Because it is often used to separate the "virtuous" from those who disagree, it can be viewed as judgmental, dismissive, or designed to shut down debate by moralizing an issue.

The real version of the Christian narcissist's behavior

Both my "Christian" parents, and later their spouses routinely violated commandments and rules that they preached against. I'm talking big ticket items, not just little venial sins. They told me their adultery, scamming, stealing, lying, cheating, pedophilia, co-habiting, divorce, child abuse was wrong for everyone but them. Both of them illegally ran foster care homes under the Christian guise which they left me at 11 to manage. Both were shut down for numerous violations. My "pro-life" mother took a girl to have an abortion with me in the car. My 36 year old dad dated a 17 year old. My mother's boyfriend's wife beat her up in front of me. They were both considered immoral, lascivious, debauched, homewreckers by family and probably society at large. But yet he preached and read his Bible and she played the organ in church. Blatantly and openly living in sin and still preaching morality. And no one ever addressed any of this with  me. I coped by acting fine while being in extreme dissociative fugue. And my "normalcy" fooled a lot of people. 

What now? 

Another good question. My advice to myself is to keep seeing and hearing what was wrong with all of it. Name it and claim it. My advice to you who may be younger and still living in it, is the same plus these tips I wish I'd known then.

• Use social media, like Reddit. Especially #raisedbynarcissists and #AITA. Listen closely to the  stories being shared and look for similarities to your own. That's what woke me up, reading how kids today are experiencing abuse patterns like mine. My response was to reach out and help them but I remembered that ya gotta put your own oxygen mask on first. 
• Read up on narcissism. Listen to podcasts on Youtube. My favorites are

• Dr. Ramani

• Jerry Wise

• Patrick Teahan

• Danish Bashir

• Dr. Les Carter (Surviving Narcissism)

• Darren Magee

• The Crappy Childhood Fairy

Enmeshed parents aren't just needy and pathetic, they're malignant

 

Hello my friends. On my path to childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm exploring parent enmeshment. I'm going to explain, from personal experience, what it is and what it isn't. I'm going to show how enmeshed parents aren't just needy and pathetic, they're much worse. Enmeshed narcissistic parents are malicious, malignant, cunning, arrogant, entitled and devious AF. They use all kinds of dirty tricks to literally (and I don't use that word lightly) dehumanize, hijack the child's self and enslave her to their Machiavellian purposes. They are worse than any tyrannical despot. I know: I lived under the chaotic, shifting regimes of four narcissistic parents. 

What an enmeshed parent isn't

People often get enmeshment wrong and others' leverage it for their own agenda. My dear friend's nasty narcissistic ex-husband called her family enmeshed which is ironic for so many reasons. What she is, is a loving mother who is involved in her children's lives. There is reciprocity and inter-reliance. But no wonder he misunderstood genuine care for "enmeshment." Dude was so self-absorbed and up his own posterior that he looked out his own mouth. His unbridled "arrogant-ignorance" meant he eschewed psychology and therapy, so wouldn't understand a psychological term if it bit him in the ass. Yet he felt free to wrongly bandy this about as an accusation. It's that typical? What he was, was jealous of their healthy family dynamic and the fact that she had other people in her life besides his whiny, petulant baby man self. And because he had so signally screwed up his own kids. 

"Enmeshed narcissistic parents are malicious, malignant, cunning, arrogant, entitled and devious AF. They use all kinds of dirty tricks to literally dehumanize, hijack the child's self and enslave her to their Machiavellian purposes."

The enmeshment euphemism

So parental enmeshment isn't loving interactive families. But it's also not the poor, pitiful parent who IS just a little clingy. This is a devious parent who refuses to accept that she ends and the child begins. She forces that child to believe that he is her possession, an extension of herself, like an arm but with less autonomy. AND with no reciprocity. The child is an appendage that the parent doesn't care for. He only cares about what the appendage can do for him. It's the dad who gaslights the child that he has proprietary rights to the child to use and abuse as he sees fit. He coercively controls her into servitude to him and yet neglects his basic parent duties to her. 

The gaslighting of pity

All too often, people I'll call blind guides say they "feel sorry for" the enmeshed parent. Well, don't worry, she does too. She's the consummate self-pity party hostess. And ironically, these same people who feel sorry for her, also do not have to live with her. They aren't she ones she demands from and depends on. So it's easy for them to pontificate from their safe distance. Or their own healthy, balanced relationships with their parents. They often parenthetically insert a generous dose of "shoulding" to guilt the already overburdened kid. "You should feel sorry for her. You're lucky to have a loving mom.  Be grateful, she won't always be with you! You shouldn't be so judgmental and critical of her." And the pity-partier, with her narcissistic smirk, sanctimoniously and self-righteously laps it up while managing to appear more vulnerable.  She weaponizes others' pity to be even more demanding. 

The hypocrisy of pity

I've watched my mother arrange her features to appear as pitiful as possible. She wears nightgowns in public to seem pathetic and to prove how her mean old family doesn't provide for her. She believes that she should just lie there and be waited on. That she has no responsibility to care for herself, let alone anyone else. She actually tells people that she "doesn't get enough to eat." As though she's not a grown woman able to feed herself and it's someone else's job to. My extended family, despite knowing how neglectful she was to me as a child, called me to verify, like I had some duty to see to it she ate. Funny how all the times we were struggling because of my parents sponging and stealing from me, no one was there. It kind of made me sick but also, made me laugh how gullible they were. Did they really believe this obviously well-upholstered woman was starving? For God sakes, they knew her histrionic main character energy and that it was historic. One distant cousin told me she knew my mom at 18 and she was high maintenance, center of attention even then. But flying monkeys are free with their unsolicited advice and stingy with actual compassion.  They never call her because she drives them nuts too. And no one volunteers to care for her, I noticed. They just judgmentally tell me I should. So excuse my honesty, but pity is a luxury the child can't afford. 

