Rewriting the rules for dealing with dark tetrad narcissist parents

Hi friends. I just wrote about how I'm rewriting the rules for dealing with dark tetrad narcissist parents. So now I'm listing what those new rules are.  My entire life, rules of loving family didn't apply to me. Wrong was right for them and right was wrong for me. I've existed in their double standards, mixed messages, backpeddling, backstabbing, bullying, exploitation and gaslighting by four narcissistic parents. So yes I get to make it up as I go along. I'll be the one flipping the script, now. 

1) Right is right, not just PC.  On her rightwing high horse, my mother recently posted on Facebook (someone really  needs to take her computer away) that she wasn't afraid to "tell it like it is" and that "hell is still hot, people and sin is still sin." She doesn't do this to help anyone, just to shame them. It's another of her twisted ways of guilting others for things she blatantly does. Note she doesn't enumerate what said sins are. She can't because she'd be pointing her finger at herself. But in my new rulebook, rules apply to everyone. 

2) Standards for me AND thee. I'm not sure what these sins are she's calling people to repent from who she's calling out. She just likes to imagine others' sinning while she adjusts her halo. And it's not even really her. It's just some nasty rightwing rhetoric she's passing off as hers. She doesn't know either. She just wants to sound like a cool kid, pick me, pick me! But let's look at sin from the Bible she's always  misquoting. Let's see how many apply to her. Adultery ✅ fornication ✅, divorce ✅✅, cheating ✅ many times, lying ✅ (more often than not) stealing, (repeatedly), envy, pride, sloth, greed, dishonoring God, playing God, manipulating others, neglecting her kids, check, check check. 

3) Real is real. What happened, happened as I said it did. Not how I was gaslit into believing it did. The fact that I relive it every night in my dreams is proof I'm not imaging it. These are memories haunting me. 

4) Speaking up is good for me. Be quiet, harpies in my head. You have no power here. Knowledge, awareness, acceptance is power. . Me being "disloyal" "disobedient" "too sensitive" "too critical" "showing off" are all shams foisted on me to keep me silent in abuse. 

5) Saying what happened isn't slander, it's saving my life. If telling the truth about what I experienced, is slander, what they did must have been pretty bad. If saying what I experienced is "disloyal" and lying is loyalty, what are they covering?  If it was good, they'd be wanting me to brag it up If I have to keep their secrets, they did something wrong. Let's just allow that to marinate awhile. 

6) I define how I will "help" and "love" now. I know best what others need from me and I decide what I'm willing to give. I owe no one anything, least of all people who hurt me. Since my life with them has been mostly all me giving good and receiving bad, it's high time to quit giving. 

7) I take care of my family. They conned me into thinking that when they divorced this excluded me. When they started new families I was allowed to be part, conditionally. And then they kept changing conditions. I was family when doing for them and excluded when I needed anything. I incurred debts with them they said, while they freely stole from me. So they didn't want me in their family, so? They thought I was expendable? Bible says wrong, but no matter now. Now I'm the one excluding them. My turn to slam the door. 

8) I deal direct now. They falsely believed they were God and told me so. They dictated everything, including how I should feel (ashamed, enslaved, subject to them). Well now I'm anadult and I know there's one God and He's not them. Following them is following false prophets and putting others gods before Him. So I deal direct with the source from now on, not some self-proclaimed, self-serving intermediaries. 

9) I take them at their word. They said I was lazy. Fine, I won't wait on you. I'm a terrible daughter? Fine no more lovely presents. You have to go home to "your family?" Fine, go. And don't come back. 

10) I dictate terms now. I was always told how it was going to be. I was told where I would live and it what deplorable conditions. When I was kicked out of the house, I left, believing their lies that I'd caused it. I was told I was a servant, disgrace, failure, scapegoat, whipping girl, fixer, pleaser. That was then when I was too young to stand up for myself.  Now I'm older and I call the shots in my life. And if they don't like it, good. This people pleaser is out of business. 

How dark tetrad narcissist parents cause kids so much pain and confusion

Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal CPTSD caused by abuse from four dark tetrad narcissistic parents, I'm looking at a critical way dark tetrad parents cause so much pain and confusion. This happens to be the thing the Bible, which my parents endlessly quote at others, speaks out against most strongly. And that's deception. 

My four parents, two biological and their two new partners, each exhibited strong dark triad and dark tetrad traits: narcissism (self-centered, arrogant, demanding), Machiavellian (exploiting for their own ends), psychopathy (disregard for others, lack of remorse or empathy, cruelty). Dark tetrad adds sadism, which is enjoying seeing others suffer. 

Yesterday I wrote about how surviving such ruthless, nasty bullies requires radical acceptance of the fact that they are intrinsic liars. Today we're going to unpack further why they lie and how they con us with their deceit. I'll use dark triad, narcissist and dark tetrad interchangeably. 

So why do narcs lie? Essentially, it's to get what they want in any situation. It's also to preserve the fake IDs they've created. Their entire universe is false, and held up by a framework of deceit. The only thing that holds it together is carefully rewritten and edited versions of events. They also lie by habit. My stepfather used to say "you know he's lyin' cause his mouth is movin'" What I didn't get then was that he was describing himself too. And my mom. 

And they lie because truth is too boring. Goodness, kindness, gentleness, truth, transparency, integrity are for sheep. THEY are the brave "truth tellers" who say what everyone else is afraid to. They're lone wolves, stealthy, cunning and above everyone. They're risk-taking trill seekers and lie because they get off on conning others. They feel superior if someone falls for their mind game. It's an inner cabal of one dead set on domination by trickery. 

Their end game is remote control of people, making them do, think and feel things they have no idea that they are doing let alone why. It's not enough that they should just manipulate other people. We  must dance marionette-like, but not see the strings. Our job is to feel really stupid and icky and keep dancing. 

Dark tetrads are like human pyramid schemes where the more people they can sucker in, the more awesomely above it all they feel.  And nothing succeeds like success. Case in point. Donald Trump. The writing's on the wall. He told us exactly how he planned to manipulate and destroy. He's a narc on a mission. When MAGA right-wingnuts called Biden and Harris the puppetmasters, they outed themselves and their Puppetmaster in chief.  Trump and his acolytes are dark tetrad personified. And guess whose parents are loyal devotees? But she's been out-played. What she doesn't see is that she fell for the oldest game in the con business, being conned by a better confidence trickster. 

And how do dark tetrads manage all these charades? How do they keep the plates spinning? With their elaborate web of lies and fake personas. They watch genuinely kind people carefully and pose as them. Then launch a smear campaign against them to distract from the fact that they're just a cheap copy not the genuine article. 

My mother maintains the guise of a good Christian woman. She talks the talk (sort of, anyone who knows anything about real Christianity hears the gaslighting in her talk) And she definitely doesn't walk the walk. A cursory examination of her life, shows she is and always has been a deceitful, exploitative scammer. She has broken every single rule she lays on others. She has stolen, cheated, lied, tricked and faked. She does the very things she preaches against, routinely. And has nothing but scorn and scathing criticism for truly nice kind people. She will in fact slander them untruthfully without batting an eye. 

So hypocrisy is another tool and also the smear campaign. Because while imitating those good people, they are maligning them behind their backs. They are creating fake personas for others too. They gossip and spread rumors. They lie and tell people their child is a liar. They steal from her then say she loses things. They live like trash and then call her the tramp. They're judgey AF and call her judgmental. Amid their utter chaos and depravity, they paint her as the problem. And the poor kid absorbs and believes it all. Because what kind of parent would do this to their child? 

We who are victims of the dark tetrads, develop this bad habit, from decades of gaslighting, of believing what we hear over what we see. And we believe their lies over our good common sense. And they capitalize on that. Even when the proof is staring us in the face. We believe that because we care about them, give them good and love them. they do likewise. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

They ensnare us with our own innocent trust of them. They start when the child is too young to know to be wary of them. They count on the fact that most parents don't act like this. We see other kids' parents mostly loving, caring and authentic. We have no idea ours aren't because they pose as normal people and lull us into a false sense of security. They wear sheep's clothing so we expect that they are sheep. We don't see the wolf's fangs and claws under the fleece because we're not looking for it. 

And other people fall for the scam too. The narcissist gets her version in first and it's the very devil to challenge it. She paints fake backdrops and distorted images. Then if anyone does question her, she'll gaslight, twist and throw sand in their eyes. She'll turn on them and attack and then cry victim. 

And others just don't see it coming. They're just living their life, loving their kids and being the best they can be. They expect that because she's doing the same thing. They see what from the outside looks fairly normal. They don't see the harm and danger the child of dark triad parents is being subjected to. My mother's brand of weird was as out of place in the places I grew up as as a giraffe walking down the street. 

And maybe other people are just too lazy to see. I once told a nasty thing my mother did to a friend (rather out of character for me). Despite never meeting her and knowing me to be a decent person, he immediately took her part and criticized me for saying what she did. This is how the narcissist perpetuates her lies. By playing to the crowd and working her crafted image.  And it's easier for outsiders to to turn a blind eye than to reach out and help. Better to just wring your hands when the child is carried out on a stretcher and say, "we had no idea!" 

All this gaming is so baffling to those of us who live in the real world. It took me 60 years to see that I was living in on a chess board and not a home. So I think the way out is by rewriting the rules of engagement. The rules didn't apply to me and so they don't now. And I don't have to follow their dangerous rules anymore. I refuse to spend the rest of my life in a fencing match so I'm getting off the sparring mat. I'm playing by my rules. 

Dealing with dark triad narcissist parents requires one important tool

 Hi friends! I've been working on healing from CPTSD caused by dark triad/dark tetrad parental abuse. And one thing I want to discuss today is an essential tool you must have in dealing with dark triad parents. And that is radical acceptance of the fact that they are accomplished liars and cheats. Until you get that fact firmly in your head,  you're going to be fair game for their gaslighting and exploitation of you to get their narcissistic supply fix. 

Dark triad personality includes narcissism (complete self-centered arrogance and expectation of others to focus only on them) psychopathy (lack of empathy and regard for others) and Machiavellianism (exploitation of others for personal gain). Dark tetrads add sadism (getting off on other's pain). This trifecta is the ultimate Molotov cocktail for destroying relationships. And in order to maintain these obviously dangerous lunatic beliefs. requires metric tons of lying, deception, conning, twisting, manipulation, gaslighting, etc. 

