The Source of Dysfunctional Behavior and Continued Trauma Bond
Recently, I have been seeing an upsurge with survivors who are in therapy and processing their relationships, their toxic choices, patterns of relating and toxic behaviors. and making connections to their pathological upbringings. Being the child of a pathological parent is the ultimate “Cluster Fuck” when it comes to the consequences and subsequent damage that is life long. If you were assigned the role of scapegoat, it is particularly traumatizing and damaging, nevertheless, ANY role you played or any consistent contact with a psychopathic/narcissistic parent is traumatizing.
To say that our nurturing (or with a pathological parent, lack thereof), while growing up in a pathological home had nothing to do with the choices, behaviors that we had later on in our lives from our career choices to partner and friendship choices, is like saying the mind and body are not connected. They are. And because they are, we go through life surrounded by an invisible toxic web of learned survival “techniques” and behaviors that are deeply subconscious. When making those choices, we simply weren’t aware of how toxic they were, nor how toxic our adaptations to it have been to our lives. This creates a monumental wall of cemented denial. The longer we stay “connected” to the toxic parent, the longer we put off a genuine healing that would catapult us over this wall in the form of letting go of our emotional and/or financial dependence and into freedom. It doesn’t matter that we got rid of the pathological partner in cases like this, because we have our pathological parent to fall back on to keep repeating our roles, and our behaviors. (or vice versa) We aggravate our already active PTSD, we validate the very relationships we just went no contact from when we remain emotionally involved with our psychopathic/narcissistic parent. (or partner)
This is why I strongly encourage survivors to locate and take the TIME to find a very good and skilled trauma therapist. You may go through several before you find one, but it is worth the effort.
It is my opinion, and a pattern that I have seen consistently with those who have pathological and toxic parents, that when there are still ties to the parent or partner, FULL healing will not happen. It can’t. The roles we act out are subconscious and automatic. It doesn’t matter how “aware” you are of their toxicity, when you deal with the parent (or partner), there is a SHIFT to automatic pilot in response or reaction to them, even if you are able to control the reactions during communications, it is STILL going on in your mind and in your body. Your unhealed damage is still there and active. There is almost ALWAYS a response to it with a PTSD reaction AFTER contact. Sometimes the reaction can be pinpointed directly to the pathological parent, other times we are reacting after contact but CAN’T pinpoint it to the pathological. We become irritable, negative, pained, hyper vigilant. Angry. Sometimes, because we have never gone no contact, we never stopped reacting. Chances are, if you had an extremely toxic or otherwise psychopathic/narcissistic parent, you may also have had PTSD for a long time.
The pathological parent is the SAME in intention towards their children as your psychopathic/narcissistic ex. THE SAME.
There is a quote that I love.... It applies to the pathological parent as much as it applies to the pathological partner. I’m substituting he/his in reference to the psychopath, in my mind, and instead inserting psychopathic parent in context without changing the wording of the following excerpt from the book. “Although his dominance may also be camouflaged to the outside world by looking more passive than powerful, yet behind closed doors, his dominance is exerted by controlling her through any means he can use. These could include sexual humiliation, suffocating neediness, her every movement is approved or disapproved by him, gaslighting to control her reality–anything overt or covert can be used. His insatiable need for power and dominance is so non-stop that it feels unquenchable to her. Psychopaths hurt people because power through victimization is much more satisfying to them. THEY ARE EMOTIONALLY REWARDED BY THE HARM THEY CAUSE.” (Pg.40)
When our relationships are over and the initial early stages of recovery with cognitive dissonance (obsessive and intrusive thoughts), ruminating and learning how to get out of bed each day again have passed, we move into the next phase with amped up PTSD. There is usually (but not always) a short phase after the initial phase, where we are feeling empowered and ready to get our game back on, when the cascade of PTSD symptoms takes over, driving us to therapy or back to our beds in despair, or to our computers for several hours of researching what the hell just happened to us.
If PTSD was not already present at the initial phase of recovery, when it appears, it can be frightening and devastating because we feel that we “should be over it” or thought we would be. That is not how recovery goes and it is especially not true when there is a pathological parent (or partner) still involved in your life. It is at this stage of recovery, when the PTSD kicks in, that it is critical to find a trauma therapist. Many survivors are genuinely unable to access therapeutic services, however, there are domestic violence agencies that can refer you to a trauma therapist, if they do not provide one at their agency. I know this to be true where I live, as this put me on the path to finding the therapist I currently have. It is not true in all cases, but a determined survivor, although frustrated, can find the right therapist with a little hard work and the time to make it happen. Oftentimes, the trauma is not limited to the ex pathological partner, but in the end, more of a consequence to original trauma that derives from the disordered parent and the pathological environment.