Conveniently "weak and frail" 

The images above perfectly reflect my mother's convenient frailty and "pick me" vibe.  At her brother's funeral, she loudly shouted and laughed how she was the fun, crazy "not like other girls" aunt while everyone was gathered TO PRAY. She who's God's little soldier, loudly preaching how other people don't respect God, was upstaging both God and the deceased at his own funeral! Then she had to be assisted upstairs where during the service she yelled HALLELUJAH" during the service. Then at the graveside she went frail again, feigning inability to walk. Doddering along, she positively simpered when her BILs rushed up to help her. She leaned heavily on everyone (even me who had just had shoulder surgery). Then dropped the frail act when no audience was watching and literally ran up to the buffet like a sprinter! 

Enmeshed parent entitlement knows no bounds

This arrogant mother is not needy. She is wanty, manipulative, demanding, spoiled and petulant. She shames and humiliates with "FOG" (fear, obligation and guilt). She's crashes boundaries, violates privacy, steals and usurps. She arrogantly believes she has buy-in on anything involving her child, despite having failed to give him essentials. This "rules for me and thee" hypocrite holds his child to endless expectations and duties "to him" yet arrogantly holds himself to no accountability to the child. He plays DARVO like a pro. My enmeshed dad disappeared for two years of my life then waltzed in demanding full "fathers' rights" to order me around, bully me and pressgang me into service to his new side piece. 

Infantilized AND parentified

She plays the concerned parent card. She "just wants what's best for her son" (operative words "HER son." She cares, worries, loses sleep over him, yada yada. After all she "gave birth to him." (Loving mothers never remind their child of this.) But make no mistake. This woman cares for herself first and foremost. She demands what's best for her. And that includes both patronizing, humiliating and infantilizing her son AND parentifying him. 

She enfeebles him to make herself feel relevant. 

Enmeshed parents play role reversal then switchback and reverse again as it suits them. My father used me a  servant, scapegoat, surrogate parent and spouse all the while belittling me and issuing orders and ultimatums he had no authority over. 

According to him I was too stupid to tie my own shoes yet mature enough to play alone at the docks of a strange city at five. And to raise his children. 

Everything is about the parent

Mother makes herself out as a patient martyr, suffering to provide. But she never stops to mention or even consider how much the child has done for her. Stop me if you've heard this one, but nothing is ever good enough. Gifts meet with an aggrieved sniff of disapproval. Every little or non-existent slight is blown up into a major failure. (What it is, is usually a narcissistic injury rather than a real insult). She tries to outshine the bride at the wedding and the deceased at his own funeral and God in his own church (story above). When "her baby" gets married, she cries ugly, resentful, awkward tears all the damn day long (another true story). Your special day is always about mommy or daddy dearest rather than you. Holidays are ruined by these showboaters. You dad loses his shite and starts screaming at you in front of the whole family and no one has any idea why. And because he's so hateful, no one challenges him. When you start crying, he tells you to quit sniveling and showing off. It's mental. 

Weaponized, purpose-built chaos

All of this is strategic bespoke gaslighting invalidation is designed to wear down the child's resistance. These egomaniacs pirate the child's identity and sense of self. They dehumanize her with terror, lies, coercion, shaming, backstabbing, smear campaigns and script flipping. They pervert the child's natural bonding into trauma bonding which causes betrayal blindness and blind loyalty and faith these faithless people. 

Why do they do it? 

Everything is flip-flopped to them. They are resentful and jealous of their children but also exploitative of them. They use their children to get what they feel they deserve and have been deprived of. Right is wrong for them and wrong is right. And vice-versa with the child. Her self-care, sensitivity and having needs is all twisted by the selfish, oversensitive, bossy crybullies into self-centeredness. Crying is pouting, say the whiny parents. Speaking up for herself against bullies is just "making excuses. They make self-defense out to be disobedient and disrespectful and that oh-so-beloved word of theirs "disloyal."  The child never learns to question why she's having to defend herself against people who are supposed to defend her.  She never asks why they are so disrespectful and disloyal to her. Why they obey no one but their own arrogant, self-serving selves. 

Enmeshed parents are human rights violators and child traffickers 

They things they steal would boggle a normal parent. My parents heedlessly subjected me consistently to blatantly illegal situations. They routinely endangered me by doing things no loving parent. hell, no stranger, would do. It was egregious and gratuitous--unnecessarily cruel and hurtful. They moved randomly on a whim. They uprooted me, shuffled me back and forth for fun. They put me in service to their new partners and demanded I cater to all four of them, collectively and separately. The core cognitive dissonance this caused was catastrophic. 

Where to go from here

"The time for diplomacy has passed. Been there done too much good-finding. Now it's time for fact-finding, reality acknowledging and truth-telling. The FOG is lifting. And I see that the only way out is out."

I've said before that I don't know where this leaves me now, but I do. I just didn't like to say because I'm diplomatic and try to find the best in people. If it seems I can only find negative things to say about my parents, it's because that's all I got. For too long, I let their bread crumbing keep me deluded that they really loved me. But I'm not satisfied with crumbs anymore. I'm wise enough to see past lies, distortions and gaslighting. The FOG is lifting. And I see that the only way out is out. I've gone no contact and I'm maintaining my boundaries. I'm being selfish and investing in relationships with reciprocity and real love.