If you are in the crosshairs of a dark triad narcissist, particularly if you're the child of one, you've been weaned on their shaming, blame-shifting, projection, scapegoating and invalidation. You've lived, eaten, breathed and slept in their cloud cuckooland. You've been neglected, abused and brain damaged by their endless scamming. You've been made barmy, battered and broken by their deceitful machinations. If you're nodding your head to any of this, you NEED to read on. 

So I said you need to practice radical acceptance of them as liars. But how, if you've been raised up from infancy in their personality cult, do you do that? How do you suddenly stop buying into the grande delusion? Well, you have to set upright what they upended. They convoluted everything, making you believe right was wrong for them and wrong was right for you. So you have to flip that around. You start from the premise that EVERYTHING they say is wrong, a lie, a con. 

I had to start looking at how other more normal people acted. I had to admit that my parents, all four, were really messed up and were messing me up royally. I had to pry my hands off my eyes and see their hypocrisy, distortion that was right in front of my face. Even though I believed and in some ways still believe their lies and gaslighting, I have to act like I don't. I have to fake confidence and trust in myself that I don't feel and hope that I'll make it to a more confident place. And it does work, I've found. 

Now, instead of accepting everything they dished out, instead of falling for all their BS, I'm treating everything they say as suspect. I'm trusting nothing, believing nothing they say. I am quitting allowing myself to be a punching bag. Basically I'm treating them as guilty until proved innocent. Which turns out to be about time, because I'm realizing that unfortunately they are rarely ever innocent. 

Will I end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Meh, don't care. I can't afford to. I've suffered far too much at the hands of these dark tetrad narcissists to let anything slide. Will I burn bridges? I hope so. Cuz I never want to go back to that misery again. And you know what? If it turns out they are actually legit occasionally and I blacklisted them unfairly, oh well? Serves them right for crying wolf so often. That's what you get for being such regular liars and cheats. That is logical consequences. And it's illogical for me to continue signing up for abuse. 

And that's also how you treated me all these years, backstabbing, shaming, gaslighting, manipulating, cheating and stealing from me, victimizing me and then making me feel like the one in the wrong. How does that feel with the shoe on the other foot? It hurt me like hell. So am I vindictive? It's immaterial. If refusing to believe their lies or take the consequences of their bad actions, if allowing them to suffer the repercussions of their bad choices is vindictive, what they did must be pretty bad. And the only way for either of us to get any healing is radical acceptance and ending the enabling. 

Dark Tetrad Narcissist parents aren't the Daleks they pretend to be

Hey my friends. Wow, am I being shown new faces of the people I once called parents! I saw these faces as a child, but not clearly and through a haze of fear and gaslighting. I saw their abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, manipulation, shaming, invalidation, parentification and scapegoating as what I deserved and should expect. I gaslit myself into disbelieving parents would treat a kid this way. And this was what God expected of me. 

But then, on my road to Damascus, a few scales fell off. And I glimpsed,  through the chinks, something that I'd probably always know but which still came a jolt. The narcissists didn't and never had loved me. I started to consider that maybe I wasn't just a crazy, selfish, lying, showoff, oversensitive, failure as I'd been told. That maybe things happened just as I recalled. 

And the more I saw, the more I was shown and the less I could excuse anymore. I believe God is revealing these things to me because I finally dared to peek though that chink. And I started asking for help to see more clearly. I don't think it was gaming on his part to keep me in ignorance and misery. I think He knew the right time to let the narcissists show their true colors and me to see them. 

And the older they get the more their masks slip and the more God is giving me a look at what's behind. And while it's not pretty, it's also not scary like it was before I saw the light. What I'm seeing is that dark tetrad narcissists are more Darth Vader than Dalek, just scary masks and heavy breathing with broken people inside.  It's disturbing, yes. Anakin is one messed up guy. And what appeared to be a mask was actually a breathing machine keeping him alive. 

And so with the dark tetrad narcissists in my life. They wear masks and greasepaint like clowns or magicians hiding their real selves. To preserve the facade of power and authority. But really just to survive reality. As God shows what's underneath, I see not the terrifying ubermensch, overlords they made themselves out to be. But as Scoob and Shaggy, found, just frail very humans masquerading as omnipotent gods.    

Dark tetrad narcissists may run around like Daleks yelling "exterminate!" and thinking they have the power to rule the universe. But inside there's no souped-up, superhuman cyborg. It's only a salt shaker with a sniveling, kind of pathetic weakling hiding inside. It's really quite sad and it doesn't get better. The longer they hide in their salt shaker the more soul-shriveled and decrepit they become. 

I wrote recently about aging narcissists and how they go from grandiose to covert. If they can't be the hottest, biggest, most important, most powerful thing in the room they'll be the most pitiful. And aging alone zaps resources when you're not trying to maintain a facade a superiority. When you are, well it's one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. 

I heard it said well on NarcDaily Youtube channel, that with age, they "disintegrate." I can see why. Being always onstage is wearying. And it's debilitating having to constantly contort yourself into something you're not. The more lies they tell, the less they can keep up with who they told what and when.. The corner they painted themselves in shrinks. And having alienated so many, having burnt so many people and bridges, leaves them alone, friendless and cut off from support. 

And all the exploiting, excluding, estrangement, setting up camps, triangulating and scapegoating comes back to bite them too. My narcissist parents (all four) routinely stranded me, pitted me against each other, cut me off from help, cut me out of their family and hung me out to dry. Finally, after 60 years, I decided two could play at that game and I cut the cord. Well, I didn't really have much of a family to pull the plug on. But it's the gesture that counts. 

And so with healing comes more healing. It really does get easier. The days get brighter and the light stays longer. You begin going from strength to strength instead of that sickening fail spiral. Which you really weren't in but it sure felt like you were. I've always said I'm dyslexic because I can't plan ahead or see a sequence. It's like I'm blinded and can barely see one step ahead. So I can never see that it will most likely be okay. Now I wonder if it's the chaos forced on me by the people who were supposed to keep me safe, that makes me afraid to proceed. 

But good news, For the first time ever maybe in my life, I realized I didn't feel afraid. I actually felt safe to put the other foot down, because I could see the path. For once I didn't experience that sinking dread of the ground being  pulled away again and me falling, again, into the abyss.  I was able to let my self relax a bit in the protection and security that I think has always surrounded me in my now family, but which childhood trauma has never let me trust. 

Thanks be to God. 

Disturbing things CPTSD makes me think, say and do

Hello my best beloveds. I hope you know how much I cherish and appreciate you all for joining me on this miserable...quest thing...I've been on. CPTSD ain't a picnic and trying to heal it isn't much easier. So I'm grateful for companions on the journey. Now you may be thinking, that's kind of a weird opening, assuming we're all pals and on board to help. And you may be right. How do I know who's reading and if they're safe or stalker? Which is kind of what the point of this post is about: disturbing things CPTSD makes me think, say and do. 

If you have been following you know my backstory of abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, scapegoating, enmeshment, parentification, invalidation, toxic shaming and gaslighting by four narcissistic/dark tetrad parents. Said simply, everything was flip-flopped in my life. Right was wrong and wrong was right for me. Safe was bad, harm was good, yeah. 

And that messed up, twisted existence has left me permanently disabled, mentally, emotionally, physically and socially. I developed many strange coping mechanisms that look really weird outside the family cult and in the light of reality. They may have helped me survive their abuse but they don't fit well in everyday life where the rules are mostly right-side up. Here's how. 

1) I trust others before myself. I give way to their judgementalism over my good judgement. I let them edit, revise and rewrite my narrative. I believe their version of "how things are." I let them gaslight me that their lies are God's truth. I accept their uninformed opinions as gospel truth despite clearly seeing the arrogance and blasphemy in said opinions. Funnily enough, I only do this with self-righteous people not with healthy people. Because healthy people don't beat others with their screwball ideas. Healthy people have adult conversations and don't prat on in preachy monologues. Yet the drones are the ones I let inform me. Or at least my inner child does. Because...

2) I live in abject terror. Of what, IDK exactly. I know it has nothing to do with this faith over fear claptrap. Do me a favour IF ONLY clicking my heels together and boasting of my faith WOULD get me back to Kansas! Back to safety, security, nurture and love. But too many wicked witches and flying monkeys have bullied and hurt me to ever get back home. And there was never a Kansas for me to go back to. The people called parents in my life WANTED me to be afraid of them. Isn't ironic how the very people canting about their faith and our lack of, are the very folks scaring us shitless? 

3) I completely ignore road signs and traffic signals. Not real ones, I mean with people. But it might as well be actual ones for all the harm and danger it's caused me. My little life car runs red lights and crashes into barricades. Not to hurt others, only me. I was taught that ignoring red flags was what God expected of me. I was schooled that self-care and selfish and personal safety was ungodly. He, I learned,  expected me to lay down like a coat over puddles and let others walk on me. I was groomed to invite hurt. Countless unsafe people have grabbed the wheel and ran me into oncoming traffic. They came out unscathed because self-care was their prerogative. While my lil mind, soul, heart and body are twisted and scarred wrecks. 

4) I'm raw meat for predators. It's like I wear a badge that says " Hello, my name is Prey." They growl and I freeze and then fawn.  They can smell me coming a mile away and my perpetrator alert system is defunct. My instinct to run is broken. It's been disabled by predators calling themselves parents. Fortunately, I married someone who makes a point to keep me safe. Because left on my own, I'd have been consumed long ago. 

 There are a lot more weird things but that's all I've got energy to write about today. If you'd like to read more, check out my other posts on narcissistic parents, dark tetrad dangers and CPTSD. 

Thanks for reading. 

Going no contact with abusive narcissistic parents is harder on me than them

Hello my friends. My recovery from narcissistic dark tetrad parent abuse turned a corner recently when I decided to go no contact with them. And I'm finding that cutting ties with abusive family is harder than I thought and much harder on me than on them. Nevertheless it's a necessary decision that I wish I'd made decades ago. Here's how and why. 

