Stupid simple things kids of dark tetrad parents can't do

Hi friends. I'm so overwhelmed by CPTSD and shame that I'm having trouble doing much of anything today. It makes me realize how this has always been this way. I've lived in a free fall of self-doubt, confusion and pain put on my by four narcissistic dark tetrad parents. I might not appear that broken because I'm good at faking and a great actress. But I am. There is so much stupidly simple shit that I can't do because I was either not taught how, told right was wrong and wrong was right or punished for doing it. Stuff like...

Make decisions. I can't make up my mind on little stuff because I was always told I was wrong.  "Leaning on my own understanding" was my dad's Bible quote of choice. Which apparently was bad even though he always did everything his way. He was a great one for misquoting the Bible and setting others to burdens he didn't feel applied to him. 

Do something without being afraid. I'm always afraid I'm doing something wrong. I'll offend someone. Or anger them. Innocent things have routinely come back to bite me with a vengeance. I've been sucker punched so many times my ribs are damage. I can't even breathe right. People have gotten angry with me a lot and I've always struggled to know why. And why they are so angry. Because usually the things I've supposedly done were things THEY are doing and claim are right. I've concluded that right is wrong from me and wrong is right for them. So very confusing. 

See good in anything about me. I don't want to be arrogant (chance would be a fine thing) but it would help alleviate the suicidal shame if I could feel good about something. And it would help me know right from wrong. But if you're always wrong, what then? 

Sort anything out. How can I be all they said I was at the same time? Too selfish and lazy and yet doing all their work? Too sensitive (to their endless criticism) and too critical of them when I never said anything to them and excused everything they did? How? How the fuck could I be both? Too entitled when I didn't have a damn bed? Too demanding when I had no time to myself from so many chores? Too lazy when I couldn't wake up in the morning from trauma dreams? Too "heavy" and needing to lighten up? Lighten up on what? Chores? Duties? Or lighten up on them, more like. Allow them to continue exploiting me and not make them feel guilty for being so demanding and cruel. 

Have a hobby or interests. Every single hobby or interest I had, they managed to mock, belittle, deny me or ruin for me. I couldn't do after school activities because chores and childcare. And then he moved us so far away I was stuck in the middle of nowhere. I had to walk to school a mile to school because no one could be bothered to give me a ride. I had to accept rides with creeps if I wanted to do anything. No one knew nor cared. And I had to get to school early and stay late to work to have money for necessities. My dad gave me toys that were actually for his sons and which I had to play with, with them, when I was 14. My dad made fun of my singing, calling me a show off. My mother sold or gave away my stuff without telling me to get stuff for her boyfriend. They did their best to sabotage college for me not giving me a dime and then both claiming me on their taxes and jeopardizing my financial aid. 

This is only the beginning. I know I've told these stories before. It boggles me how devastating this has been. So I'll probably need to tell them again, to get this shit out of my head and find a healthier place. Thanks for reading. 

Conflicting hypocritical double standards dark tetrad parents force on target kids

 Hi friends. I was just listening to psychologist Dr. Ramani discussing the difference between emotionally immature and narcissistic dark tetrad parents. And it made me wonder if my parents were just immature and not the dark tetrads I've painted them as. Which I see is more auto-gaslighting shame talking. First calling them "just" emotionally immature parents as if that wasn't hellish chaos in itself. And next, it shows how quickly I jump to the 5 E's I always do in regard to their toxic behavior: explain away, excuse, expunge, exonerate and in so doing, encourage. 

And my use of the term "painted them" is telling. As if I'm purposely making them look bad. (As if I could make it worse!) That in identifying their hurtful actions bad Mary was cruelly demonizing them, ruining their reputation or destroying family trust. Well, they certainly didn't need my help on those scores. I've been indoctrinated in this dreck all my life. And the fact that even as a senior citizen, I'm still sheltering and defending them. And taking the consequences of their actions on myself.  So having said all that, I'm going to enumerate the conflicting hypocritical double standards and paradoxes I lived with, to show you (and me) how they weren't just childish but selfish, arrogant, manipulative, malicious, spiteful and cruel. And how is has confused the hell into me. 

