Hello my friends. Lately I've been diving deep into my childhood trauma to figure out why I'm having such horrendous and constant nightmares. Come to find out it's CPTSD, complex post-traumatic stress disorder from malignantly narcissistic parental abuse. And the nightmares aren't so much dreams as flashbacks. If you've stuck with me, you know that for the past few months I've been opening up about a lot of shit that happened and would continue to happen if I let it.
Today I'm looking at how gaslighting about the narcissistic abuse I suffered, turns to auto-gaslighting. AKA, how being told I wasn't abused (emotionally, physically, sexually, spiritually and socially), neglected, abandoned, endangered, parentified, exploited and manipulated led to me gaslighting myself that it didn't happen.
And I in turn wonder if you who are reading this, believe me. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't. I didn't believe me. That's why it took six decades start talking about this. Toxic shame, fear, lying to myself and covering for the perpetrators, kept me locked in. It didn't help that I had four narcissistic parents, each with his and her own spin on the abuse, to juggle. Or that I was completely alone in it. None of their other kids had to deal with it. I was the only child of the marriage. They are all much younger, don't have stepparents, don't believe me and have participated in the abuse as adults.
And why did I just roll over and let them? Because that's what I do best. I learned from the time I was a tot, to let mom and dad and later, their new families do what they wanted. That there really was no treatment low enough. And worst of all, I was taught, that this is what God expected of me. He did not, however, expect anything of them when it came to me.
They knew the honor your parents part very well. But the, take care of your kids, don't anger them, love them like yourself parts, not so much. Apparently, it was perfectly okay with God, if they hit me, scapegoated, took advantage of, exploited, shamed, left me behind in strange cities, let me wander around alone at 5, manipulated, worked me like a mule, made me parent them and their kids, let people molest me, deprived me of a home, a bed, food and medical care, mocked me, screamed at me, stole from me, lied to me, expected me to act like an adult when I was a kid. With all that gaslighting in my head, it's no wonder I started to believe it.
Pretty soon, they didn't even need to make excuses for their shitty treatment of me. Not that they really ever did. They were so deep into their narc fantasies that they were untouchable, they thought. But very shortly, I was making up all kinds of excuses for them. I actually believed that they loved me despite their very best efforts to prove they didn't. And there was all the fear. I'm so afraid of them that I never confronted them about anything. Any time I try with my mom, it meets with lies, gaslighting and shaming. My dad's wife was so bloody self-righteous, control freaky and passive-aggressive, I didn't dare. And my mom's husband is just too aggressive.
My dad did listen when once I let my guard down and told him off. But he just dismissed it and said it was "covered by the blood" whatever the hell that means. Actually I do know what he means but he's wrong. He says Jesus forgives him but Jesus isn't the only one he wronged, and he never said he was sorry. And he never extended God's mercy to me. For me, it was fire and brimstone. My dad gaslit me with that shit till he died. For such a Bible beater to others, he missed that these things applied to him too. Oy vey. I pray for his and his wife's souls.
Cut to the present and I'm all torn up with this crap. It's hard turn off the gas once you start doing it to yourself. I doubt very much that I'll ever be up to having it out with the two that are left. They're just too far gone in their malignant narcissism. So I avoid them for the most part and paste a smile on when I have to see them. I pretend all is well because that's what is safest for me.
It sucks. I'd love to keep taking her out for lunch, buying her treats and generally being the kind, loving daughter I've always been. I spent all Mother's Day crying because I realized I don't have a mom and never have. But now that I know, I can't unknow. In order to have contact, she'd have to actually be a mother to me. She have to give as well as take. Now I know how one-sided it's been, I can't go back to that And we'd have to have conversations about all her exploitation, abuse, betrayal, neglect, parentification, endangerment, abandonment of me. And her approval of her husband doing likewise. She'd have to admit to all of this. And I don't see that happening.
And you know, I don't really want it happen, if I'm honest. Because given her track record, it would be just be lies and gaslighting. That's why her husband divorced her. It would be all about her and miserable for me. I would have to experience all those things all over again. And she would be dismissive and supercilious and smug. Or feign dementia. Or say she can't remember. (She once said she didn't remember kicking me out of the house when I was 16. ) Or she'd play the innocent victim-martyr. Or triangulate me and her husband. Honestly, that woman has played us off each other like pool balls the entire time we've known each other. Or it would come back to bite me. Or, and this is most likely, all of the above. I don't have that much fabulous in me.
