Sanctuary for the Abused
Monday, January 17, 2022
The Power of the Original Trauma Bond
** Warning: This post may be very triggering to the adult survivors of psychopathic/narcissistic abuse. Please use caution in reading**
While many survivors discover that their partners are psychopathic/narcissistic, many who come from childhood backgrounds of pathology, fail to realize that their parent is the foundation of the original trauma bond. They can leave partners, but continue to engage with the parent. This leaves the stench of pathology in their lives, and makes them vulnerable in continuing the bond into the future with another partner or other people who are pathological.
Psychopathic parents are as toxic, if not more so, than the psychopathic partner.
Trauma bonds to the source of origin (parent) are incredibly powerful and equally as challenging to break. I have broken the bonds with my psychopathic father and biological siblings, and without realizing any of this stuff about trauma bonds, I went no contact with them about five years ago now. Without the break in this bond, I undoubtedly would not have been able to heal completely. This bond was broken just a couple of years prior to my break with the last psychopath in my life.
The psychopathic parent is a ‘special’ kind of ‘crazy’. It’s amazing to me our perspectives when we see other survivors just out of relationships with psychopaths and how horrified we are at the antics of the psychopath when it comes to he and the survivor’s children, particularly if there are custody issues. We are horrified at his contempt and lack of empathy when it comes to his children and his ability to manipulate and/or abuse them. We are appalled at the terrorist-like attempts of the psychopath to undermine his children’s relationship with the survivor through triangulation, by hateful discussion, smear campaigns, triangulations and projections about their mother or using a new victim to separate mother and child. The list is long in how he can implement his tactics. While the survivor who sees these games played out with another survivor’s ex psychopath and children, even with her own, she fails to see this has also played out in her childhood and continues to play out with her parent as an adult. She fails to be as horrified at the antics of her parent upon her, as she is in witnessing it in others situations.
Her lack of appropriate reaction of horror at the actions of her parent, is an indication of how strong the trauma bond is. It has reached a level of extremes in normalizing the highly pathological and abnormal. The lack of reaction that would mean salvation via no contact is not even a consideration for many of these survivors. In my work with survivors of the psychopathic/narcissistic parent, the idea of no contact when presented to them is often met with a vicious or contemptuous response, filled with excuse, fear, obligation, guilt and denial.
The survivor with the psychopathic parent will inevitably, in most cases continue with the bond. The bond is so powerful and so intense due to a lifetime of cyclical abuse. Some of the very same abuses upon the survivor of a psychopathic parent, that are visited upon the survivor as long as there is contact, are the very same visited upon her in a romantic relationship or what she finds appalling in others. The psychopathic parent is manipulative, guilt inducing, degrading, demanding. They triangulate the survivor with siblings and other family members, creating competitions for the parent’s attention and love. Each survivor from these families plays a specific role, which I’ll be discussing in another post, but some of the most familiar roles are scapegoat, golden child and lost child. The scapegoat is the child who is often most sensitive to the parent and equally the most abused. The sins of the psychopathic parent are liberally employed upon the scapegoat and the roles of other siblings are encouraged (especially the golden child) to abuse the scapegoat as well. The scapegoat is usually the most sensitive of the family members and the most intuitive to the abuse. The psychopathic parent knows this and fears this child most because this child is the child who understands exactly what is going on and is most likely to ‘report’ it to others. Ironically, the scapegoat can be healthiest of the family and the psychopathic parent is aware of this. This child will be tested most in weighing the possibilities as to how they can be used by the parent. If the scapegoat does not go along with the ‘plan’ set up by the psychopathic parent, this child’s abuse will be the most extreme.
Even when the scapegoat goes along with the plan, the psychopathic parent still fears this child as the child cannot ‘pretend’ to the psychopathic parents liking, that she doesn’t know what’s going on. She always sees behind the mask and her pretentiousness is caught by the parent. Unfortunately, if the scapegoat manages to survive her childhood, her abuse will be manifested with disorders of her own, from personality disorders to complex PTSD. For the survivor who is gifted with awareness into adulthood in that she does not develop a serious disorder of her own, she will wrestle with her own empathy in her feelings of compassion for the parent and is the child most likely to take on care giving responsibilities, as well as continuing to take the abuse. Her exposure to such intense pathology also makes her vulnerable to more painful relationships with psychopaths into the future, from romantic relationships to friendships, the cycles continue, the desire to ‘repair’ the damage in a repetition complex, compulsive in nature.