Naively innocent and overtly sexual. My mother talks in this fake sincere, sweetly innocent almost babyish way. Like she's just sprung from the world freshly born. She feigns ignorance of basic sexual functions, opens her eyes wide and teehees behind her hand when someone makes a reference. Or she'll claim the moral high ground and act all righteously offended. And this same woman openly conducted a series of affairs with  married men, moved a boyfriend into our house (in the early 1970s when this was verboten and no one's parent I knew did anything remotely like this). She flirted with my boyfriends and used me as a sex therapist starting around 8 years old. She forced me to listen to disgusting stuff even when I covered ears and begged her to stop. She dressed seductively and once went as a "hooker" to a church Halloween party. A costume I helped her create. I was the only kid who knew that word. She made out with boyfriends at our kitchen table and was beaten up by the wife of one of her APs. She laughed with her live-in boyfriend at me when he called me blisters in reference to my small breasts. My dad latched onto a 17 year-old when he was 35. And we all went to church every Sunday. 

Bible beater and con artist and slanderous gossip monger. All my life, my mother has ridden the fence between  intolerant religious bigotry and debauchery. She scams, cheats, steals, lies extorts, exploits, routinely. She does this blatantly. She preaches endlessly and supposedly reads her Bible. But she lives in complete and unapologetic contradiction. She's one of these people who wear the "Christians aren't perfect just forgiven" T-shirts and yet show zero mercy towards others. She claims all the lovely perks with none of the work. My dad proudly shows off his violin playing and shamed me for singing in the bathroom. 

Ignorant, entitled arrogance with shaming deceit and scorn. Speaking of that, all four parents had a litany of sins I'd supposedly done and which they held against me. They ganged up on me and then pitted me against each other. And then elicited my sympathy against the other when it suited. All my life, I've believed I was arrogant, proud, selfish, disobedient, disloyal, mouthy, snotty, too sensitive, too critical, too "heavy" always too this and not enough that. Because my parents told me I was. Truth is I was so burdened with all my apparent sins plus all theirs, that it was a daily struggle not to end it all. 

So there's more, much more, but I'm just to fried to write anymore. Thanks for reading. 

Basic necessities dark tetrad parents deny or steal from scapegoat kids

 Hello my friends. So this is not a great title. But what I'm trying to explain is how dark tetrad (selfish, arrogant, entitled, cruel) parents steal basic things from their target kids. And by basic I mean essentials that other kids just for granted. These are things kids should be able to take for granted because they are human rights but which we as children of dark tetrad parents were denied. Or had stolen from us by selfish, demanding parents. 

So first, a look at one component of dark tetrad that I don't think gets enough discussion and that is enmeshment (which is not a great word for it). What narcissistic parents do is steal, at birth, their target kids' selves. They entrap the child and put her to work bolstering their entitled, self-absorbed fantasies. They deny her an identity and personhood outside her assigned role of supporting character. Childhood, innocence, interest, wants, feelings, even needs are sacrificed at the altar of their insatiable greed. A lot of her life ends up being and feeling like no life at all, just a shadow or puppet. 

And let me explain what I mean by target kid. This is the one whom these dark parents have singled out to be their scapegoat or victim. This is the child upon whom all the family toxicity, blame and shame is heaped. And because they've stolen everything from her, she's not even a member of the family. She's not even unpaid staff. She is pariah.  A nuisance, an evil, but a necessary one to fulfill all their demands. 

If the child is, like me, a product of their first marriage and they've divorced, remarried and have other kids, it's so much worse. Because now she is a living reminder of their failed marriage. She is as unwelcome as the plague because she doesn't fit in their spun narrative. She is the X variable they can't factor out of their shiny new families. Narcissists who divorce are extra especially delusional. And don't even get me started on the all the crap their new spouses dump on the kid, at her real parents encouragement. Now she has four people ganged up on her.  There's even a joke about the "red-headed stepchild" (which isn't very funny if you are that person). 

As the victim child I was in impossible situation. Damned if I did and didn't. Painted in a corner. What they would have liked to do was dispense with altogether but, BUT they also needed me to make their little dream world happen. Dark tetrads are also lazy. They expect others to do for them. So getting rid of  me would have meant losing all the many services they demanded of me. 

Their workaround was to make my life as shame-ridden, transactional and difficult as possible. To exploit me and leverage the fuck out of everything they did for me (which wasn't much because they also withheld basic necessities like food, shelter, clothing, medical care, privacy, love, support, a bedroom and bed). And did they get maximum value out of their minimal to non-existent investment. 