The trauma in childhood by the disordered parent is excused, minimized and trivialized by many survivors. This is not said in a way as to blame the survivor for the abuse and trauma they suffered in childhood, but merely a life long habit of coping mechanisms necessary in dealing with the parent. When we come out of the relationship with the disordered partner, eventually we stop making excuses for them. We experience the emotions at having been duped, used and degraded. Once the fog lifts we are better able to understand at least that much, as well as all the research that each of us has done about the disorders. But if you are the child of a psychopath or narcissist, this is only the beginning…
Why do we provide excuses for the disordered parent that we will not for the ex-partner? Why do we provide every single excuse to ourselves with our continued involvement when it has been clear for years that the parent abused us and continues too? why do we believe it will magically be all better one day and that the parent will spontaneously be sorry for their cruelty? Why do we say “He/she did the best they could” when we know in our hearts they did not? When you are dealing with a psychopathic/narcissistic parent, you are not dealing with someone who did “the best they could”. Why do we look at other situations or our own with our pathological ex partners if we share children, and want to keep them away from the pathological ex, but readily expose ourselves to our own pathological parent? Why are we horrified at the actions of the pathological who has partial or sole custody of a child, but are completely apathetic when it comes to our own parent? Why do we bullshit ourselves into thinking we can “handle” our pathological parent now and will continue a relationship with them (which incidentally is the source of our trauma to begin with), but we absolutely NC everyone else that is toxic that has had intimate contact with us? Why is it repulsive to think of the psychopath/narcissist doing unspeakable harm and damage to a child via observance, but we can’t see the forest for the trees with our own damage that we carry from our parent?
When I mention the above dynamic, it is met with anger, outrage, crying in frustration, denial, excuses, but the most favorite of all statements, “But that’s different!” Really???
WHAT is different? WHAT? The truth is… there isn’t any difference. With the pathological parent, we are still in the FOG, but the representation of that word takes on much deeper meaning and goes like this: Fear, Obligation and Guilt. This is a problem. This is a trauma bond.
This is why complete healing isn’t possible. This is why we have trouble controlling our PTSD, this is why we choose more psychopathic partners.
This is why we choose more psychopathic/narcissistic friendships.
This is why we choose jobs that are filled with pathologicals waiting for you to act out your role of scapegoat or golden child.
This is partly why we STILL carry our shame.
This is why we feel INTENSE GUILT at going no contact with the pathological parent.
This is also, believe it or not, why we are not completely horrified by the acts of cruelty each of us has endured.
This is why when we try to change our behaviors that were our defense mechanisms and/or coping skills, we are frustrated that it doesn’t seem to work.
This is why, when the psychopath/narcissist targeted you, you were already primed as prey. You already knew the “drill”. NOTHING was unique in how the relationship happened, and how it played out. NOTHING.
The psychopathic/narcissistic parent did the same thing to you, over and over, idealize/discard… idealize/discard. You already knew about love bombing… the psychopathic/narcissistic parent knew just how to push your buttons and manipulate you to get you to do what they wanted you to do. Were you ever given a credit card to freely spend? Did the psychopathic/narcissistic parent give you anything and everything you wanted when they needed something, the golden child? Did the sun rise and set out of your ass, like it did with your partner when you were being love bombed? Perhaps you were the scapegoat, hence you were only treated with any “decency” when something was wanted from you and subsequently punished for doing it. Perhaps you were the blame for every ill in the family, and if you had siblings, they were taught to act out their roles too in your scapegoating. What about this is any different than it was with your ex or your pathological friends or your pathological boss or child? NOTHING. Not one thing.
The pathological parent had/has the same intent to harm as any other pathological in your life. It is hardest to fathom that the human beings that were most responsible for your care, to love you and embrace your budding individuality, exploited it for the sake of their image, for ego strokes. For attention. To one up you, training you to react. To play the victim so that you would take care of them, emotionally, financially, spiritually and in many cases, to be the “little parent”. You were punished, indulged. You were the pathological parent’s personal emotional receptacle. You may also have experienced psychopathic/narcissistic sexual deviancy, from flirtation to sexual intercourse. You may have been a vehicle in which to triangulate with the other parent, whether they were together or not. You may have been triangulated with your siblings, the family dog. If divorced, your pathological parent may have used you as a window dressing to attract a new victim, hence the psychopathic/narcissistic love bombing of you during his/her dating phase, so you would project the image the psychopath/narcissist wanted of the “Disneyland Dad” in securing the new victim, only to be discarded when the “honeymoon” with the new victim was over. Perhaps you were beaten into submission, raged at. Perhaps you spent many nights as a child in fear of your psychopathic/narcissistic parent, or in silence with tears of hopelessness streaming down your face… or you had the ever present tummy ache that never seemed to go away. Or maybe you heard your pathological parent raging at the other parent, or perhaps both were raging... then the next day everyone acted as if nothing ever happened… sound familiar?