Survivors who manage to escape psychopathic partners, initially believe that they have escaped pathology altogether, separating the parent from the inevitable acting out behavior and relationship choices she has made. There is no connection for her in tying her partner selection to the original trauma bond with the parent. In a very odd way, this makes the separation from the psychopath EASIER comparatively because she still has access to the familiar, to pathology.
If she cannot act out with a partner, the parent will continue to provide ample opportunity to continue the trauma bond and addiction to pathology through continued abuse.
There are survivors who have gone no contact with their parent, such as myself but continued pathology with a romantic partner. Again, the intensity and addiction to pathology is played out with her inability to separate from the partner. In these cases, the ‘bond’ to the partner is even stronger with the loss of the original trauma bond and the relationship loss can feel very devastating as the last intense bond is broken.
She can hang on, even though she wants to let go, eventually because the parent is not there to replace it.
Survivors still tied to the parent are extremely creative individuals. The excuses to hang onto the parent are wide and varied. The almost apologetic statements by survivors on behalf of the insidious and leveling abuse of the parent stands as symbolic to the depth of their denial. Like any psychopath, the parent knows that they have control in this child’s life and no matter how awful the abuse, the child will defend the parent to the detriment of herself and others around her who continue to see her in pain with each engagement with the parent.
There are not different ‘rules’ with the psychopathic parent, anymore than there are with the psychopathic partner. The tactics are the same and just as damaging upon the adult child. The adult child of a psychopathic parent becomes almost child like in her response to the parent, the ultimate authority figure in her life. She overlooks the obvious degradation and the feeling of a knife to her chest with the painful abuse, is almost cathartic, as it underscores what the parent has created for her in that she is a failure, that she is worthless. It is utterly and tragically familiar. The involvement with the parent is the attempt by the survivor to right the wrongs of the abuse, the hopeless and yet prayerful power of wishful thinking for change that will never come.
The adult survivor works every angle, forgives and forgets, while the trauma continues to build over years, cementing her obligation to the parent. The survivor, desperate (although rarely acknowledged) to change the status quo, will often suggest therapy with the parent, or try to find a way to make contact ‘bearable’ while still taking the abuse. The excuses a survivor gives for continued contact are obvious in her inability to let go: “I can’t abandon her/him!”, “There is no one else who will take care of her/him”, “she/he raised me alone! No one else was there for me but her/him!”, “She/he would fall apart without me. I feel sorry for her/him because she/he has no one else but me.” . . .and on and on the merry go round goes. . .
The problem with this is that much of what the survivor wants to avoid is abandonment by the parent, or has an exaggerated fear of what will happen to the parent should they let go, or what will happen to themselves if they do. They fear the parents rage and anger. They feel so sorry for the parents disorder that they are compelled to put up with more abuse. In all of this, the failure to see that no one deserves abuse, not even from a parent, is a foregone conclusion in these situations.
None of what psychopaths are all about and what they do, apply to the parent as far as this child is concerned. Much of this is subconscious, a pattern weaved into the adult child over a lifetime of exposure to pathology and abuse. We automatically act out our roles and are compelled to engage in them by an unspoken, unacknowledged force of extreme evil that wages war upon our high levels of sensitivity, empathy and compassion.
The psychopathic parent is no different than a survivor’s psychopathic partner. With each engagement the parent knows they have control over the survivor. They play their adult children like chess pieces and lack empathy for them as much as they do anyone else, there are NO EXCEPTIONS.