Even now I can't do the simplest thing without hearing their self-righteous, shaming, demanding voices in my head. I don't know how to get out of the painted in corner. I think I'm just going to have to walk across that wet paint and make a mess. 

Handicaps that neglected kids of dark tetrad parents struggle with

Hi friends. In my pursuit of healing from dark tetrad parent abuse, I'm looking at ways they fubared me. Childhood trauma specialist Patrick Teahan recently addressed one essential issue that has plagued me for six decades. But which I've never been able to grasp because it was hidden in plain sight (like so much of narcissistic parent abuse). Dark tetrad parents handicap their children and make simple things other kids take for granted, overwhelming challenges. Patrick said it better than I can but I will try to give you some idea of what just a few of those things are. 

Necessities security. My mother once told her family (operative phrase there, it was never mine according to her because she owns and controls everything), that "sometimes we don't get enough to eat" speaking of her golden daughter and second husband. That's not true but what is, is that I didn't, as a kid and teen. I often didn't have a safe place to sleep or a bed, either. I walked to school in deep snow to get to my job so I could earn money for sanitary napkins they didn't provide. My hair froze. I was hidden homeless, being passed around like a unpaid servant to do the heavy lifting. So simple things like a school lunch or transport were not a given in my life. We were not poor. They had beds, blankets, food, even toys. I was poor. I have stolen food because I was so hungry. 

School and social activities. No one came to events or if they did it was inconsistent. I could never volunteer them to drive for field trips even though there were six unemployed drivers living in my house (two where shacked up in my room and two more in the basement, and two more on the living room floor.) I had to get rides with creepy guys who wanted me to sit on their laps in exchange. No one cared or even knew. 

Shelter. I didn't have a home, I had a job where I stayed. I lived at work. Both my mom and dad had foster care homes in which I was expected to work like an unpaid employee in exchange for food. My mother moved various adults in and they slept in my room while I slept with the kids. It was a flop house at best and a brothel in reality. She called this her mission work. She preached and went to church. At 16, I was kicked out of the house by my mom's deadbeat husband with her approval. I had to squat with an old lady who kindly took me in. Mother and husband still went to church but I was too humiliated to go anymore. My dad and his wife (for whom I'd previously been employed) knew and didn't care. No one did. 

Friends. I couldn't bring friends into a situation like that because they're kids and shouldn't be exposed to that. My  mother would flirt provocatively with my boyfriends and that concerned me. And their parents wouldn't let them if they knew. But it was good enough for me. I did have one friend who saw some of the disturbing things but she never knew about the worst. I sheltered her from that like I did my grandparents. 

Hobbies and interests. Those were frowned upon by the dark tetrad parents. It might take time away from chores and duties. Oh I should absolutely be interested in what they and their kids were interested in. So I could "help out" yanno. And watch the kids while they did their thing.  But independent hobbies, no. There was no time for me to do my homework or space to have a desk let alone a place to set up even a small project. That was all reserved for the real members of the family. Servants don't have interests, silly mar, they just exist to serve. When I was 14, I got a race car set for Christmas which my brothers had wanted but my dad and stepmom ran out of money after getting all the other stuff they wanted. So I was given what amounted to another gift for them and made to play with it with them. 

Education. How I managed to do as well as I did in school is nothing short of a miracle. I had no desk or safe place to study. I had to walk to school and get there early for work for necessities. with no winter coat or boots in Michigan winters. I couldn't participate in activities unless I could cadge a ride. On the rare occasions my dad came he just sat disapprovingly. When I graduated head of my class and then Magna Cum Laude (it would have been Summa if I had taken the recommended 15 and not 21 credits per semester) he just sniffed scornfully and said you didn't need college to be successful. Translation: he couldn't handle it. My mother showed up, showing off as usual, lying to my extended family about the fact that I wasn't even living at home. 

Transportation and Driving. When I finally was able to save up enough money to take driver's training, I was way behind the others. And I had never sat behind the wheel of a car. My instructor was flabbergasted that my parents had never taught me. They couldn't be bothered to make sure I had transportation. I walked everywhere or biked when someone bothered to get me one. Although they had fine vehicles and drove everywhere, even my stepfather who was too lazy to get a job. And don't even get me started on how no one helped me get my first car and I ended up with one that was such a dangerous wreck it nearly killed me several times because it was all I could afford. 