Now as an adult, what is different? Because you no longer live with your parent? Because you have a family of your own and “all of that was a long time ago”… How much of a facade do you feel you may be living emotionally, spiritually… that you’re not being real? that you’re not complete? That hellbent on not “wanting to be like them” you are living life the way you think you should be living and it all looks good on the outside, but on the inside, there is an ever present anxiety? When one of the kids says or does something, you snap? Some of your reactions are completely inappropriate given any situation that feels similar to what the pathological parent did to you? Or you go about your daily life, as distracted as much as possible, busy as you can be to avoid the abyss that lies in wait to be addressed within your heart and soul that is your ORIGINAL trauma? PTSD says you can run, but you can’t hide…
“I don’t want to be like them!” And with unhealed trauma and undiagnosed PTSD, with regard to your children, if you came out of childhood alive and with any empathy, you have gone to extremes in raising your children compared to how you perceived your pathological parent raised you. Perhaps you enable them, perhaps you are too afraid to discipline them because you are afraid you will hurt them. Perhaps you feel obligated in that they have the life that you didn’t so you OVER COMPENSATE, killing yourself to give them the life YOU think they should have when you didn’t have it at all. This is what you believe love is. In reality, these actions can disable your child and can create narcissism too. You become a martyr on their behalf. You also re-victimize yourself when you find yourself shocked to discover that they are UNGRATEFUL to you for giving them what you did not get. Perhaps they become abusive to you. Perhaps they are apathetic. Entilted. Maybe you find yourself feeling resentful at all of this “giving” to others and not GETTING in return… maybe, JUST maybe, it’s time to address your unhealed wounds. Maybe, just MAYBE it’s time to stop picking up the phone when the pathological parent CALLS you for yet another rant or to tell you how you are FAILING at your life. Oftentimes as adults we feel that we owe the pathological parent EXPLANATIONS as to their projections onto us as failure. Why the hell are we EXPLAINING anything? Oftentimes as adults when the insults or rants come, or comments made and disguised as “encouragement” hit us in a way that makes you feel as if you’ve been punched in the chest.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? ANY of it?
The hardest thing you will ever do in your recovery, if you have a pathological parent in your life, is to go NO CONTACT. Most of the time, this cannot be done without therapeutic process when there is still “attachment” to not only the pathological parent, but old behavior because this process will also ask you to look at YOURSELF and that too, is an extreme challenge. You will be led to change your entire landscape with emotion, perception, behavior, past and present. There will come a time as you process this that you will begin to see the pathological parent as he/she/they really ARE. You will know it, yet you will FIGHT it. You will not want to believe it. You have now come to the wall. You know it is there. You can no longer excuse it, minimize it or trivialize it. It will be in your face. You will have a deep and very profound awareness and you know that once you SAY it, BELIEVE it, you will then have to DO something about it, because not doing so will increase your behaviors, your resistance to it will drive you crazy. You will be irritable, angry, depressed. You will be tired of fighting, them and yourself. It is the ultimate wall of resistance because once you let go, you are in a foreign land. This is incredibly difficult if you rely upon the pathological parent in any way, whether it’s in anticipation for hoped for validation, for money, for continued family connections. You know that when you do this, there will be a smear campaign. Somewhere inside you, you will KNOW what the consequences will be. You know that all of that manipulative and FAKE validation that the psychopathic/narcissistic parent gave was not real…
We often say about our ex’s, “The whole relationship was a LIE”. What does this mean when we apply it to our pathological parent, about us? Most are terrified about this. If we let go of them, we have no identity we think... our concept of self comes from the trauma bond with the pathological parent. What does this MEAN when we say a permanent GOOD BYE? What does this mean with every single interaction we have had with the pathological parent over a lifetime?
But somehow, somewhere, you know you have your own growing identity and this is why, as you process, you will feel emotionally led to get off the merry-go-round, but you will be terrified because you’re not sure if you can do it ENTIRELY alone without doing it the way THEY said, you’re not sure that you trust the AUTHENTIC individual that they should have encouraged in the first place.But the biggest hurt of all, is to accept and understand that you were never loved at all. That along with everyone else in a disordered person’s life, you were an object, someone to exploit. There is something so WRONG with that, isn’t there? Because you are filled with love in your heart, compassion and massive amounts of empathy, you cannot fathom how your pathological parent could not love you. It is simply beyond your comprehension to know that your psychopathic/narcissistic parent who gave you the gift of life, would use you as a means to their end. It is more so to truly understand that their intent was harming you and that your responses and reactions to it, throughout your life, were because of that intentional damage done to you. We do all we can to make it right with them. We do so much to appease them. We hate ourselves doing it because they have taught us to DEPEND on them in some way. We try to make it right by justifying it, minimizing it, telling ourselves we can handle it. We give them any label we can find other than “DISORDERED” because it is too much to bear to see reality. This one is an easy one I’m afraid.