To the adult child of the psychopath/narcissist: Do you want to know why you are so afraid to acknowledge the truth about your Mom or Dad or both? About maybe even your siblings if they are disordered too? Because you know they don’t love you. This truth is the most devastating of all. Acknowledging this truth is the most painful experience you will ever live through. It will call into question your own person hood, your existence. My psychopathic father never loved me. Ever. Not from the day I was born, and not up to no contact. I could not let go because if I acknowledged the truth in that he did not love me, it meant I was truly lost, it meant that no one else possibly could, if the person who was my sperm and egg donor did not and could not love me.
It meant I was anchorless, without purpose and direction, as what is suppose to be the childhood foundations built for us out of LOVE by our parents. It called into question everything I lived. My entire life was a lie. A lie that my psychopathic family told about me and to me. I didn’t exist as a human being to them, worthy of love and respect. My foundation was built on sands washed away by every abusive tide. What in God’s name do you do when your foundation was not built on love from your parent?
This is what I can share with you. YOU are not the lie. YOUR existence is meaningful and your soul and spirit full of energy and love. You were born into a psychopathic family, a tragedy yes, but YOUR life is NOT. This very knowledge can set your feet upon a path of no contact and true and genuine healing, through and through. You are of the most courageous, loving, caring group having survived in a situation where you were NOT LOVED. Your psychopathic parent removed your choices that would reflect in adulthood, a healthy human being, a product of humanity built in a loving home environment. The key to your healing is no contact. The realization that you have the power of CHOICE as an adult to stop the abuse. The realization that you are worth more than continued exploitation by a psychopath.
Human connection is important, isn’t it? We all need this as a life giving source when it is expressed in love and care for one another. The psychopathic parent teaches us that human connection is merely for the sake of feeding off of others, to take, not to give. To act in hate and contempt, not in love. This is not you. This is not who you are. You are no longer a CHILD. You are NOT obligated to a very sick, strategically abusive individual. You are the psychopathic parents favorite target. You are endlessly exploited for the sake of the false glorification of the parent. You are the number one poison container. The psychopathic parent REVELS in their ability to hurt you, to get a rise out of you, any reaction will do. They live to harm you. Your importance to them is not found in what you want so much to believe in that you are loved, but rather that you are not. They know exactly what they are doing.
It is my opinion that a survivor cannot truly heal without going completely no contact with the parent. It simply is not possible. The roles we play are automatic, as in flipping a switch. When we are with them, we are ‘on’. We are not shut off until we are out of range of their targeting. When we get out of range, we obsess about what they said and/or did with the last engagement. We sound like gossipy ole ladies chatting across the fence to anyone who will listen to our martyr status with our parent. We subject ourselves to enabling others as we do our parent. Addiction is a very powerful force and you cannot engage in it in any way and consider yourself completely healed. I would like you to think about something if you choose to ponder the realities of this post: When you see another survivor struggling with her ex psychopath and what he is doing to her children, put yourself in the child’s shoes.
View this survivors ex as your parent. It is the SAME. Ask yourself, why am I appalled by this but not by what my parent is doing to me? Why am I not horrified by the abuse I have taken and continue to take? When you see a survivor in pain about what the psychopath is doing to her child(ren), what makes what your psychopathic parent is doing to you, so different? What is the cost of your involvement in being engaged with someone who does not love you, but is merely using you for their own personal pleasure in causing you further harm? Can you see what the affects of the psychopathic parents abuse is having on you, and others around you while you react to them? If you have children who are exposed to your psychopathic parent, is this what you want for your children to see in how your parent treats you and in how you react to it? Obsess about it? What ties can you connect from a past or current partner to the antics of your parent or anyone else in your life where enabling is allowed, where you fight with your empathy, where you fight with those who are manipulative, exploitive and abusive? Can you feel yourself slipping into the costume of the child in response to any of this, as you would your parent? Do you suddenly feel that, while in the presence of those who are abusive or manipulative, no matter who they are, that you are powerless? Voiceless? Listen to yourself. . .
I know these are hard questions. I know they will provoke anger, but for others they will provoke thought, and yet for others, it will hurt your heart. You are NOT a child any longer. You are NOT beholden to an abuser who cannot love, no matter who it is.