So how is it  harder on me than on my four narcissistic dark tetrad parents? Because they cut ties to me ages ago. They energetically distanced themselves from any responsibility TO me even as a little girl. My parents have been absenting themselves, neglecting, endangering and at times abandoning me since day one. But with equal energy, conversely expecting endless responsibilities FROM me. 

Then they divorced and hooked up with new dysfunctional partners who felt zero responsibility to me but who expected me to do inappropriate, unhealthy and unsafe things for them. They were aided and abetted by my parents who used me as surrogate spouse, surrogate parent, servant and scapegoat. While gaslighting me into thinking this was all normal and what God expected of me. To do otherwise would have been disloyal, disobedient and wicked of me. Even though they showed no loyalty to me or obedience to the God they claimed to serve. 

And I bought all the crap hook, line and sinker. That's what traumatized kids do, absorb abuse as normal. Which is why cutting ties now is so difficult for me. They weren't tied to me. They cut me adrift with the umbilical cord. It was only because of  my grandparents that I got anything like love and care. But I sure as hell was leashed TO them. And like a dog left out in the rain, I was to expect nothing from them, no security or support. Not even basics. 

I recently heard the term enmeshment in which a child's healthy boundaries are trodden down by dark triad parents. An enmeshed child doesn't exist extant. She devoured by parents and digested whole. And this is a perfect analogy for my life. I felt caught up in a mesh net whose ropes only grew tighter the more I struggled. They enmeshed themselves in my life with countless cords of expectation and demands. 

I was caregiver, confidante, sex therapist, buffer, a mark for their cons, defender, guardian, needs meeter, want provider, fairy godmother, whipping girl, a bone thrown to their new spouses to placate their voracious greed. They used endless and confusing guilt, shame, blame shifting, threats, bullying, Draconian punishment, exploitation, manipulation, triangulation and gaslighting to tighten the knots until I couldn't move. 

So I quit struggling and just accepted imprisonment. Pretty soon they didn't even have to bother to try. I lived for them, guessing what they wanted, hoping I was right and accepting when I wasn't. I just rolled over and let them do what they wanted with me. They didn't have to excuse, explain, exonerate, exclude or exempt their behavior. I did all that for them. I participated in my own torture. I handed them the whips and bent over for easier access. 

I've overlooked, ignored and defended shocking abuse at their hands. Yet I can't get it into my head that this was wrong. And I can't get their voices and teachings out of my head. Over the past 60 years, these ropes which enmesh me with them have petrified. I'm unable to sever bonds. I don't love them. I never have, really. I can't, how could I, never being loved and only knowing their twisted version of love. I have just felt beholden to them. Because they indoctrinated me into believing I owed them everything. 

It was drummed into me that my place was to give good, take bad, allow pain, never question, never stop. My memory is Swiss cheese but I recall in crystal clarity being endlessly told the many ways I let everyone down. I vividly remember my mom's husband screaming and waving his fist in my face, while I was holding my baby daughter,  how I was a pathetic excuse for a person, unfit to live and to "get the hell out of his house." Because I'd dared to ask where the baby was they were supposed to be caring for. While my good Christian mother looked on and approved. 

If you read my back posts on them, you'll see their pattern bullying. But I didn't at the time. I just felt obliged to grovel and beg for readmittance into their family. Which I was never a part of anyway, except as general dogsbody. Which of course was the point of the exercise, to get me more enmeshed in their  hellhole of a life. My brain knows sorta that I owe nothing and whatever I may have was paid over and above decades ago. But my core still believes I do. My self is still trapped in those crippling bonds. 

I think what I need is something to dissolve the ties which I can't untie. I don't yet see what exactly that solvent might be. But I am starting to accept that God does. I say starting because God as a loving father was destroyed for me, by their selfishness. Images of my parents and stepparents as gods were superimposed. So I'm having to work to come of hiding from God. I have to pry terrified hands off my eyes. I have to dare to consider that they were wrong and that God does actually care for me. 

Maybe lancing their corrosive acid from my heart and the saltwater tears of grief for the family, love and care I never had will be what breaks down the bonds. 

What makes dark tetrad narcissist parents act so awful (hint, it's not delusions)

 Hi friends. I've been exploring the dark tetrad traits and find that they fit my four parents to a T. So if you're unfamiliar with dark tetrads, they're narcissistic (entitled, self-centered, manipulative), psychopathic (disagreeable, deceitful, spiteful, hateful), Machiavellian (exploitative) and sadistic (enjoy cruelty and bullying). Without the last they're dark triad. I've lived with these behaviors all my life from them. And maybe you're wondering what makes them this way? Are they just nasty? Do they do it on purpose? Is it a sickness? Are they suffering too? Is it delusional? 

The short answers are yes, yes, kinda, not so's you'd notice and no. Yes they are nasty to live with. They're resentful, bitter, pouty, arrogant, malignant, hypocritical, deceitful, manipulative, abusive, bossy, demanding, disrespectful, and all the things other people don't like. They don't form relationships well because they love things and use people. They're frequently divorced and have estranged kids. They don't have many real friends because they don't give. They take. 

Do they do these things on purpose or is it a sickness that they can't help? Eh, it may be prompted by something broken in them but they can help it. They know what they're doing. Because when anyone does anything to them remotely like they do to others, they understand very well how wrong it is. For them. It's not wrong for them to do it to others. My parents could quote chapter and verse of how others were supposed to live. But they did not live it. 

I also believe that it's like anything else. Practice makes perfect. So where they were amateurs as kids, they became pros by repeatedly doing these behaviors. They can stop any time they want to. But they don't want to. Lying, cheating, scamming, winning is too important. The payoff in narcissistic supply is too great. They prefer fantasy to reality. And I think the devil is egging them on. And you know what happens when you lie. You have to keep lying to preserve the fallacies. Pretty soon your entire world is a house of cards with one lie building on the other. 

So these are delusions, then? Nope I don't think so. They have convinced themselves they're all that and then some. Above it all, accountable to no one, making up rules as they go along. Delusional, yes.  Clearly they're just people no more or less. But I don't think they really believe it. They just want to superimpose this belief on others. They want us to believe it. They gaslight and con everyone, even God. 

They choose to act superior because they want to be worshipped and adored. They want to do as they please, no matter how hurtful, and have others not only go along with it but approve and admire. They want to be exempted from the consequences of their actions. They want others to treat them as if they are beyond reproach. Because this supports their fantasy. They want the easy, lazy path with others doing the work.

And Christians are particularly vulnerable here. (I'm only speaking to this religious group because it's the only one I have experience with.) Christians know this is completely antithetical to scripture, the commandments and the gospel. It's anathema to God. It's blasphemy and apostasy.  And here's where the devil jumps right in just as he did with Adam and Eve. He didn't tell them to disobey God. He tempted them to want to BE God. 

And that's how dark tetrad Christians comfort themselves. They can preach and proclaim God's word all they want. To do so is to do His will. They can and should warn others, as my mother so frequently does, that sin is still sin. Hell is still hot. But she has let Satan fool her into thinking that she is not held to these truths. For all the energy she puts into telling others what to do, she doesn't do it. She does what she wants which is often very sinful.  Blatantly so. She goes out of her way to. 

She doesn't confess, apologize, admit or acknowledge her sin. And here's why. She has believed for so long that she has God's ear, that she's His emissary, voice on earth etc. that she is now SELF-righteous (right on her own merit) She doesn't have to follow these rules she just has to preach them. All her preaching has somehow rendered her immune to sin. Keeping her finger pointed at others, distracts attention from the four fingers pointing back at her.  As the serpent promised, and she's deceived herself, she KNOWS God, understands like God, thinks like God and (I hate to even say the words), now IS God.  

And that is the biggest delusion of all. 

Traits of dark tetrad parents that make them nightmares to live with

Hello my friends. I wrote recently about finally getting some insight on my four abusive parents' behaviors. I realized it wasn't just narcissism that made them so difficult to live with. Both  my biological parents exhibit dark tetrad personality traits.  Dark tetrad is narcissism (arrogant, entitled and manipulative), Machiavellian (deceptive and without scruple about getting their own way), Psychopathic (disagreeable, aggressive and bullying) and sadistic (enjoying seeing others hurt or put down). Then they married other people with dark tetrad traits. 

Their behavior has always bewildered me, especially when I became a parent myself. It was as if there was no low they wouldn't stoop to in order to humiliate, belittle and eff me up.  I'm not a perfect parent, but I saw huge Grand Canyon divides between what I did and how they treated me. It's not just me. Many people including my kids have said they can't believe I came from these people given how put together I am. Their words not mine. I don't know about that. But what I do know is that I tried my best for my kids. And my parents hell bent on doing their worst to me. Upon hearing some of  my stories, people have said it sounds like they were trying to get me killed! 

So as you can imagine, identifying the dark tetrad behaviors in them has really been an aha moment for me. A real lifesaver and sanity saver too. Being under their collective thumbs and subject to their endless abuse, neglect, machinations, bullying, exploitation, willful endangerment and abandonment, scapegoating, gaslighting, parentification and harassment, I got pretty beaten down. Yet I explained away, excused, exonerated, excepted (ignored) and enabled them in this all my life. But it never did any good. They just got meaner and more aggressive.  Here's a list of things I routinely dealt with living with four dark tetrad parents. 

Endless hypocrisy: do as I say not as I do. Right is wrong for you and wrong is right for them. It's always your fault. They are never to blame and they never apologize. My  mother posts things on Facebook about "hell is hot and sin is wrong so get your act together, people." She has never admitted to, acknowledged, confessed or apologized for a single thing she's done wrong and certainly not done wrong to me. She lies, gaslights and says things never happened. She "forgets" plays dumb and fakes dementia if confronted. Yet is lucid enough to enumerate the many sins others supposedly have committed.  

Constant double standards (unsafe and deprived was fine for me but only the best for themselves). They blatantly deny you things and take from you. My toys were sold to pay for her boyfriend's new motorcycle. They lavish on their other kids things you never had. I was kicked out of the house at 16 and had to buy my own sanitary napkins. And my parents still support their other adult kids in their 40s. 

Tons of inappropriate expectations on me and none on them or their other children. Housework was for me, not them. Childcare was my responsibility since I was 10. I was given adult chores because my stepparents didn't want to do them. 