Fitting in. I used to get mocked at school for my ragbag clothing and free lunches. And for not knowing about TV shows because I wasn't allowed to watch it. And for not being able to participate because I had to get home to chores and because I had no money or way to get there. My dad  wouldn't let me walk around the corner to go skating when I earned my own money. But then he wouldn't take me either. I see now it was just to keep me home and on the clock when duty called. I lied once and said I had a ride when I didn't. I walked around the corner. He grounded me from going again. Convenient for him. 

Just doing basic things now, is difficult for me. I'm kind of ignorant about simple things most kids did every day. 

 

Declaring liberty from sins of the dark tetrad dictatorship

 Hello my friends. A Happy and Blessed Easter to you. At mass we heard how Jesus proclaimed liberty to captives and set them free from the bonds of sin. This is very good news indeed for those of us who lived under the thumbs of dark tetrad dictators. We're free! I've also come to understand that the bondage to sin might not be what I've always thought it was. And this is going to raise a few eyebrows for sure. Well, most of what I've been blogging about lately has flown in the face of traditional thinking so why stop now when I'm on a roll? 

We have always read slavery to sin to mean our own. Or those of us with a conscience have, that is. And that is certainly what those who ignore theirs would like us to believe. Those who have enslaved us to their self-serving, exploitative, hurtful, remorseless demands would love nothing more than for us to believe their abuse is our fault. But now I think that what God has freed us, the enslaved from, are the sins of our oppressors, as much or more even than our own. 

Dark tetrad (narcissistic, selfish, arrogant, manipulative, sadistic) people do not serve, they expect to be served. And we who are their children, spouses or even parents, are at their mercy. Especially we the children. We don't grow up, we grow in, to them. They enmesh with us and steal our personhood and subjugate us. They shame us into prostrating ourselves before them, serving and caring for them, pandering to their egos, making effigies to their glory, surrendering our needs, wants, aspirations to them. 

They make themselves our God. We are required to break the commandment and have other gods before the God. They make us place them above God. And they are more demanding than He ever was. They scapegoat us into taking on their sins. They humiliate, mock and scorn us. They self-righteously tell us how to live our lives and enumerate all the ways we've supposedly failed God. They exult in our failure because they believe it makes them look holy by contrast. 

In their unbridled greed and pride they cause us to worship them and punish us if we don't. So we break that commandment too. They burden us with their sins and shame us into thinking they are ours. They lay rules on us that they do not follow and then lie and tell us these are God's law. They tie sacks of rocks to our backs that they don't help carry. They just add more rocks. 

They scourge us with their vain, haughty, disdain. They terrorize us with malicious, vicious, slanderous lies. The whip us with cruel, wicked, spiteful deeds. They dictate how we are to act when they hurt us. They allow us no recourse. We must bear it all in perfect submission. They must never be questioned, let alone confronted. They must be obeyed. They must never feel ashamed even when it is the logical consequences of their own behavior. We must take even that on ourselves as the whipped but also the whipping post. 

They must always be justified. They are blameless, above reproach. It's always our fault. We sin by taking on their sins. Only God can do that. We sin by turning a blind eye to, excusing, exonerating, expunging their unrepented sins. Because they must never be called to repentance. That is their prerogative. They are the stone-throwers. They don't show mercy, but mercy must always be shown to them. Even when they are not sorry. 

They hold back the floodgates of righteousness, and yet demand that it pour forth from us like an everlasting flood. They go out of their way to avoid doing good. They withhold loving kindness when it would easier to show it. They complicate the simple truths of Jesus. They twist his words to their own ends. 

They make themselves stumbling blocks for others. They ensnare their victims and pressgang  them into serving their own selfishness. They bunch of the rug so she falls over it. And then laugh when she gets hurt. And punish her for crying. And attack her for stepping over their trap. They ambush and attack her for NOT falling prey to them. For daring to follow God, heed his words and obey His commands. 

Like shyster lawyers, they lay traps for us. They pervert the course of justice. They distort facts and bend truth to their will. They bear false witness against us. They lie and say we did the crimes they actually committed. They pass unfair judgement on us and harshly condemn us. They set us up to fail and then get mad and attack us if we don't. 