You will never have validation from the parent who created your existence biologically. Ask yourself why you believe this person loves you when it’s clear every time you engage that they don’t? The SAME principles apply to the psychopathic parent that they do ALL psychopaths. Your continued involvement makes you more vulnerable to future psychopaths. Healing from extreme childhood abuse must commence before any changes can happen into our future. This IS the original trauma bond. It must be broken before you can truly heal. The ultimate in re-victimizing yourself is the continued contact and abuse you take out of this person. Ask yourself why your psychopathic, ABUSIVE parent is the exception to the rule.
Putting into practice our awareness will only go so far while we still have abuse in our lives, especially from our parent. The danger in acting out in further relationships is there when we cannot cut ties to the parent. Engaging with the psychopathic parent is to keep the ADDICTIVE quality of the abuse GOING. We are literally practicing our addictions with anyone who is pathological.
Healing from pathology means to remove yourself from it long enough to see what your own behaviors are and have been in response to it. It is incredibly difficult, if not possible to change while engagement is still in active status.
Your psychopathic parent is not ‘different’ than all the rest. This person is the one who set you up to be abused in other relationships and to continue to take it from them. They don’t have a miraculous and just a ‘little bit’ of empathy for you. Hanging onto this belief, and the refusal to deal with and grieve the reality that this person does not love you and never could, hurts you more. Their inability to do so says NOTHING about you as a human being and the gift you were born with: empathy. Compassion for others.
I’m suggesting that you think about this. You don’t deserve abuse. Your parent will continue to apply it liberally to you and your life if you allow it. The no contact rule applies to the psychopathic partner for obvious reasons, as well as any past friendships, bosses, coworkers, children. It also applies to the parent.
I understand how painful it feels to integrate the reality of this into your heart. It is a pain like no other.
Your value and worth is not found in abuse, but a future free of it. Even if the abuser is your parent.
Onward and upward.
Note: This article also applies to men who are survivors of psychopathic women.
SOURCE
Labels: abuse, abusive father, abusive mother, adult children of narcissists, c-ptsd, empathy, envy, narcissistic, narcissistic father, narcissistic mother, narcissistic parent, psychopathic
16 Comments:
Wow. Thank you so much for posting this. Very, very powerful information.
Incredible piece.
Wonderful article and so very true. Thank you for sharing this information.
It took me a very long time to realize about the abuse of my parents, it was "natural", and yet somehow I felt the horror but was unable to give it a name. I am still unable to get out of this guilt and shame game, I haven't been able to make bonds with sane people... Reading this reopened the wound and even though it is hard to manage and deeply painful I am glad I found this, it makes me feel that this is not my true destiny.
Thank You. My heart skipped a beat at this TRUTH "Do you want to know why you are so afraid to acknowledge the truth about your Mom or Dad or both? About maybe even your siblings if they are disordered too? Because you know they don’t love you. This truth is the most devastating of all." Yes, it is.
Sometimes you are finacially dependant and have no choice but to stay in contact with disordered family to an extent. I believe most of the sentiments made but its pretty black and white..some may have their own families careers be in good health and it may be easier to just cut contact. Others may need low to meduim contact with strong boundaries in place.
thsi was a stunningly meaningful and profound insight that i need to make sense of my own feelings and to readthen was liberating and gave me confindence.. my story is not exactly along the same lines of being a vistim of child abus - but i had some very traumatic evenst that left acrs on me throug my relationship with my parents an di suffered for it - i also put myself int he vitims a shoes for empathy and compasison but now im seeing the underlying conciousness and reasonson for doing so -- and that was harmful to my wellbeing- i am thankful for your insight and generosity .
thanks so much for this insight - it is powerful and uplifting and insigtful and makes me feel very much more aware and empathic of my own actions
thank you, the posting spoke many volumes to me. I love that you shared and it shows me a better understanding of myself. Im not wrong. your words let me see the truth. what I thought was a "normal childhood"... it wasn't. I wasn't over sensitive. I was young I was just a child and my brother was a monster. sadly I always still loved him, but lacks feeling and feels nothen:( I cant ever think what is in his head..it would be cold and dark
Thank you for posting. Unfortunately my parents were also both sociopaths and cannot stop their endless manipulation, lies and counterschemes to even the most basic morals.