It is all about them. They don't just enmesh you, they absorb you body and soul. They eat you alive. You don't exist except to serve. 

A lot of scary, dangerous and destructive situations. My dad blamed some people for letting his son watch a scary show, all his life. He said it scarred the kid. He didn't even know that I at 4, was being made to watch "Dark Shadows" (and scared shitless) at the neighbor's house. He wouldn't have cared if he did. Neither one of them worked but no one had time to watch me or even walk me to school. 

Being stolen from, lied to and cheated, routinely. I was told I lost things when they disappeared. I've caught my mom going through my purse. My son's shoes came up missing because my mom had taken them. She conned my into paying full price for a lemon she flipped titles on and then took my nice car and gave me only $100 for it. She expected we'd just give my sister our only car when we had a family of 6.

Living in their endless delusional fantasy of magical thinking (my mother would read about things and then adopt the role as if it was her) nothing was real except the fear and trauma. I was always getting in the way of her dreams, I was told. Even though she never did anything with her life. 

Always above it all. Neither parent had any missionary, pastoral or even Sunday school teacher experience They looked down on those who were actually trained. They expected to preach and be treated as ministers and missionaries because they said they were. And got furious when family and even churches refused to support them in this.   My mother lied her way into, or just lied about getting a job in what she called a superintendent of religious ed at a church she had no experience with. She didn't know the first thing about it and expected me as a qualified teacher to bail her out. Then got mad when minister refused to pay or keep her on staff. 

They're not delusional. They just firmly believe they are entitled to things others have. They don't have to work. Work is for other people. They are exalted. The government, other people, their kids, God, everyone owes them for the privilege of knowing them. They will scam anyone. All four of my parents exploited programs set up for native Americans when they have not a drop of native blood in them. One even stole from a domestic violence assistance fund. They have what used to be called superiority complexes. 

Constantly resentful. I heard a lot of "must be nice" to have or be thus and such. Things they could have had but refused to work for. Or sometimes had but trashed. They were so bitter and spiteful that they ruined a dresser my grandmother left me, because they were pissed I was given them. Things seem to get oopsy so sorry, broken when they're around. My dad brought his stupid dog into my house without permission and laughed because it attacked my cat.  I had to adopt him out because I couldn't care for him and my children. 

Bitterly bitter. Every missed opportunity was someone's fault even if they were not qualified claim it (see above story about teaching job). I was told that if it weren't for me,  my mother would be highly placed in one of the many churches they attended. I forgot which. I do remember we changed every month or so. And I recall neither of them working in or for the church, even in a simple volunteer way. 

Lazy and expect to be served. They don't and won't work to care for themselves, let alone those in their care. They shouldn't have to. That's someone else's job (mostly mine). They expected me to prepare dinner for them on my first day of work. When I got in an accident, they pouted about not being fed. 

Take pleasure in lording it over others. You really can't take them out in public. They're cringy-rude to wait staff. They insult things people make for them. They make passive-aggressive comments about those they consider inferior. They mock disabilities. They do embarrassing things to humiliate you at events.  My mother once stage whispered how a girl who clearly had health issues was "so skinny." 

They enjoy pointing out fault in others and will invent faults if nothing is wrong. One time I made dinner for them and was on my way home from work, I was informed that the meat which was perfectly fresh was off so they threw it away and what was for supper now? What they actually did was to eat it all and invite their daughter over and none was left for me. 

Entitlement that knows no bounds. My mom and her daughter once stayed with me. Mom expected the best room, wanted me to kick my kids out of theirs. They made a huge mess of, then left, took themselves out to lunch, brought no leftovers or invited anyone, boasted to my hungry kids and demanded to know when supper was because "she was hungry." And THEN paraded around NAKED in front of my kids. 

Greedy, hoarding and demanding. They give cheap junk and expect expensive gifts. They expected me as a stone-broke college kid to give lavishly to their kids while I received piddly gifts or nothing. My dad made a point to shame the gift I'd given his sons saying they didn't like it and could he have the receipt? Then gave me a racecar set which I was to share with his sons when I was 15.  

Super spiteful and vindictive. They do not like success in others, especially not the scapegoat. They will punish you if someone praises you and gives you what they see as preferential treatment over their other kids. They will attack, humiliate, mock, insult or tear you down however they can. Even if they look stupid. 

Paranoid as hell. My dad could sense what he saw as shaming him, my disobedience or lack of loyalty a mile away. He would go ballistic. He would routinely shame me in shocking ways in front of others. 

Vindictive as hell. They go for the jugular. If there's any confrontation, or if they even suspect you are questioning them, they'll go nuclear, bombs away and guns blazing.  Don't confront. 

Cowardly. They use social media to attack. But they don't even write their own material. They "share" poisonous crap and ask "can I get an amen?" If embarrassed, put down and reprimanded, they act sweet the person's face. Even if they weren't actually put down but just felt uncomfortable (usually because they'd done something purposely awkward.) But oh just wait till you're alone. They will make you miserable in retaliation for the slight. 

Awkward is their prerogative. They thrive on doing and saying things that embarrass you. They adore shaming and mocking. If someone laughs they'll happily join in. In all the weird they've done to me, I can't recall one time when any one of them reached out to comfort me or told the bully to knock it off. BUT if anyone puts them down or makes fun at their expense, run for cover. Two CANNOT play at this game. 

Never at fault. They will never admit to wrong. They lie and say what they did was fine and then if that fails that it was someone else's fault. Or that it was really your fault. Or you had it coming. Or that you had a hand in it because it "takes two to tango" which of course you didn't. This is just them playing both ends for the middle. Because when they are dishing out the shit, you better not respond because that would be, wait for it, disrespectful! 

Believe the worst of others despite it being untrue and out of character. Yet they expect others to always give them the benefit of the doubt even when they're repeatedly done what they're being held accountable for. 

Believe others are jealous of them and should be. They go out of their way to make a loved one, spouse or child jealous, then mock and insult them for feeling hurt. They triangulate their child against their new partner. They "cheat on" their children by showing unnecessary preferential treatment to other children and make a point of it to belittle their child. My mother excluded me from her life once she got a new boyfriend and then accused me, 10, of being jealous when I felt hurt. She flaunted him like a bullying mean girl as if we were both in middle school. 

Waaay off sexually. They share inappropriate intimate details with children. They run around  naked in front of kids then mock them for not being as sexy. They let icky adults be icky with their kids and take pleasure in the child's discomfort and shame. My mother would openly make out with her boyfriends in front of me. She told my husband and sons about sleeping naked. She preened herself when her live-in boyfriend mocked me about my small undeveloped breasts. 

Mocking and purposely humiliating and then gaslighting when confronted. They whisper behind people's backs and laugh just loud enough for the person to hear. They shame and embarrass their kids by throwing pies at them and shoving their faces in birthday cakes. They say they were  just joking and why are you so sensitive? Can't you take a joke. 

Can dish it out but can't take it. They routinely try to make a fool of their children but if the child does something, even accidentally that makes them feel foolish they become enraged, punish the child and tout out the old business about not being disrespectful to parents. 

Dark tetrad parents don't show respect but expect unmerited respect. They are condescending, minimizing and shaming of others. They will flat out tell you they don't respect you, sometimes adding that you don't deserve it. Sometimes just for shits and giggles. But they demand you treat them with slave-like deference. 

Dark tetrad parents set their own weird criteria for what respect, obedience, loyalty, love, etc you are supposed to show.  They ignore accepted definitions and invent their own. They expect you to guess what they want without telling you. This is because they don't really know and are making it up as they go along to keep you hopping. 

BUT Dark tetrad parents set completely different standards for themselves and their favored children. Lined up next to their other children, you wouldn't even know we shared the same parents. Ultra rigid and demanding expectations for me bore no resemblance their other kids. They got away with murder. Even my boyfriend's (now husband) dad commented on this and he'd never met them. He'd just heard about the demands they put on me and declared it "bullshit." 

Dark tetrad parents speak weirdly. They don't talk like normal people. They pontificate, with big, out of proportion gestures, like televangelists, as if everyone is  hanging on their every word. Their words are exaggerated and their facial expressions look like something out of melodrama. It's no surprise that my two parents were very taken with hellfire and brimstone preachers. It is almost impossible to carry on a conversation for long. 

They gather data to use against you. My mother and her husband believe they're some kind of CIA agent for God. They can "always spot a liar." Because they go looking for it and twist innocent things into deceit. They entrap and then do a mic drop. They are accomplished liars always looking to deflect attention away from this fact. 

Dark tetrad parents mirror then backstab. They copy your behavior and calculate your responses. They feign interest in you. They do this because they are emotionally bankrupt and have to fake empathy and other relationship emotions. They're also trying to scam you into trusting them. Then they turn on you and try to make you appear and feel foolish. That's a component of their sadism. 

Dark tetrad parents set you up. They ask loaded and baited questions calculated to back you in a corner. They never give you the benefit of the doubt and purposely misunderstand you. There's no response you can give. 

They don't stand up for you in situations. My 6th grade teacher hit me across the back and called me a fat pig. I routinely go beat up. My mom didn't know and my dad didn't care. It was the principal who called the other girl's mom who got mad at me for telling on her daughter. My mom was oblivious and also annoyed that the mother got upset with her too. No on did anything about the teacher. 

They  "cheat on you" with other adults and children. You know how most parents will take their kids part in a situation between two kids or at least want to hear their side? Not dark tetrads. They take the other person's side even if they know you're right. They cozy up and ingratiate themselves with other kids so the kids will like them. It's disgusting and terribly hurtful. They do this to make you jealous and to feel like you're not good enough. They hang you out to dry. 

They backstab, purposely exclude you and then make fun of you. When I was four a girl and I were divided over a TV tray at a picnic. My mom (who had no idea what was going on) put her arm around the girl, gave it to her and said "is she taking it from you? Shame on her. See it's yours. It has your name on it." (and pointed to two little screws on the side which I at four knew weren't letters). Then she told me to leave her alone and waltzed off. She never did even check to see if I got anything to eat. This is just one of many times I spent alone. 