Yet if they are ever accused, they claim all sorts of special dispensation. They weren't interrupting, they just thought she was done when she was still saying a word. It was a mistake, they say. Everyone makes them. They didn't mean to. It was taken the wrong way. They were misunderstood. It was just a joke, not hurtful comments. They were just lightening the mood, not dismissing someone. They were just looking at their phone not ignoring someone, making her feel invalidated. They make endless excuses for themselves because they are proud and not repentant. They do not humble themselves because they feel owed but never owing. 

And yet, none of these special exemptions they claim, do they once offer when it's them on the bench. The same mercy they cry of the court they refuse to others. They pass strict sentence on the very sins they routinely commit. They expect and are granted forgiveness for mountains of debt and demand payment in full with interest of tiny or nonexistent debts they feel are owed them. They micromanage others specks and are blind to their own boards. They swallow the camel of their own transgressions and choke on the gnats of others' mistakes. They are unequally yoked with believers who are pulling towards God while the dark tetrad pulls away. 

When you do something healthy, for yourself, they get angry. When you keep calm and quiet in the face of harassment, they blame you for "holding grudges." When you walk away from their unpleasantness, they accuse you of taking revenge. When you refuse to engage or allow yourself to be harmed by their toxic behavior, they pout, rage, give you the silent treatment, withhold affection and generally punish you. They do not have your best interests at heart, they just want things easy and comfortable for themselves so they don't have to change or improve. 

But freedom from this captivity has been declared and it can never be taken back. 

Can Christians be narcissistic dark tetrads? All too easily, I'm afraid

 Hi friends. I've been looking a lot lately at how dark tetrad people think. Dark tetrads are arrogant, entitled, remorseless, exploitative and cruel. I've used the term Christian dark tetrads to describe my four parents. And you may be asking can a Christian also be narcissistic and "dark?" Doesn't that defeat the purpose of Christianity? They surely can and well spotted, it most definitely does.  I would add that Christian narcissists are quite common. Religious "holiness" is the perfect guise for wickedness and a great method for gaslighting, deceit and lies that characterize dark personalities. The belief system fits right in with their evil minded agenda. How is this? 

Dark tetrads love free shit. But they also like withholding from people. They love stuff and they use people. Healthy folks do it the other way around. Dark Tetrads love owning so much that they will lie, steal and cheat. Because their vain, arrogance tells them they are entitled to whatever others have that they want. Without earning it, with no strings attached and AND they believe they have the prerogative to withhold from others, even that which rightfully belongs to the other person. It's this constant paradox that they exploit to maximum personal benefit. And it's how Christian beliefs tally nicely with their exalted status. 

Forgiveness, eternity, salvation are all freely given by God to mankind. Every. Single. One. Of. Us. But dark tetrads pervert God's gift in two ways. First, they twist it into something they have merited or "won." "Winning" is essential to dark tetrads, preferably at someone else's expense. They prefer to con, scam and score off others rather than winning on their own merits. Dark tetrads aren't about giving and sharing, they are about stealing, cheating and hoarding. 

There are some self-proclaimed Christians that even talk about winning  their salvation and winning others for Christ. (Spent far too much of my valuable time with these people, regrettably).  They use it synonymously with earning, even suffering and sacrificing.  But they didn't win or earn anything. Jesus did. They just accepted the gift He gives. As we all do. But they twist salvation into being due to great and noble deeds that THEY have done. And they expect salvation as their due, not as a gift of God. But you hear precious little from them about how they actually follow the Christ they are named for because...

Dark tetrads expect without condition. They take what they want without paying for it. And there is a cost to salvation and that is humility and love of others. Neither of which appeal to dark tetrads. In order to get salvation we must try to live as best we can like God wants us to. We don't get the free stuff and still get to keep the old selfish ways of doing things. BUT this is exactly what the dark tetrad demands: the perks without the work. But, BUT they also contrarily and contradictorily lay heavy burdens on others that they do not bear themselves. Because...

It's all about THEM, not God. They do things for show, for effect, for attention. They pervert everything, including even the tenets of their faith for their own ends. They love the sound of their own voices (Jesus warned of Pharisees who do this). They preach at other people what to do, how to act, what God wants. They preach in such a way that makes it sound like they have special intel from God into our hearts and minds. And it's always dirt they have on us, supposedly. They gaslight you into believing God has revealed (they adore that bombastic word) to them all this wickedness in you. 