Have you ever told your psychopathic/narcissistic parent how much their behavior bothers you? What happened?
Have you ever dragged your parent to your counseling sessions so they could see the hurt they caused and/or to “mend fences” only to be met with resistance and, down the road, more punishment with the same ole behaviors?
Has your psychopathic/narcissistic parent EVER apologized to you or tried to make things right with you, seeing the damage they have done to you and your life? Or is this still YOUR problem and not theirs?
Or has your perspective changed to pity in order to tolerate the intolerable and the only sentence you can say to justify it is this: “she/he did the best they could”.
Would you say the same thing about your psychopathic/narcissistic ex?
Hasn’t pitying a pathological as an excuse to stay involved shown you in the past and now ho ineffective that is and how much more it allows them to sucker punch you? You can love from a distance. Compassion works that way just as easily. It was never and it is not now, ever your responsibility to create a thinking feeling, empathic adult when it wasn’t there to BEGIN with.
Makes getting out of a romantic relationship with a psychopath/narcissist seem like a piece of cake, huh? That’s because they are not the source of the original trauma bond.
I have done both. Getting rid of the pathological parent and the psychopathic ex. I’m in therapy now and have been for awhile and will continue to be. I have worked VERY hard on creating a no toxins allowed life. I’m not always successful because I have attracted MORE disordered to me, but now I know what to do. Disengaging from the toxic pathological parent, opened the door to genuine and true possibility for healing. I can freely examine my behaviors, my relationships, my PTSD without a facade, without holding onto my parent. There is NO pathology in my life in any intimate way. The burden of the chains that bound me, the web that surrounded me are all gone, making ROOM for authenticity and genuineness I needed to grow, without the original source of my trauma that would only hinder it. My pathological parents benefited by what my father termed as my “inevitable fuck ups”. As long as I was unhealed (fucked up), he looked good and exploited the damage and pain he caused. It made him feel better about himself. My mother too. She is dead and has been for a long time, but even though I tried to “reconcile” with her, she would not and she died without closure for me.
We are trying, in essence, to beat a dead horse when we try to reconcile with the pathological parent. It is NOT your job to do that, it is THEIR responsibility. When you continue to seek their validation, when you hope for it, when you try to make it right, you are doing more damage to yourself. We are self sabotaging in wanting their approval and they are exploiting it. Just like psychopaths DO.
It takes tremendous courage and great faith to climb that wall to the other side. It is the most frightening thing that you will ever do in your life. You are making a decision for yourself that is symbolic on so many levels.
Here is the blessing for you, God’s loving grace, or the Universe singing your praises, whatever it is you believe that gives you strength and courage: When you go no contact with your pathological parent (s), you can know, without a doubt, that you ARE a miracle. YOU are a survivor on every level. While it is painful and it will be shocking to realize that it was all a lie, it was… but YOU ARE THE TRUTH! Amidst all of the lies, the facade, somehow, some way, YOU managed to have a separate, loving, giving caring SOUL. YOU are all YOU need! All along a grace bigger than all of the lies, held you close! Amidst all of the lies, and all of the hell you have lived, YOU ARE THE TRUTH.
It is possible to work through the damage. I can’t tell you that it’s perfect. You will struggle, but your struggles will be so much different. They will be your own and while you will take steps forward, only to take ten back sometimes, you will be doing it with healthy support that you have gathered for yourself. You will be able to enjoy each milestone in recovery that you pass without the fear of pathology hanging over your head to destroy your progress. Instead of trying to share it with a pathological parent who lives to keep you from the truth, you will be sharing your progress with those who are on the same path and they will REJOICE with you!
Having lived so much pathology can make you forget that others can be genuinely wanting for your happiness and personal growth. It will feel wonderful to you, if not foreign at first. You will be out of all of pathology long enough that when you see it, or you realize you are in it is again, you will want OUT as fast as you can go. This is a good sign!
You can be free. Completely. But you have to want to be and it will be very hard, very painful and difficult work. It is the kind of work that gives new meaning to the word, CHANGE.
I believe you can do it and when you feel you can, when you are ready, I will be there to rejoice with you. It is a genuine homecoming, healing full circle. A homecoming back to YOU!