Dark tetrad parents blindside you. They lure you into what you think is an innocent conversation or activity. You let your guard down because they seem so sincere even though they've tricked you before. Then they ambush you.  But you didn't know and come armed with flowers to what turned out to be a sword fight.  My mother threw pies in my and my children's faces at a work event she invited me to, then she and her husband ganged up and attacked me for not being able to take a joke. Even though no one else was laughing. 

Dark tetrad parents pride themselves on their "brutal honesty." They love to proclaim that they say what everyone else is afraid to. Or what everyone "needs" to hear. They fancy themselves courageous and bold. What they sound like are ignorant, idiotic, hypocritical, blabbermouths who say malicious, untrue and cringy stupid things no one is thinking or wants or needs to hear.  

Dark tetrad parents play victim when something bad happens to you. I went to a sleepover and broke out in hives. I was miserable and couldn't participate. The girl's mom felt very sorry for me and called my mom to come and get me. My mom said she "couldn't" (she was out with her boyfriend). She got mad at me the next morning accusing me of ruining her evening when I hadn't even asked the lady to call. 

Dark tetrad parents are parasitical. They feed off others. I have one memory of my parents and I doing anything for Christmas and no memory of any meals we had together. I don't recall having a bedroom till I was 8. We lived with and off other people. They expect to be cared for by others. 

These were not a few random occurrences, interspersed with good times. It was the good times that were random. And they were very confusing. I'd get hopeful that maybe I'd finally be included as a family member and loved and cared for. And I never was. I wish when they kicked me out at 16, I'd have closed the door and never looked back. 

Healing CPTSD by finally seeing parents' dark triad and dark tetrad personalities

Hello my friends. The first response I get when people hear my backstory of abuse from four narcissistic parents is, "what kind of parent does that??" or "What parents doesn't provide that for their child?" And those are excellent questions. How does a parent treat a child as I've been treated and call themselves a parent? But it took me a lifetime to realize what lay behind the intense pain I felt. 

Having just come to terms that it was abuse and not just their version of love, I'm still working to answer that. Narcissism, and other cluster B personality disorders seemed to fit the bill, sort of. What makes it more difficult is that I lived with not one or two but four self-centered, hurtful parents, or as I now call them authority figures (two bio and their two new partners). 

Each manifested a little differently, my father being more grandiose with some covert, his wife, covert, my mother grandiose, covert and malignant and her husband just a raging maniac. But narcissism didn't alone didn't cover the many levels of systematic abuse (physical, emotional, medical, financial, religious and sexual), neglect, endangerment, abandonment, shaming, invalidation, enmeshment, exploitation, manipulation, parentification, bullying, scapegoating, double standards for them and their "real" families, exclusion of yet dependence on me and gaslighting about it all. Which could in part been a result of abuse from all sides but still didn't quite fit.

I just recently learned two terms which do: dark triad and dark tetrad  personalities. Dark triad is narcissist (entitled and manipulative, Machiavellian (deceptive, exploitative, self-serving) and psychopathic (purposely harmful, aggressive). Dark tetrad adds sadism, or deriving pleasure from the suffering they cause. And when I look at my parents, especially my mother and father, through this lens, boy, do things become clear. My dad ticked most of the boxes for dark triad and my mother ticks all the boxes for dark tetrad. And then when they remarried, they chose new partners with similarly nasty personalities and they all fed off each other. 

I've been told that I can't "diagnose" these things. Well, I sure can tell you what I saw (all these behaviors manifested since my inception) I can say what it was like to live with (miserable), what they did (countless cruel things) and how they treated me (abominably) . How it made me feel (confused, ashamed, suicidal) and how I struggle now with CPTSD from all the suffering. So diagnosis or not, THAT is my story. and mine alone. I know from a life of experience what it's like to live with dark triad and dark tetrad parents. 

I'm just some college student latching on to psychology terms and twisting them to fit. Hell, I studied and have a degree in psychology and I never once considered how what they did fit to a T, these clinical patterns I was studying. I have a background in child abuse and neglect and I never saw myself in it even though the writing was clear on the wall. It took me 60 years to get to this realization. The lies, deceit, gaslighting and manipulation are very potent. But now that I do see, I will never be able to unsee. I'm a little late to the party but better late than never. 

What radical acceptance of CPTSD from dark tetrad parents means to me

 Hi friends. We're in the midst of a blizzard in Michigan and that reminds me how dark tetrad (narcissistic, psychopathic, exploitative, sadistic) parental abuse is like a blizzard of hurt and shame. Like the winter winds, it comes from all sides in their cult of pain. If they divorce and marry other narcissists or dark triads (which mine did), it is a vortex, a whiteout of abuse for their scapegoat. For more on my back story, you can read previous posts. Today I'm exploring more on how radical acceptance is the root of healing from the CPTSD this causes. 

I wrote recently that acceptance is not approval of. It's more honest recognition of. It is affirmation of my own version of events, not their deceitful ones. It also means finally hearing, embracing, comforting, supporting and nurturing the many damaged women in me. My lonely 4 y//o self, my terrified 6 y/o, sexually abused me at 8, parentified and overworked 12 y/o, abandoned 16 y/o, conned 21 y/o, scammed 36 y/o, manipulated 41 y/o to name a few. A group of ladies in need reside in me. And what they need and have always needed is recognition. 

I think the place we have to begin with accepting that what they gaslit us into believing was love and family was harm and danger, for us. We weren't loved, we were used. We were not disobedient, a burden, a nuisance. They were disobedient to God in not caring for us. What they said were our many duties and obligations were them exploiting and working us to death. So we all have to start over, to go back to the beginning and to rethink it all. 

A wise priest once said to me that anyone who doesn't have my best interests at heart doesn't love me. Well my (our ) parents and stepparents certainly had only their interests at heart and were perfectly happy to screw me over to get what they wanted (That's the Machiavellian component of their dark tetrad personalities). So let's begin our new radical acceptance there. 

They didn't love us. They made mercenary use of us.  We were expedient, convenient and easily misled by gaslighting. They made us believe we owed them for being allowed to be part of  their family. We didn't also weren't. But even if family is transactional (it isn't), we never got our part of the bargain, though we gave ours to overflowing. 

There was a constant double standard. We weren't family. We were staff, scapegoat, surrogate spouse, surrogate parents. They owned us (that's enmeshment). They broke up what was our family (which wasn't really ours either. It's always been all about them) I always say my parents divorced me not each other as they were never committed to it anyway. But they didn't delete us altogether. Oh no. That would deprive them of the benefits we brought them. It also would have actually been better for us. And the sadistic part of their dark tetrad hated anything that was good for us. They don't love you but by God no one else is going to either. 

Sounds pretty grim. And maybe a bit paranoid on my part. But that's dark tetrad for ya. It ain't pretty. It's selfish, greedy, conceited, condescending, hypocritical, disgusting. But it is what it is. And that's what radical acceptance is for me (us): acknowledging that the past happened, and it was as bad as we remember it. What I do recall. A lot, as in months and years are missing. What I've told you represents only a fraction. But I'm told by people I don't remember  meeting is that I looked miserable. So conclusion: it wasn't good what I've forgotten. I'm capable of remembering good things. So this repression is probably a safety valve of CPTSD. 

I also accept that nothing's going to change any of it. I (we) can't change the past. We can change the now and the future. To do that, we allow ourselves to accept (acknowledge, believe, confirm) that this is what I (we) have been dealing with all our lives. It's one of the healthiest things we've ever done. That and snipping ties with those that are left. Sadly, it's about all that's left to us of these past relationships. Honestly admitting they never were family relationships at all. They were scams. 

Healing CPTSD from dark tetrad parental abuse means radical acceptance

Hi friends. Today in my quest to heal CPTSD from narcissistic dark tetrad parental abuse, I'm exploring the crucial component which is radical acceptance. Acceptance that what I recall happening really did happen. And that helps me get who's responsible for what in perspective. This is crucial for de-programming their gaslighting and ceasing my own auto-gaslighting. Acceptance is how I'm saving myself from the mind, body and soul-killing pain of abuse. 

Am I saying it was okay for the four self-centered folks that called themselves my parents to hurt me? Not bloody likely. Am I giving my imprimatur to their consistent, strategic abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, dehumanizing, shaming, enmeshment, scapegoating and brainwashing about it all? No way. Radical acceptance isn't the good housekeeping seal of approval. It's more akin to Led Zepplin recognizing "what is and what should never be" or in the case of parental abuse what should never have been but what is. 

That word recognizing holds the key. It's about seeing their Dark Tetrad behaviors--narcissistic, Machiavellian (self-servingly exploitative) psychopathic (lack of empathy or remorse and sadistic (enjoying others' pain) for what they are. It's about breaking up with the 5 ex's--explaining away, excepting (ignoring), exempting (letting them get away with), excusing, and exonerating their cruelty. All of which enables their delusion of privilege and entitlement to continue abusing.  

Sadly, as a child growing up in this, my world was shaped and deformed by these lies. This was and still is my reality. It's automatic and autonomic. I never questioned it. Till I did. So for me, acceptance is recognizing that they are the problem not me. That they wronged me but that there's no way to change the past. It's about affirming my own version of events not the self-serving deceitful one. 

And so, with Reinhold Niebuhr, I ask God for the serenity to accept what I can't change, the courage to change what I can and the wisdom to know the difference. THAT is radical acceptance, to me. 

What going no contact after parental abuse means to me

 Hi friends! I wrote recently about how my path to heal CPTSD from narcissistic parental abuse has turned a corner. I've made the decision (drum roll, please) to go super low to no contact with those left of my family of origin. Which might sound overly grand but to me it is. It's been six decades in coming, so yes it's kind of a big deal. But what now? Where do I go from here with the healing? Well here's what going no contact means to me. 

It sounds like the old what I did on my summer vacation essay, doesn't it 😁? which in a way it is only in reverse. What am I going to do with the rest of my life, now that the abusive family is out of it? And I'll tell you  categorically, I don't know. Yet. I've lived so long with them messing with me, living in my head rent-free and nightmares every night, that this is new territory for me. 