He hasn't. They just do this to turn the spotlight away from their wretched behavior. And wow do they exploit this. They bind you up to all manner of guilt and shame and then lie and say they have none. Because (wait for it) they have confessed it to God and God has "forgiven them." And you, because you believe a genuine version of Christianity believe them. You don't question why it is that they have never confessed or even admitted to any human person anything they've done. What they have done is  lied, backpeddled, blame shifted and distorted. They have never taken responsibility for their actions. And they have laid their crimes at your door. And if you are a person with an already overactive conscience (raises hand here) you take all their shame and blame on yourself. 

But if you would just for once, stop and listen to what they are saying, you will see the long con in their words. Remember I said they speak as if they have secret insider knowledge into God, scripture and even your heart? They don't. You can read the Bible for yourself. You are perfectly capable of understanding and coming to God on your own. But they don't want you to know that. They need you to go through them. They con you into thinking you need their personal Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. They do this to protect the scam they've set up. They are skimming off the profits and presenting a very false doctrine. Christianity is all an elaborate charade for them. 

Because you will notice, if you stop and look,  that they don't follow the commands they lay on you. They don't bear witness. They get even that wrong. They'll brag about "witnessing" but they do this in word only, not deed. They don't show, they tell.  They do not model humility, repentance, love, kindness, gentleness, meekness, self-control, temperance, modesty. The fruits of the spirit. In their vain minds, they are above such rules. They are "hearers and preachers of the word, not doers." They bind other people up to burdens they do not carry themselves. Dark tetrads also preach false doctrine and tell people they have to do things God never said they had to. And they forbid things God never has. 

They proclaim to preach salvation but they don't. Because they don't really want other people to come to actually know God. Because then they wouldn't have the edge. They wouldn't have something to hold over others. They don't anyway, they just think they do because they are selfish and arrogant. Remember I said they don't share, they hoard?  Dark tetrads delight in shaming others. They live to tell people off, bury them in guilt and shame, watch them drown and sell popcorn. While they take God's gift without following him. They are the ones steeped in shame. But they need you to buy into their Ponzi scheme to protect the selfish, self-serving "reality" they have created.  

I'm absolutely exhausted now, but later I'll blog about what you can do to avoid being sucked in. 

Why forgiving dark tetrad parents' abuse may be the worst thing you can do

Hello my friends. I had yet another awful trauma nightmare from dark tetrad parent abuse last night. And when I woke, after the fear and panic subsided, I was left wondering about forgiveness. Why are we so preoccupied with forgiving abuse, neglect, endangerment, exploitation, invalidation, gaslighting, malicious spite, violence, abandonment? Why are we in such an all-fired hurry to forgive cruelty we've lived with all our lives and sometimes only began to recognize as abuse when we are senior citizens? Why are we so worried about our abusers and not more concerned with understanding and healing the damage they inflicted on us? Why is everything about what's best for them?

The answers to those questions are simple. And they are some of the reasons we ARE so damaged. Everything has always been about what is best for them. And very often that was what was dead worst for us. Forgiving isn't to heal us, though we're gaslit into believing it is. Forgiving as it's generally understood is about protecting abusers and giving them licence to abuse. 

I'm going to explain, or attempt to, why I now believe that rushing to forgive abuse might be one of the most dangerous things you can do. I recognize that this flies in the face of conventional wisdom but if you'll hear me out, I think it will make sense. 

Let's begin by understanding the very unilateral nature of the relationship between scapegoat child and dark tetrad parents. The child does not exist as a person. She is only a tool, a pawn, a cat's paw. She does the heavy lifting and they do the tying of rocks to her back. The scapegoat child of dark tetrad parents must ALWAYS put her parents first. No matter how neglectful, hurtful, mean and nasty they are. No matter that they have always excluded us from good and reserved bad for us. And it gets worse. We do this BECAUSE they have been so awful. They pirated our selves and groomed us to feel worthless, lifeless servants. They broke us for normal, healthy life. 

Everything is ALWAYS about them. They come first, last and always. So why would they not weaponize even their abuse for pity? Why would they not expect mercy when they neither show it nor feel remorse? Why would they not weaponize their child's guilt and shame that they planted in her to their own ends? That's a dark tetrad's M.O. Expect, demand, take, pirate, steal, cheat, lie and distort. 

And the M.O. of their victim child is to obey, comply, give in, give them what they demand, be a doormat for abuse. It was dangerous for her NOT to be these things. And if they are "religious"  dark tetrads, oh so much the worse. Now they have an entire arsenal for abuse in scripture which they wield like Commandos. And what does scripture say we are to do with those who persecute us? Forgive them. 