The Source of Dysfunctional Behavior and Continued Trauma Bond
Recently, I have been seeing an upsurge with survivors who are in therapy and processing their relationships, their toxic choices, patterns of relating and toxic behaviors. and making connections to their pathological upbringings. Being the child of a pathological parent is the ultimate “Cluster Fuck” when it comes to the consequences and subsequent damage that is life long. If you were assigned the role of scapegoat, it is particularly traumatizing and damaging, nevertheless, ANY role you played or any consistent contact with a psychopathic/narcissistic parent is traumatizing.
To say that our nurturing (or with a pathological parent, lack thereof), while growing up in a pathological home had nothing to do with the choices, behaviors that we had later on in our lives from our career choices to partner and friendship choices, is like saying the mind and body are not connected. They are. And because they are, we go through life surrounded by an invisible toxic web of learned survival “techniques” and behaviors that are deeply subconscious. When making those choices, we simply weren’t aware of how toxic they were, nor how toxic our adaptations to it have been to our lives. This creates a monumental wall of cemented denial. The longer we stay “connected” to the toxic parent, the longer we put off a genuine healing that would catapult us over this wall in the form of letting go of our emotional and/or financial dependence and into freedom. It doesn’t matter that we got rid of the pathological partner in cases like this, because we have our pathological parent to fall back on to keep repeating our roles, and our behaviors. (or vice versa) We aggravate our already active PTSD, we validate the very relationships we just went no contact from when we remain emotionally involved with our psychopathic/narcissistic parent. (or partner)
This is why I strongly encourage survivors to locate and take the TIME to find a very good and skilled trauma therapist. You may go through several before you find one, but it is worth the effort.
It is my opinion, and a pattern that I have seen consistently with those who have pathological and toxic parents, that when there are still ties to the parent or partner, FULL healing will not happen. It can’t. The roles we act out are subconscious and automatic. It doesn’t matter how “aware” you are of their toxicity, when you deal with the parent (or partner), there is a SHIFT to automatic pilot in response or reaction to them, even if you are able to control the reactions during communications, it is STILL going on in your mind and in your body. Your unhealed damage is still there and active. There is almost ALWAYS a response to it with a PTSD reaction AFTER contact. Sometimes the reaction can be pinpointed directly to the pathological parent, other times we are reacting after contact but CAN’T pinpoint it to the pathological. We become irritable, negative, pained, hyper vigilant. Angry. Sometimes, because we have never gone no contact, we never stopped reacting. Chances are, if you had an extremely toxic or otherwise psychopathic/narcissistic parent, you may also have had PTSD for a long time.
The pathological parent is the SAME in intention towards their children as your psychopathic/narcissistic ex. THE SAME.
There is a quote that I love.... It applies to the pathological parent as much as it applies to the pathological partner. I’m substituting he/his in reference to the psychopath, in my mind, and instead inserting psychopathic parent in context without changing the wording of the following excerpt from the book. “Although his dominance may also be camouflaged to the outside world by looking more passive than powerful, yet behind closed doors, his dominance is exerted by controlling her through any means he can use. These could include sexual humiliation, suffocating neediness, her every movement is approved or disapproved by him, gaslighting to control her reality–anything overt or covert can be used. His insatiable need for power and dominance is so non-stop that it feels unquenchable to her. Psychopaths hurt people because power through victimization is much more satisfying to them. THEY ARE EMOTIONALLY REWARDED BY THE HARM THEY CAUSE.” (Pg.40)
When our relationships are over and the initial early stages of recovery with cognitive dissonance (obsessive and intrusive thoughts), ruminating and learning how to get out of bed each day again have passed, we move into the next phase with amped up PTSD. There is usually (but not always) a short phase after the initial phase, where we are feeling empowered and ready to get our game back on, when the cascade of PTSD symptoms takes over, driving us to therapy or back to our beds in despair, or to our computers for several hours of researching what the hell just happened to us.
If PTSD was not already present at the initial phase of recovery, when it appears, it can be frightening and devastating because we feel that we “should be over it” or thought we would be. That is not how recovery goes and it is especially not true when there is a pathological parent (or partner) still involved in your life. It is at this stage of recovery, when the PTSD kicks in, that it is critical to find a trauma therapist. Many survivors are genuinely unable to access therapeutic services, however, there are domestic violence agencies that can refer you to a trauma therapist, if they do not provide one at their agency. I know this to be true where I live, as this put me on the path to finding the therapist I currently have. It is not true in all cases, but a determined survivor, although frustrated, can find the right therapist with a little hard work and the time to make it happen. Oftentimes, the trauma is not limited to the ex pathological partner, but in the end, more of a consequence to original trauma that derives from the disordered parent and the pathological environment.