I tried very hard with them, trying to please them. Instead they were only interested in controlling me and keeping me from ever being happy or successful.
The many episodes of gaslighting (where either parent basically refutes basic evidence or lies about it to suit themselves) were enough for me to realise that they were both irredeemably evil and very damaging.
I used to feel guilty about leaving them until I realised a sociopath only feels something when they are hurting someone. If I made myself unavailable to be abused, they didn't feel guilty, they just waited until I forgot what they were really like. Then the abuse started all over again.
They were not remorseful or sometimes forgiving, just selfish and unbelievably callous and cold hearted.
I can do without them. Psychologists are always amazed how I ended up sensitive and highly emapthic with my parents being what they were.
I am now strong enough to withstand their attempts to emotionally brow beat me back into their narrow room of abuse and denial. I understand parents sometimes have to be hard on their children but mine not even once told me I was worthwhile or loved.
My siblings are also all very much sociopathic. I have had to kiss them goodbye too. It was hard to do but they all play the same game as my parents. They are only satisfied when they have a victim, usually me.
My parents used me to collect the welfare meant for myself, all the while making sure I was left with no self esteem or any way of being able to survive without them.
I don't know how I managed to finally escape them but I did. I survived hell and if you are in the same situation there is great majesty in escaping. I take my hat off to any other survivors:)
Absolutely validating and refreshing.
Hoping I will have even one person in my life with this level of understanding.
I find that my greatest challenge now is in attempting to explain my choice to separate from both of my psychopathic parents to those who simply cannot fathom treating a parent, especialy a mother with such contempt. Im accustomed to being the scape goat and albiet lonley and misunderstood, I am thankful for my position as it provides amazing growth oportunities. Such a long way to go though, and so few to share with.
Wonderful take on it, very thorough.
I feel the same...I suddenly saw my mother for what she truly was...but she is 87...already telling others how awful I am. Time to save myself. I am sleeping for first time in years. Took back my power.
Congratulations on yours!
Thank you for sharing and may others who have experienced this trauma in their life find peace, love, hope and joy. May GOD help us in our healing process.
I didn't realize until my mother was 86! I have spent the 9 months trying to sort this out. I now have the intellectual knowledge but still stumble into my past thought patterns. This piece you have written applies perfectly to my situation. Bless you!
The subtleties and variations in the abuser/abused relationship are as numerous and individual as our fingerprints. This is one reason we have such difficulty understanding and accepting -- in my case -- Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
There were some key points that leapt out at me. 1) You consider it "normal." 2) You recognize it in others but not in your own situation. 3) How it is passed on parent to child.
I still think I had terrific parents. But what created the "trauma bond" in our case were violent accidents. Suffering together, as a family, through those losses created in my younger brother the requirement for drama in order to establish intimacy. Looking back, it was obvious early on but we all treated it like it was normal. That was just my brother.
But it got worse, as well as more complicated.
Long story short, it wasn't until I saw the effects on his own family that I completely cut off contact. I'm certain they all hate me, and that he tells endless stories about how terrible I am, how reprehensible my family is.
This is all very sad but it is important to understand it. It is unbelievable to admit that I have PTSD from interactions with MY BROTHER!!! But I do.
So that is my cautionary tale. It took decades and untold harm before I finally recognized it. Thank God I did.
No love. No. I mean this with complete compassion love, you are only giving an excuse. No one is financially dependent or has no choice unless you are not of an adult legal age. I hope with all my heart that you see that the financial dependency only makes the action of no contact in the journey more difficult than someone who has their own families and careers and is in good health. That in no way justifies I need for low or medium contact with strong boundaries in place it just doesn’t it just means that you don’t wanna go through the difficult journey because you know that for other people it’s an easier journey and it’s just another excuse to not love yourself and allow them to abuse you you can start with absolutely nothing and it would be more healthy and more beneficial in the long run in your life . I only say this from experience.
Post a Comment
<< Home