And we who have suffered at the hands of dark tetrad parents are so very good at forgiving. They don't have to apologize or even ask. They're not sorry. They're never wrong. Anything they do wrong is someone else's fault. Which,  to a non abuse-brain damaged person, will sound paradoxical because it is. If they aren't sorry and think they've done no wrong why do they also demand forgiveness? Because they want it all. I didn't see that then but I do now. And that leads me to the conclusion that forgiving a dark tetrad in the commonly understood definition is like handing them an ICBM. 

So first, let's play detective and ask some W questions? Who is the victim, who is the perpetrator and who is pushing forgiveness? The narcissist will paint herself as victim, always. Even, and this is so laughable, when SHE is the one who did the hurting. On purpose, willfully. She somehow manages to both accuse her victim and excuse herself. So let's just establish that she is not the victim but the perpetrator. 

Now, who is pushing forgiveness and why are they? Well, the victim child doesn't need to because that is her default response anyway: exonerate, expunge, excuse everything bad thing mommy and daddy do. The ones pushing forgiveness are people who have not been hurt by the dark tetrad. They are impartial judges: priests, ministers, counselors, other family members, favored siblings, flying monkeys. They freely dispense "wisdom" and advice  which costs them nothing. They don't want to know the actual circumstances of abuse. They are curiously blind, silent and ignorant when it is happening. 

They don't know jack shit about the hell the dark tetrad has forced on the child. And care even less. But yet they feel entitled to shame, pass  judgement and dictate what the victim "should do" about it. What is right and correct and good and Godly, in their opinion. What is good for the child, no one gives a fat rat's ass about. No one lifts a finger to help with the chaos and devastation the dark tetrad has wreaked. And ballsyest of all, if and when the poor kid finally gives in to the despair her parents have pushed her into, everyone wags scolding fingers at HER! They just keep pratting at her to forgive, suck up, ignore, bend over for more crap. 

Why do they do this? I have no clue. I don't' think or act like this. It's disgusting. I believe it has to do with them feeling a sense of self-righteousness with their holy-sounding cant. But what they don't stop to consider is how they are playing right into the dark tetrad's hands. 

The dark tetrad manipulates and gloats over this and how. The sanctimonious preachers have just handed them plateful of reasons to continue abusing unchecked. They've been confirmed in their arrogant supremacy. Literally, no one and nothing can touch them. Not even God. He just smiles benevolently on it all, the victim child believes. Her persecutors are free to do as they wish with complete immunity. It's all the kid's responsibility. She the fault and the cause and the one expected to fix. She has clean herself up after they shit on her, dig her own grave and make it all alright for the parents.   And bonus added, she has to feel guilty to them for her brokenness and thank them for the privilege of being hurt by them. 

Am I saying not to forgive? Yeah, sure am. And further more, I think God is saying this as well. Not in the traditional way, that is. Forgiveness is not condoning, ignoring or approving. I do not think God wants abused children no matter how old they are, to allow self-centered people to continue to hurt them. That is devil's work. It's certainly not good for us, our soul or our healing. How can we heal if our abusers have been given dispensation to continue ripping our wounds open?

I think it's time to put the horse before the cart with dark tetrads. It's NOT about what they deserve, are entitled to or demand. It's about what they are expected to do. As per scripture, God expects the dark tetrad to humble themselves, renounce wickedness, confess what they have done to their child, to the child, not just "in their heart" or their stupid little prayer closets. Closets hide a lot of wickedness and have a lot to answer for, just saying. 

God holds us all, including the dark tetrad to rules and regulations. They  are not above it all and He warns them not to think they are. They are required to "leave their gift at the altar and go make it right with whomever they hurt." And change their ways. I don't think the child is expected to do anything but accept that it happened and try to heal. That is genuine forgiveness. Maybe it also involves not taking revenge. But that's a slippery slope because the dark tetrad has the victim so shamed that she thinks anything she does to protect herself is revenge. Remember how everything is about them and what "hurts" them? 

But the chances of dark tetrads actually feeling remorse and making confession are nil. They want all the perks with none of the work. So it seems to me that forgiving isn't healthy for the dark tetrad either. Encouraging them to arrogantly think they are beyond God's law is a one-way trip south. And that's how we got in this situation in the first place. That's how we got so wounded.