The trauma in childhood by the disordered parent is excused, minimized and trivialized by many survivors. This is not said in a way as to blame the survivor for the abuse and trauma they suffered in childhood, but merely a life long habit of coping mechanisms necessary in dealing with the parent. When we come out of the relationship with the disordered partner, eventually we stop making excuses for them. We experience the emotions at having been duped, used and degraded. Once the fog lifts we are better able to understand at least that much, as well as all the research that each of us has done about the disorders. But if you are the child of a psychopath or narcissist, this is only the beginning…
Why do we provide excuses for the disordered parent that we will not for the ex-partner? Why do we provide every single excuse to ourselves with our continued involvement when it has been clear for years that the parent abused us and continues too? why do we believe it will magically be all better one day and that the parent will spontaneously be sorry for their cruelty? Why do we say “He/she did the best they could” when we know in our hearts they did not? When you are dealing with a psychopathic/narcissistic parent, you are not dealing with someone who did “the best they could”. Why do we look at other situations or our own with our pathological ex partners if we share children, and want to keep them away from the pathological ex, but readily expose ourselves to our own pathological parent? Why are we horrified at the actions of the pathological who has partial or sole custody of a child, but are completely apathetic when it comes to our own parent? Why do we bullshit ourselves into thinking we can “handle” our pathological parent now and will continue a relationship with them (which incidentally is the source of our trauma to begin with), but we absolutely NC everyone else that is toxic that has had intimate contact with us? Why is it repulsive to think of the psychopath/narcissist doing unspeakable harm and damage to a child via observance, but we can’t see the forest for the trees with our own damage that we carry from our parent?
When I mention the above dynamic, it is met with anger, outrage, crying in frustration, denial, excuses, but the most favorite of all statements, “But that’s different!” Really???
WHAT is different? WHAT? The truth is… there isn’t any difference. With the pathological parent, we are still in the FOG, but the representation of that word takes on much deeper meaning and goes like this: Fear, Obligation and Guilt. This is a problem. This is a trauma bond.
This is why complete healing isn’t possible. This is why we have trouble controlling our PTSD, this is why we choose more psychopathic partners.
This is why we choose more psychopathic/narcissistic friendships.
This is why we choose jobs that are filled with pathologicals waiting for you to act out your role of scapegoat or golden child.
This is partly why we STILL carry our shame.
This is why we feel INTENSE GUILT at going no contact with the pathological parent.
This is also, believe it or not, why we are not completely horrified by the acts of cruelty each of us has endured.
This is why when we try to change our behaviors that were our defense mechanisms and/or coping skills, we are frustrated that it doesn’t seem to work.
This is why, when the psychopath/narcissist targeted you, you were already primed as prey. You already knew the “drill”. NOTHING was unique in how the relationship happened, and how it played out. NOTHING.
The psychopathic/narcissistic parent did the same thing to you, over and over, idealize/discard… idealize/discard. You already knew about love bombing… the psychopathic/narcissistic parent knew just how to push your buttons and manipulate you to get you to do what they wanted you to do. Were you ever given a credit card to freely spend? Did the psychopathic/narcissistic parent give you anything and everything you wanted when they needed something, the golden child? Did the sun rise and set out of your ass, like it did with your partner when you were being love bombed? Perhaps you were the scapegoat, hence you were only treated with any “decency” when something was wanted from you and subsequently punished for doing it. Perhaps you were the blame for every ill in the family, and if you had siblings, they were taught to act out their roles too in your scapegoating. What about this is any different than it was with your ex or your pathological friends or your pathological boss or child? NOTHING. Not one thing.
The pathological parent had/has the same intent to harm as any other pathological in your life. It is hardest to fathom that the human beings that were most responsible for your care, to love you and embrace your budding individuality, exploited it for the sake of their image, for ego strokes. For attention. To one up you, training you to react. To play the victim so that you would take care of them, emotionally, financially, spiritually and in many cases, to be the “little parent”. You were punished, indulged. You were the pathological parent’s personal emotional receptacle. You may also have experienced psychopathic/narcissistic sexual deviancy, from flirtation to sexual intercourse. You may have been a vehicle in which to triangulate with the other parent, whether they were together or not. You may have been triangulated with your siblings, the family dog. If divorced, your pathological parent may have used you as a window dressing to attract a new victim, hence the psychopathic/narcissistic love bombing of you during his/her dating phase, so you would project the image the psychopath/narcissist wanted of the “Disneyland Dad” in securing the new victim, only to be discarded when the “honeymoon” with the new victim was over. Perhaps you were beaten into submission, raged at. Perhaps you spent many nights as a child in fear of your psychopathic/narcissistic parent, or in silence with tears of hopelessness streaming down your face… or you had the ever present tummy ache that never seemed to go away. Or maybe you heard your pathological parent raging at the other parent, or perhaps both were raging... then the next day everyone acted as if nothing ever happened… sound familiar?