So going forward, what will it look like? Well, I suspect it will hurt some. It hurts to see people caring for their parents and knowing I'll never be able to do that again because it's been so exploited. And then it has always hurt a lot so, less will be better. I have to come to terms with the fact that because rules of family life didn't apply to me, rules of adult interaction won't either. That normal expectations a kid can have for parents, didn't apply, their expectations on me (and my self-gaslit ones) don't either. Because they gave me no care and only exploited me, I owe them nothing. I think I never did. I certainly have no expectations on my children. 

However, abused and gaslit kids don't know that family relationships aren't transactional and that they should expect reciprocity. That parental care isn't an option but a right of childhood. That basic needs aren't met conditionally and then not at all when they future fake and change the conditions. That kids don't exist to please parents. So I didn't and so I don't. My "debt" to them, if there ever was one, was paid in full with interest decades ago. And I can feel free to close the door on that period of my life. I don't want to help and I don't care. Done. 

Yes, I realize that may be cold. And it would if they hadn't shut the door on me first. I've felt guilt about all the ways I've supposedly let them down all my life. But it didn't happen. They got more than enough from me, gave nothing and took what was mine. I gave till it not only hurt but destroyed large parts of me. They exploited and misused me. So I have nothing else for them. 

I can't do anything without hearing one of my four parents shaming voices in my head. Second-guessing, criticizing, undermining, attacking, bullying me. That's a hellish way to live. I feel afraid, stupid and foolish all the time. I don't even know right from wrong because everything I did was wrong. And I know that's not what God wants for me. 

So now I'm going to try something different. I'm going to do what I want and need (whatever those are, I don't know yet). I'm going make decisions the way I see fit and if it doesn't work, oh well. If I fail, I'll take it up with God. I'm taking back my own power. I'm going to find the confidence to try things I've never tried, crazy or not. 

I get to make mistakes and even do flat out wrong things on purpose once in awhile. Goodness know they were done to me often enough.  I'm basically a pretty kind person so it won't be anything too bad. Certainly not the earth-shattering deal my family made out of anything I did "wrong." Honestly, the way they blew things out of proportion and then minimized their own chaos is just laughable. 

But I realize that I don't have the power to make the world come screeching to a halt even if I wanted to. I don't run the show. I'll leave that delusion to the narcissists. I'm just lil 'ole me. I don't have to be the perfect one, the fixer, solver and smoother of feathers. I'm getting down off this damn pedestal of expected perfection. It's a tiny place to perch, no room to stand comfortably and fukkin easy to fall off from. I'm a perSON not a perFECT. 

So there's going to be a lot more honesty and a lot less fawning around here. Fewer yes sirs and no ma'ams and more just no I won't. " If it turns out I go overboard on the boundaries, or get more demanding myself, so? I'll figure that out for myself. Or they can so no to me. I don't need anyone bossing me around and scolding me. And I probably won't do that because I never have. 

And hear me now. If ANYONE ever screams at me, cusses me out or verbally abuses me again. Watch out. Because I will not tolerate it anymore. 

My recovery from CPTSD just turned a corner

Hello my friends. I just had an epiphany in my journey to heal CPTSD from narcissistic parental abuse. For more on all that you can read my back posts. I've turned a corner and am taking a new and, for me, unprecedented direction. I'm deciding to do a few things differently. And it's having a marked improvement in just a few days. What is this new direction, you ask?

Simply put, I've decided to cut contact with my two parents that are left. After a lifetime of them abusing, neglecting, shaming, invalidating, insulting, mocking, depriving, stealing from, parentifying, excluding me when it suits them, exploiting, enslaving, manipulating, raging at me, bullying, lying, dismissing, scapegoating, enmeshing, pirating my self, minimizing and gaslighting, I finally decided that it ends here. No more enabling, pity, help that hurts me, giving without reciprocity and getting kicked in the stomach for it. Done. 

And not a moment too soon. I've been struggling all my life with physical, mental, emotional, financial and spiritual suffering with CPTSD they created in me. And it's killing me at an escalated pace. I'm tense, anxious, frightened of shadows,  shell-shocked. I just a tiny noises. Everything worries me, especially things I've been made to think are my responsibilities, that aren't. 

So yes, it took me into my 7th decade to finally realize that I needed to sever ties with these dark triad people. Yes I wish I'd done it decades ago. If I'd cut contact when I was 16 and they kicked me out of the house, I'd have saved myself years of misery. As I said to my daughter today, ending narcissistic abuse is better done earlier rather than later. To which she said, "better late than never." So very true. 

And I didn't because I didn't know should not allow it or even that I could. I was raised in a cult of one, by four dark triad narcissists who saw to it that my brain was damaged by their exploitation. For children raised this way, coming out of the torture is exactly like coming out of prison. You have to break your way out because they will  never let you go. And the strongest bond and barriers are in your own mind, put there by people in whose best interests it is to keep you locked up, chained and walking the grindstone. And like Jean Valjean after Toulon, abuse survivors are scarred, scared and confused. 

But we are free. And I for one am never going back. I realized now I owe them nothing. And yes it sounds cold and heartless. Gaslit me definitely still feels more like a perp than a victim. But if you know my backstory, you know it's the only choice I have. Once you know it's being burnt you have to yank your hand out of the fire. 

I didn't ask for it to be this way. I did everything in my power to make them happy. And they liked that power they had over me. I kept my hands glued to my eyes to avoid seeing what as right in front of my face. They did not, do not and never loved me. They've used me. And I let them. I made excuses, defended and bent over for it. 

But no more. No more bullying. No more answering to shaming manipulative demands. I call the shots in my life. If I screw up, so be it. I'll deal with it if the time comes. I will let me common sense dictate what's best for me, not a conscience rubbed raw by inappropriate expectations and demands. 

And so it sounds like I don't care. Well, I don't. No more that the basic concern I have for everyone. They wanted to play it both ways, family when it suits them or there's something to be gotten out of it. And they bosses and business transactions when they give or do something. I always heard about how she had to "get back to her (real) family."  But then oh wait, I expect this or that because you're my child. Did she know how excluding that was? Of course she did. She went out of her way to remind me   of all the double standards I was expected to put up with. 

So yes, I was your child, to care for an nurture, not to boss and exploit. And you weren't my mother when it came to expectations you were supposed to be meeting. You reaped where you didn't sow. So now I don't care anymore.  I care about me. I care about those who are genuinely in my care. So she needs someone to care for her. (No not really. She just likes being waited on.) But say for argument she does need something. It's not my job to provide. And I don't want to anymore. 

It may be difficult for me at first to enforce these boundaries. But I'll get the hang of it. What has been going around for 60 years, is finally coming around. And who am it to stand it the way? 

Ridiculous and pitiful things CPTSD from narcissistic parental abuse makes me do

 Hello my friends. I've been writing a lot about my CPTSD from parental abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, shaming and invalidation, enmeshment, family scapegoating, identity pirating and gaslighting. Today I'm looking at how the acute stress responses of fight, flight, fawn, freeze and I'll add fix, have caused me to do ridiculous and pitiful things. 

For me, the four acute stress responses happened in a sort of order. I would be threatened in some way by one of my four selfish, sociopathic parents. It might be intense shaming, fury, rage, insulting, sexual harassment or covert incest, lying about something I'd done, manipulation, back-stabbing, chaotic changes made to serve themselves which hurt me, neglect, being put in dangerous situations, being left alone with no resources. It would come from nowhere. I never saw it coming. Which would make it more terrifying. Unbearably so. 

It would shock me and I'd freeze (panic). I would go into a sort of emergency, crisis mode fugue-state shutdown. My  hands shake and my stomach feels sick when I recall it. I couldn't think clearly. All common sense went bye-bye. Then I'd fawn (grovel, humor, placate) when it wasn't safe to run (flight). I'd literally present, like a wild animal. I was so frightened and confused that I'd cry, sometimes wet my pants. I'd beg to know what I could do to please them, so they wouldn't be so angry. And to make this god-awful misery stop. But hell hath no fury like a narcissist parent. 

Then later, in situations it was safe to, I'd fly. Sometimes. Mostly I just stuck around to be further hurt. I'd been groomed to be the whipping girl. So I thought that's what I was supposed to do in all situations. If I was shamed for running (getting the hell out of the situation, yanno, like self-care?), I'd back down in shame. And sometimes when cornered, I'd come out swinging. But it wasn't to hurt the other person. It was defensive, to make them stop hurting me. Little did I know that a lot of the windmills I was tilting at were from traumatic situations long past. 

But the one thing I always do, is the stress response I've added to the list.  ALWAYS rush to fix the problem. This is kind of like fawn but with a more active component. Even fighting was a response to make it stop. The other person was deregulating and I was feeling myself going the same way. So I tried in all ways I could to get out of the spiral, to break the cycle, and get us to safety before we both went completely down the drain. If that meant the shock slap across the face, well, needs must. 

Of course, you who don't experience this, can see how incredibly dysfunctional it all is. But you can't think clearly when in trauma or shock. It all feels so urgent. And it is meant to. My perpetrators forced me into feeling a state of perpetual emergency over their selfish demands. They created panic with their abuse, harm and gaslighting. I was conditioned to jump in fear and rush to help whenever any of them said to. 

Looking back with more clarity, I see it was all over such piddly things. Things I as a KID was dealing with from them daily. I would supposedly do something which ground the world to a halt. Like asking if a friend could have dinner over. Or coming home 15 minutes late. Things that I deal with as an adult on a moment by moment basis. I'd be told I was disobedient, selfish, arrogant, yada yada. Meanwhile THEY were routinely scornful, mocking, rude, neglectful or their children.   There was never a real crisis, except the one they were manufacturing.  

As you might imagine, all of these stress coping responses have gotten me in trouble in the real world, outside their cultish narc fantasies. What was supposed to keep me safe (an never really did) in the alternate reality they created for me, looked very sick in the light of day. I have scared off a lot of people with my over-reacting, shell shock responses. But then they don't live in the Armageddon in my head.  So what do I do that's so strange? 

1) Can't differentiate between mine and thine. It's all mine to worry about and fix. It's all thine if you need it from me. If you need something, even if it's something you should be doing for yourself, especially if you guilt me into believing it's my job to provide it, you'll get it. 

2) No is not a word in my vocab. Personal boundaries don't exist. I feel ashamed of needs and certainly wants. 