If she did apologize, it would only be to get more out of me. Money. Pity. Doing for her. Taking care of her. Taking her shit. It will never be about helping me. She made that perfectly clear when I once, once, reminded her how she left me alone to care for all her special needs foster kids (two babies, a toddler, and preschooler) for a week to go to some pyramid scheme "sales training." when I was 11, while her live-in boyfriend (my now stepdad) abused and harassed me. He didn't lift a finger to help then lied and said I shook the baby (I only just realized it was a lie fabricated to cover his sorry ass). And she BELIEVED HIM and punished me. By paying me only half the promised $15.
I'm sure anyone reading sees that for the shitshow it is. But as usual, I'm late to the party. I have to reason my way through. If they really believed I'd shook the baby they'd be getting me counseling. But they couldn't do that because they'd be found out for the shitshow they were running. Or they wouldn't let me care for the kids again. But oh wait. That'd mean they'd have to move out of their lil love shack in the basement and upstairs so they could actually care for the kids instead of having me sleep in the room with all of them and get up at night with them.
I now think the real reason was they just didn't want to pay me and made up some BS reason, not to. Duh, yes! I'm just realizing this as I write it. They never intended to pay me! Wow. And malignant narc bonus added, they got to scapegoat Mary and make her the bad guy. Then mom had the balls to play the forgiving parent, saying we'd never mention it again. Buuuullllshhhittt! We'd never mention it again because she didn't want me squealing and bringing CPS down on her! Turns out, it was just prolonging the inevitable. She lost her license a few months later on charges of child abuse, all on her own. No one ever asked me about what I'd been through and I never told.
How I fell for that shit, I'll never know. But fall for it I did and hard. I've lived with such intense self-hatred that I was sure God would never let me have kids of my own and that he shouldn't because I was such a horrible person. I suspect it will always plague.
So I confronted it a few years ago, (and only then to make her feel better about some lies she told her husband. Not to help myself, God forbid.) When I did, she flat out lied and said it didn't happen. She would never do that. Why? Not because it was insanely neglectful, abusive and a hellish nightmare that has hounded me for 5 decades. Because "I would have lost my foster care license." It's only about how anything affects her.
Oh and, she reminded me, "you said you wanted to care for the kids to make some money." Well, maybe if you hadn't stolen everything from me and sold my stuff, to fund your cockamamy fantasy, I wouldn't have had to earn money. The real reason is she couldn't find anyone to it so cheap. And she had to keep it in house because I doubt CPS would have sanctioned her running off for a week or having her bf live in. Couldn't risk that being uncovered.
And that was just so much gaslighting anyway. I highly doubt I would have asked to watch four very needy kids for a week alone. But what do I know? My memories are so shot to hell with all the trauma, maybe I did. But even if I did, who's the adult here? So because a kid says they want to do something illegal and dangerous, you let them? If I wanted to jump off a building would you give me the push? Might as well have. Cuz any self-esteem I had before that was gone. But sure, paint me the villain. Whatever lets you sleep at night.
So that experiment in self-disclosure with a malignant narcissist didn't go well. I realized that she KNEW it was wrong. It was illegal, immoral and so traumatizing for me that I almost made myself unalive over it. At effing 11. She knew I shouldn't be given that much responsibility. And. She. Did. Not. Fucking. Care. She wanted what she wanted when she wanted it and she got it, at my expense. Way to tell me you don't give two shits about me without telling me.
So I didn't get any closure or help. Didn't really expect any. But two things it did do was to convince that A) she didn't care about me. And B) I'm not imagining it. And that's weirdly helpful. Cuz, sister, I'm squealin' now. I'm writing and writing and writing. I'm done keeping secrets. I'm talking back to those nasty voices you planted in my brain. I'm telling my stories to trusted people about it, even though I worry that they're sick of me or that I'm a nuisance. I guess, even if I'm not getting it completely right at least I'm doing something about it. And that's got to be better than keeping silent and living in fear. Right?
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