Now as an adult, what is different? Because you no longer live with your parent? Because you have a family of your own and “all of that was a long time ago”… How much of a facade do you feel you may be living emotionally, spiritually… that you’re not being real? that you’re not complete? That hellbent on not “wanting to be like them” you are living life the way you think you should be living and it all looks good on the outside, but on the inside, there is an ever present anxiety? When one of the kids says or does something, you snap? Some of your reactions are completely inappropriate given any situation that feels similar to what the pathological parent did to you? Or you go about your daily life, as distracted as much as possible, busy as you can be to avoid the abyss that lies in wait to be addressed within your heart and soul that is your ORIGINAL trauma? PTSD says you can run, but you can’t hide…
“I don’t want to be like them!” And with unhealed trauma and undiagnosed PTSD, with regard to your children, if you came out of childhood alive and with any empathy, you have gone to extremes in raising your children compared to how you perceived your pathological parent raised you. Perhaps you enable them, perhaps you are too afraid to discipline them because you are afraid you will hurt them. Perhaps you feel obligated in that they have the life that you didn’t so you OVER COMPENSATE, killing yourself to give them the life YOU think they should have when you didn’t have it at all. This is what you believe love is. In reality, these actions can disable your child and can create narcissism too. You become a martyr on their behalf. You also re-victimize yourself when you find yourself shocked to discover that they are UNGRATEFUL to you for giving them what you did not get. Perhaps they become abusive to you. Perhaps they are apathetic. Entilted. Maybe you find yourself feeling resentful at all of this “giving” to others and not GETTING in return… maybe, JUST maybe, it’s time to address your unhealed wounds. Maybe, just MAYBE it’s time to stop picking up the phone when the pathological parent CALLS you for yet another rant or to tell you how you are FAILING at your life. Oftentimes as adults we feel that we owe the pathological parent EXPLANATIONS as to their projections onto us as failure. Why the hell are we EXPLAINING anything? Oftentimes as adults when the insults or rants come, or comments made and disguised as “encouragement” hit us in a way that makes you feel as if you’ve been punched in the chest.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? ANY of it?
The hardest thing you will ever do in your recovery, if you have a pathological parent in your life, is to go NO CONTACT. Most of the time, this cannot be done without therapeutic process when there is still “attachment” to not only the pathological parent, but old behavior because this process will also ask you to look at YOURSELF and that too, is an extreme challenge. You will be led to change your entire landscape with emotion, perception, behavior, past and present. There will come a time as you process this that you will begin to see the pathological parent as he/she/they really ARE. You will know it, yet you will FIGHT it. You will not want to believe it. You have now come to the wall. You know it is there. You can no longer excuse it, minimize it or trivialize it. It will be in your face. You will have a deep and very profound awareness and you know that once you SAY it, BELIEVE it, you will then have to DO something about it, because not doing so will increase your behaviors, your resistance to it will drive you crazy. You will be irritable, angry, depressed. You will be tired of fighting, them and yourself. It is the ultimate wall of resistance because once you let go, you are in a foreign land. This is incredibly difficult if you rely upon the pathological parent in any way, whether it’s in anticipation for hoped for validation, for money, for continued family connections. You know that when you do this, there will be a smear campaign. Somewhere inside you, you will KNOW what the consequences will be. You know that all of that manipulative and FAKE validation that the psychopathic/narcissistic parent gave was not real…
We often say about our ex’s, “The whole relationship was a LIE”. What does this mean when we apply it to our pathological parent, about us? Most are terrified about this. If we let go of them, we have no identity we think... our concept of self comes from the trauma bond with the pathological parent. What does this MEAN when we say a permanent GOOD BYE? What does this mean with every single interaction we have had with the pathological parent over a lifetime?
But somehow, somewhere, you know you have your own growing identity and this is why, as you process, you will feel emotionally led to get off the merry-go-round, but you will be terrified because you’re not sure if you can do it ENTIRELY alone without doing it the way THEY said, you’re not sure that you trust the AUTHENTIC individual that they should have encouraged in the first place.But the biggest hurt of all, is to accept and understand that you were never loved at all. That along with everyone else in a disordered person’s life, you were an object, someone to exploit. There is something so WRONG with that, isn’t there? Because you are filled with love in your heart, compassion and massive amounts of empathy, you cannot fathom how your pathological parent could not love you. It is simply beyond your comprehension to know that your psychopathic/narcissistic parent who gave you the gift of life, would use you as a means to their end. It is more so to truly understand that their intent was harming you and that your responses and reactions to it, throughout your life, were because of that intentional damage done to you. We do all we can to make it right with them. We do so much to appease them. We hate ourselves doing it because they have taught us to DEPEND on them in some way. We try to make it right by justifying it, minimizing it, telling ourselves we can handle it. We give them any label we can find other than “DISORDERED” because it is too much to bear to see reality. This one is an easy one I’m afraid.