3) Don't know big from little problems and little from no problem. Everything was made out to be earth-shattering. So do I overreact? Hell yeah. 

4) Stupid myself down to humor others. I will keep quiet about things I know if others are saying it's different. I keep opinions to myself if others say it's wrong. I always think I'm wrong and others are right, no matter how wrong they patently are. I don't speak up when I should. I don't share different perspectives because that would be "contradicting" even though we're both grown adults. I still see myself as the "disobedient child" my parents painted me as, in my 60s. 

5) Too agreeable. I'm not exactly ashamed of my ideas, I'm just too afraid of displeasing people. I'm terrified of setting off belligerent, angry people even though they are perpetually set off. And my kowtowing just makes them worse. 

6) Let others kick me around. Being the butt of jokes, target of rage, scapegoated, insulted by kids I'm in charge of caring for, shamed and scorned by people I'm supposed to serve, it's all normal for me. 

5) On edge all the time. Waiting for the attack. 

Acknowledging narcissistic abuse isn't blaming, it's getting perspective

 Hello all. I've done a lot of processing of abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, manipulation, invalidation, exploitation, scapegoating and gaslighting I experienced from four narcissistic parents. I'm absolutely drained and second-guessing myself. And I want to make a few things clear (probably mostly to myself). When I share about the abuse, I'm not shaming and blaming anyone. I'm trying to get out from under the false shame and blame that was laid on me. 

Is that just blame and shame shifting (putting on others)? I don't know. I'm not intentionally placing it on them, just getting it off me. If blame, by association, lands on the perpetrators of the abuse, it's something I can't help. And is it really a bad thing to sort out who is responsible? If blame and shame is so bad, why was it okay for me to be subjected to it all my life? Why was I made wrongly responsible for their actions? It has ruined large parts of my brain. I've been miserable with it as long as I can remember. 

The voices in my head are saying, well if you know how it feels to experience shaming and blame, why would  you want to put someone else through it? And they would be right in asking if I was putting it on an innocent bystander. But my parents are not innocent. They're the ones who created this hell with their neglect, abuse, abandonment, endangerment, etc. 

I'm just saying what happened instead of believing the lies and distortions. I'm identifying what's mine and what's  not. I'm sorting people's issues into the right baskets instead taking them all into mine. All I'm trying to do is heal the CPTSD it caused me and undo the damage of gaslighting. Acknowledging abuse, neglect, etc, helps put it in perspective for me. It helps me understand how I was hurt by it, where I can correct unsafe beliefs, hopefully, and how, maybe, I can live a healthier life. 

If my getting some relief means they get held accountable for their bad treatment of me, well, maybe better choices should have been made. 

Many contradictory lies my narcissistic parents told about me, to exploit, gaslight and shame

Hello my friends. I've been doing a lot of recovery work in CPTSD from a lifetime of abuse, neglect, exploitation, abandonment, enmeshment, endangerment, parentification, invalidation and gaslighting by four narcissistic parents. I didn't know then that all this was happening. I just knew I was miserable and suicidal most of the time. I thought their poor treatment of me was normal and/or my fault. I didn't even know most of the words for it till a few years ago. But now that I do, boy do they fit and wow, is the behavior pattern. And do they weaponize and gaslight! Confusing stuff they said was actually right out of the narcissist's handbook. 

Here are 25 contradictory lies and deceptions my narcissistic parents told about me, to gaslight, bully, exploit and shame me. It felt very out of the blue but I see now that it was supposed to. So I would feel that I'd provoked it with my egregiously bad behavior. This would keep me always on my toes and watchful. Always ready to fix, fawn or make amends for some hinted at transgression. 

Now I see it wasn't just a bunch of random attacks but quite organized persecution. Their lies and distortion, followed by gaslighting were self-serving and strategic. Rehearsed even. Like a litany or formula. They'd devised a system of weapons which they pulled out at pre-appointed times. They also had a defensive arm in place to defect any objection. In short, they were ready and prepared to thwart any obstacle in their path. As if I was some kind of threat and not a good, loving, obedient kid. 

Hmm, funny that. Did they actually view me as an enemy to be vanquished?  Some evil in their midst? It sure felt that way.  I think I was supposed to think I was the evil, (not that evil was done to me) so that I would never question and always feel ashamed. That I'd brought these attack on myself, though I never knew what I'd done to provoke them. I now see this offensive was manufactured to confuse, frustrate, tear down my defenses, plant false, hurtful beliefs about myself, induce artificial shame, render me helpless and create an alternate reality for only me to live in. So that if I told anyone, they'd laugh because it sounded so paranoid. 

And it was all for power over me. They wrote a controlled, fake narrative to keep me in bewildered compliance to their whims, demands and crazy expectations. And it was entirely lose-lose for me. I would no more put out one of their fires then they would set six more. I  could never get it right. They made sure of that. It was an endless loop of moving hoops. They painted me in a corner. I was caught in a vicious net that kept getting tighter the more I moved. 

And how did they do that? I don't completely know because I'm not that devious. But I know it includes telling repeated lies and twisted half-truths.  And keeping me gaslit so that I believed whatever I did it was wrong even though they'd just said it was right. And living double standards. And being unpleasable so I'd keeping me jumping to please.  These are things that were said to me. In paras are the contradictions of what they actually did versus what they said or meant or what I was supposed to hear in it. These are listed in no particular order because I didn't see a pattern then but one is emerging. And that was to do just that, keep me hopping. 

You're too sensitive. But you're not sensitive enough to others' needs. You should just know (sense, predict ) what we expect without having to be told. You should be more "sensitive to" (anticipate) our needs (whims, demands, wishes). We (you) should be at the ready and jump to serve (you exist for us. We will not serve you or even help or give basic care.) 

You can't be a teacher because you're too sensitive. (You should not go to college because who will take care of us?) College isn't for everyone.( You've outshone us. Your intelligence makes us feel insecure. We're also embarrassed you succeeded when we gave you no help.) Not everyone woman is a cow. (My wife is mad that you breastfed your children when she was too selfish to.) You're competitive.(Our kids like you better than us because you took better care of them than we did).  

You're too needy. (how dare you need glasses and food and a bed?) You're too demanding (how dare you ask us for things?). You expect too much (medical care, bedroom, love, encouragement) You're too selfish (needs, wants, feelings are for us, not you). You aren't working hard enough ( to meet our selfish demands). 

You need to accept chores (unreasonable, unshared burdens) cheerfully. But not too cheerfully because then you're proud and looking for praise. And you shouldn't ask if you did it right because you are fishing for compliments. 

You look ridiculous (when I'm the one wearing a hooker costume to a church Halloween party and nightgowns in public). Your hair looks silly (I don't even comb mine) You're making a fool of yourself (doing normal kid things while I'm behaving so bizarrely that your friends parents won't let them come over). You're attention-seeking (I threw a pie in your face at my work party). You're immoral (while I'm sleeping with another woman's husband). You sound ridiculous (when trying a new vocal style in private in the bathroom). There's nothing wrong with your back no matter what the doctor says. (I have real aches and pains, despite obesity and malingering diagnosis) '

You lack common sense (adult skills many adults don't have and we don't use) You're childish (as a child). Grow up (when we haven't and won't). You're clumsy (from uncorrected impaired vision, lots of heavy housework). You shake your hips to get attention (you walk crooked from poorly treated congenital hip dysplasia, ignored scoliosis and other medical neglect) You're forgetful (from being overtired from sleeping in unsafe, unhealthy conditions). You lose things (we take them and sell them) You're obsessed with things you lost. (like son's shoes which we stole from you). 

She's your mummy. He's your father. (they're not. You only have one each of those. They're our partners and your bosses. But not your caregivers or family so expect nothing of them but also render service to them.) Honor your parents. (and our partners we call your parents when it suits us. But that's just for you. We don't have to honor ours. And we'll just ignore that part about what we owe you)

When we play our instruments, we're serving God. In fact, we should always be invited to play and all eyes should be on us when we do. You're just showing off when you sing in the bathroom. You're arrogant and proud. You're looking for attention. You're fishing for compliments. (We just expect them.)

God says you have to serve (us) with no thought of reward or payment. We're family. Unless it's us doing for you. Then it's a business transaction and we will be paid back with interest It's a gift when you give and a loan when we give. We will not serve you or anyone. God wasn't referring to us when he said to serve you. Or anyone. You owe us. We're your parents. But you're not our child. We owe you nothing. In fact, we'll be taking what you've been given by others from you. For our real families.  

You're too defensive (when we attack you. You should  just let anyone walk on you not protect yourself. God says) God didn't mean us, however. We will see exploitation everywhere and attack first. Youre also offensive to your stepmother and stepfather (your bosses, not caregivers). You also can't take (our) criticism (destructive, harsh, mocking, shaming, fault-finding, harassment, attacks, untruths). And you're too critical (of us). 

You have to respect us, God says. We owe you no respect. You're disrespectful (when you didn't see what we want and jump to fix it). We're just doing our job as parents (when we're blatantly disrespectful, rude, shaming, humiliating, punitive, insulting you) You need to not only respect but care for your siblings. They don't have to respect you. They don't have to do things they should be doing for themselves. You have to. They don't have chores. You do. They're kids. You had to do adult work when you were younger than them. You have to be the adult when you're a kid. 

You forced me to scream at and humiliate you in front of everyone at Christmas because you went to try on your sweater. Even though you also had to go to the bathroom. And no one else was asking permission for that. I assumed you were just being disrespectful even though you never are.  And your grandparents who were supposedly so disrespected, asked you to try on your new sweater. And my sons ran off to play with their new toys. You must ask permission for everything. Even though you did and my wife gave it. I didn't HEAR you ask so I assumed you didn't even though you always do. In fact others have said how weird it is you have to ask permission for everything and no one else does. 

We aren't stealing from you. We need the money for our new families. You can do without. You don't need a room of your own. Your job is to sleep in our babies' rooms and get up with them. You're not a family member you're an unpaid nanny. But you can't tell anyone because then you're lying. Or not being loyal to your (our) family. 

You're not really suffering. We're not depriving you. We need these luxuries for ourselves. You don't deserve basics. You overreact. You came in an hour late once and so we kicked you out. But don't be so melodramatic about it. You're 16. You'll be fine.

You need to humble yourself. We're the important ones here. You never back down. (you always back down and we don't like it because it shows up our pride and arrogance). You're stiff-necked. We're your parents. We get to order you around and you have to just like it and ask for more (we're the stiff-necked ones. We're bossy, demanding, hypercritical and we NEVER apologize). You must beg our forgiveness (for things you didn't do wrong or things we did to you) but we won't give it. You have to forgive us, God says (ignore what we did, that we're not sorry for and let us keep doing it). We don't have to  extend mercy and can hold a grudge all our lives. You won't back down. We don't back down because we're always right. Even when God says we're in the wrong. 

You don't do enough around here (you do most of our work, all my wife's kids' work but we can always think of more) You upset your stepmother. (I'm upset because she is upset with me or just feeling fat, lazy and crabby but it's your fault.) When she's sulking I will say in front of you, "maybe Mari could fix it, do for you" etc.  (By which hint, I expect you to beg her to please tell you how to make her happy.) I will invite her to think of yet another thing you can do to please her. (She will not be pleased, we both know this. Which will piss me off at her. But I will take it out on you.) You shouldn't expect her to be pleased. (That's my job. Yours is to just keep jumping. That she never is further pisses me off.) 

You shouldn't ask what you did to upset her (because she is probably mad at me and might actually tell you that).  You should just know. (By which I mean I won't tell you because I don't know myself. Which will piss me off more.) You must have upset her otherwise why is she pouting? (I know damn well why, because she's always peeved and so am I. But I will NEVER give you the benefit of the doubt.) 

You're so impatient. ( I'm impatient and how dare you be so put together?) You're always angry (You're not angry enough. How can you keep it together when we can't. We're always angry We just want you to feel guilty for it).  Why are you so eager to please? It's pathetic. (I hate it that you're so good at doing my job.) Why can't you just get it right with her? (I can't but you must keep guessing cuz I haven't got a fucking clue). You don't like your stepmother (I can't stand her). You should be ashamed of yourself. (I'm ashamed of myself but not enough to stand up for you. I need it to be your fault so I don't have to deal with it or her). 

You take everything so personally. (personal attacks, shaming, blaming, scapegoating) You  take things too literally. (insults, mockery) You're too careless (exhausted from all our ceaseless and unreasonable demands) You should lighten up. (and quit expecting us to actually parent you or be adults ourselves.) You are the whole problem in this family. (I need you to be. But I won't tell you how to fix it because you can't because you aren't. We are and won't. I just want a scapegoat.) 

Your job is to serve us. (actually its mine but I'll never admit it. So keep hopping, you.) God says you have to be a servant (The Bible is written to us. We're the adults, parents and caregivers, not you. We're just gonna conveniently overlook that part). You need to be a willing servant. (you are this already but I'm going preach it in such a way that you believe you aren't.)

You need to look for the good in others. (You do but again we'll gaslight you into thinking you don't. While we on the other hand will always look for and expect the worst of you. And others. We will overlook the bad in ourselves. We will get mad instantly at the first hint that you've done something wrong. And never hear your side. You don't have a side. 

You need to be more resilient (you've proved yourself endlessly resilient to our abuse while, we, dammit, fall apart at the slightest blip). You're too independent. You need to be more of a family member. (do more, be more, while said family excludes you). 

Just face it. None of the rules of normal life apply to you. 

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You know, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if any truths were told and if my entire framework of life was based on lies.  

How narcissist parents enmesh, exploit and gaslight to make scapegoats feel responsible for their actions

 Hi friends. To heal my CPTSD from narcissistic parental abuse, I'm going to the roots. I'm exploring not not only that but also how and why I was abused, neglected, abandoned, endangered, scapegoated, parentified, invalidated, enmeshed, exploited, shamed, invalidated and gaslit about it all. Today I'm looking at how narcissist parents enmesh, then exploit and then gaslight to make scapegoat kids responsible for their actions. 

So, what do we know about narcissists? They are self-centered, arrogant, hypocritical, demanding, needy, control freaks without empathy, who plow over others' boundaries. They pirate others' identities, take over their brains. They see us as extensions of themselves like an arm or eye. They use us to get narcissistic supply and  delusional fantasies of grandeur fulfilled. I experienced this from four parents (two biological and their partners). They were so enmeshed that I actually believed it was selfish of me to think, need, want and feel for myself. 

Plus my mother is very histrionic and inappropriate sexually. She is seductive, manipulative and constantly demanding of attention. Being stripped of my sense of self, I let her use me as a sex therapist, pawn and object of comparison, as a child. (See my funny looking fat little daughter, now look at sexy me). She allowed and I see now, encouraged her boyfriend to mock me, at 10, for my small breast size. While she preened herself on her larger ones. She runs around naked and sleeps naked and tells everyone about it. 

She openly cheated on my dad when we were in Alaska and dragged me along. She exposed and left me with various older men (sugar daddies I now suspect) who were mommy's "friends." My dad was on "mission trips" thousands of miles away and completely unavailable. I was left alone and vulnerable. All while planning her Good News clubs, she said. I don't recall those ever happening. At one point she left the native community to go be a youth group leader (she said) on a remote island. Now I wonder if she hadn't made herself a pariah and was being sent away. We had no home and no money. I've no idea how we lived. 

She has always dressed oddly, wearing seductive clothing when young, dressing like a hooker for Halloween and then later, wearing nightgowns in public. When I was young, she'd make out with her various boyfriends blatantly, in front of me. Like I wasn't even there because I wasn't, to her. But she also wanted me to see and be jealous, I now know. Jealous that I wasn't as hot as her (at 8, mind). And also because she wanted me to feel sick and humiliated. 

She talks about sex all the time and always has. She talks about her privates with my husband and kids. She got a boyfriend of mine to talk to her about his genitalia. She has shared intimate details of her sex life with me since I was a kid. I never asked her to stop, even including a few years ago when she talked to the doctor about sex problems in front of me. She didn't request I leave and snapped at me for not being for appearing uncomfortable hearing about it. I see now, she wanted me to feel icky. 

My dad was off in a different way. He dated a series of younger women, one being 17 and young enough to be his daughter. He fully planned to marry her and pass her off to me as a mother. She was 8 years older than me. He had very blurred boundaries with me about who was my mother (authority figure). They were my family (not caregiver, boss)  if he said so. Same with my mother. They made it up as they went along. I was just told how it was and expected to adapt. No questions, support or thoughts of my own. Well, you would, wouldn't you if you your daughter is not a person but an appendage. 

And then they gaslit me into thinking this was all perfectly normal and that I should be grateful. God expected me to serve them and their new spouses and all their new kids. Even though no one I knew had a life remotely like mine. And even though it was made abundantly clear that I wasn't really welcome. I was family when things were expected of me but not in things I should have been able to expect. I was a useful nuisance and one they clearly resented. 

But then, they preached such a different message. They were always reading and quoting scripture including that which called out their behavior as immoral. They believed themselves to be actual ministers (they weren't. It was just delusion). I was taken to church and beaten with the Bible on all the things God expected of me. But I never once heard them speak of their responsibilities. They were above it and the Bible didn't apply to them. There were two completely opposite sets of rules, both of which were made up by them for their own self-centered ends. 

Anything they did, no matter how foolish, selfish or sinful was God telling them to. They were just following instructions. Even though the Bible plainly said it was wrong and forbade it. We were reading the same Bible but getting very different things from it. I always kinda wondered about that, but they were so convincing and who was I, a kid (and a gaslit one at that) to question?  

But I see now that they were twisting God's word to make it seem like it says things it doesn't. They were taking bits they liked, out of context and distorting the intent. They were omitting anything that didn't support them or called out their behavior. Some things they just flat out lied about. For example, theft, child abandonment, lying, adultery and fornication. Those, my mom said, didn't apply to her because...well, I can't recall the excuse she used. But I know she did excuse it because she was so blatant about it, while still preaching against it. As I see now, they said they were God and I believed them. I literally didn't know right from wrong when it came to them. 

And I never said anything about how awful all this made me feel. Ever. To anyone.  You can't with an enmeshed narcissist parent. They get volatile when you do and make you feel even worse. So you keep silent, always. They do not feel ashamed for their very shameful behavior and they blame/ shame shift it onto you. And here's where the narc parent makes their scapegoat kid feel responsible for their behavior. 

When you first draw breath, they take you over. They strip your personhood and indoctrinate you in the cult of them. You're their puppet. Anytime you begin to form a boundary, they smash it. You are shamed for feelings, needs, wants and individuality outside of them. But then, they guilt you with their needs you're supposed to meet. They don't care for you or even like you but you must attend them at all times. You are groomed to supply, fix, fawn, placate, provide, offer up and serve. 

Then, once they have you good and messed up, they take it a step further. They exploit your boundarylessness, vulnerability, lack of identity, inability to protect yourself, confusion and intense shame. They contort truth, manipulate situations and gaslight you. They so baffle you that you take on their guilt and shame. They convince you, by trickery and lies, to think that you are at fault for their behavior. I don't know quite how they achieve it. I only know that they do. And the gaslighting is bewildering. 

Why would they do this if they feel that rules don't apply to them? Why not just do as they please and not worry about it? I have come to think that even the most delusional narcissist knows on some primitive level, that their behavior is wrong. And there are people, not so hoodwinked as I was, telling them what's wrong. And this creates massive shame. 

But being self-centered, they believe they don't deserve the shame. So they lie, backpeddle, distort, twist. They're being victimized and persecuted.  They're never to blame so it must be someone else's fault. Someone must be making them feel this way. He is and it's God, bringing to mind their sin but they can't accept that because He would never disapprove them. They're only always just obeying Him, they believe. 

So they land on the scapegoat child. It must be her fault. She's making us feel bad. Bad her. Which reiterates how deceitful it is because I never did. I accepted all they said as gospel truth. I made up excuses for them and defended them. So they knew they had the perfect target in gaslit, muddled little me. I would willingly take on myself their shame. Goodness knows I'd done it often enough. Over the years the perfected the method till I was too exhausted to protest if I wanted to or even knew I could and should.

And that as they say is that. A perfect circle of shame, beginning and ending with me.