Have you ever told your psychopathic/narcissistic parent how much their behavior bothers you? What happened?
Have you ever dragged your parent to your counseling sessions so they could see the hurt they caused and/or to “mend fences” only to be met with resistance and, down the road, more punishment with the same ole behaviors?
Has your psychopathic/narcissistic parent EVER apologized to you or tried to make things right with you, seeing the damage they have done to you and your life? Or is this still YOUR problem and not theirs?
Or has your perspective changed to pity in order to tolerate the intolerable and the only sentence you can say to justify it is this: “she/he did the best they could”.
Would you say the same thing about your psychopathic/narcissistic ex?
Hasn’t pitying a pathological as an excuse to stay involved shown you in the past and now ho ineffective that is and how much more it allows them to sucker punch you? You can love from a distance. Compassion works that way just as easily. It was never and it is not now, ever your responsibility to create a thinking feeling, empathic adult when it wasn’t there to BEGIN with.
Makes getting out of a romantic relationship with a psychopath/narcissist seem like a piece of cake, huh? That’s because they are not the source of the original trauma bond.
I have done both. Getting rid of the pathological parent and the psychopathic ex. I’m in therapy now and have been for awhile and will continue to be. I have worked VERY hard on creating a no toxins allowed life. I’m not always successful because I have attracted MORE disordered to me, but now I know what to do. Disengaging from the toxic pathological parent, opened the door to genuine and true possibility for healing. I can freely examine my behaviors, my relationships, my PTSD without a facade, without holding onto my parent. There is NO pathology in my life in any intimate way. The burden of the chains that bound me, the web that surrounded me are all gone, making ROOM for authenticity and genuineness I needed to grow, without the original source of my trauma that would only hinder it. My pathological parents benefited by what my father termed as my “inevitable fuck ups”. As long as I was unhealed (fucked up), he looked good and exploited the damage and pain he caused. It made him feel better about himself. My mother too. She is dead and has been for a long time, but even though I tried to “reconcile” with her, she would not and she died without closure for me.
We are trying, in essence, to beat a dead horse when we try to reconcile with the pathological parent. It is NOT your job to do that, it is THEIR responsibility. When you continue to seek their validation, when you hope for it, when you try to make it right, you are doing more damage to yourself. We are self sabotaging in wanting their approval and they are exploiting it. Just like psychopaths DO.
It takes tremendous courage and great faith to climb that wall to the other side. It is the most frightening thing that you will ever do in your life. You are making a decision for yourself that is symbolic on so many levels.
Here is the blessing for you, God’s loving grace, or the Universe singing your praises, whatever it is you believe that gives you strength and courage: When you go no contact with your pathological parent (s), you can know, without a doubt, that you ARE a miracle. YOU are a survivor on every level. While it is painful and it will be shocking to realize that it was all a lie, it was… but YOU ARE THE TRUTH! Amidst all of the lies, the facade, somehow, some way, YOU managed to have a separate, loving, giving caring SOUL. YOU are all YOU need! All along a grace bigger than all of the lies, held you close! Amidst all of the lies, and all of the hell you have lived, YOU ARE THE TRUTH.
It is possible to work through the damage. I can’t tell you that it’s perfect. You will struggle, but your struggles will be so much different. They will be your own and while you will take steps forward, only to take ten back sometimes, you will be doing it with healthy support that you have gathered for yourself. You will be able to enjoy each milestone in recovery that you pass without the fear of pathology hanging over your head to destroy your progress. Instead of trying to share it with a pathological parent who lives to keep you from the truth, you will be sharing your progress with those who are on the same path and they will REJOICE with you!
Having lived so much pathology can make you forget that others can be genuinely wanting for your happiness and personal growth. It will feel wonderful to you, if not foreign at first. You will be out of all of pathology long enough that when you see it, or you realize you are in it is again, you will want OUT as fast as you can go. This is a good sign!
You can be free. Completely. But you have to want to be and it will be very hard, very painful and difficult work. It is the kind of work that gives new meaning to the word, CHANGE.
I believe you can do it and when you feel you can, when you are ready, I will be there to rejoice with you. It is a genuine homecoming, healing full circle. A homecoming back to YOU!
