It took me a long time to realise how abusive the enabler parent really is. When you really think about it they sacrifice their own children for their safety. Once I realised that it put things in perspective. Although horrible and unpleasant it's better to see the reality of the situation as well as the reality of who people are.
100% enabler is no better than the narcissist. It took a while but I found out what you said was true. They for their safety use their child. Add expectations, gaslight, play victim, and take control of their children and become a demon self when the child tries to individuate. They are the middle person who makes sure the child won't grip from their clutch..and it's brutal when the scapegoat tries to leave. That is the time for me personally, I found out it was never about me. It was for the enabler monsters safety.
@@johedges5946before the bus hit them. And they thrive like that for a long time. And when the child gets up and heals and tries to leave, their truth will be revealed
Enablers can also be abusive. Sometimes they also bully the kids to be accepted from the narcissist. Also, if the enablers feels threatened by the child because the scapegoat stands up against the narcissist they may abuse the scapegoat.( They want to keep the status quo no matter what)
Exactly right! By agreeing with the asshole parent, they are teaching the kid's to not trust their instincts, which kills self esteem. My friend medicates her children to keep them quiet, instead of kicking her drunk ass husband to the nearest detox centre or the gutter, whichever he prefer
after marrying a narc i realized you either leave or you become the enabler those are your only 2 choices so what you see is those moral pious old school moms and dads staying in the name of not getting divorced and then automatically becoming passive abusers
Up until about a year ago, I was fond of my Dad. I knew there were issues, but somehow gave him a pass. Whenever I got into conflict with my narc mother, he would come and find me, calm me down, and entice me back into the family. In my early thirties, and shortly before his death, my mother and I had an epic conflict, she had done a despicable thing to my sister, and I was done. Virtually our last conversation was him telling me "she means well." I told him, "If she means well, she can apologize." He knew that would never happen, and about a year later he died of brain cancer. We had a few brief contacts at my initiation. I always felt guilty about not being around for him... But now I realize, it was a lifetime of gaslighting me. As the father... it was his role to reach out to me. It was his role to protect me. He didn't. Thirty years later, I have found peace in this. Thank-you Jay.
My Mom just passed a few weeks ago and wow. Your first few sentences hit me like a Mac truck. 🫂 My Dad is still here but my sister the golden child has taken her place. Now he has to follow her lead to make sure and exclude me the scapegoat.
@@pennyp7382 All the best to you... If my experience is of any use to you--don't expect things to get better with them. Work on clarity, and it will get better for you. I am now no contact with all of my family. Not some grand gesture... just zero tolerance with BS, and they will do all the rest.
@@gingerrivas5354 You may be asking too much of yourself to 'forgive.' Perhaps just start with just accepting that they did what they did. Buddhist image? You don't get angry at the rock when you stub your toe.(Especially when the rock delights in your anger.) When you are angry, your anger keeps them tied to you. They continue to have a grip on your life. For me this is ongoing. All the best.
It's the most infuriating thing in the whole world when you have to listen to everyone praise the narcissist when you know what really goes on behind closed doors and what they're really like. They act so fake that its almost unbelievable to others that they can actually be this disgusting, abusive bully.
Amen to what you said. My father was a man of God (Ha) with a Doctorate and built a huge following with lots of big money behind. "You are so lucky to have him as a father." I heard that crap all the time so boy do I understand what your saying.
My parents, espec my dad did all their abusing “ in the name of God.” Told me and anybody anywherr who would listen that I was evil and had “the Devil” in me. He told me constsntly as a very small child I was going to burn in hell with all the other sinners. I was so scared I couldn’t sleep. He liked that. When they saw how frightened I was they would turn it all up. It made them feel powerful whereas in the real world they were the most feeble, ignorant, weak minded people imaginable. When it turned out their daughter was smarter than 10 of them together that became a serious problem for them. My dad said I had useless “book learning,” but no real wisdom or intelligence.
@@rs5570 Our comments sound like we are the same person. I was told around age 9, "The sins of the father would be visited upon the sons." He was telling me that even if I did nothing wrong, I would pay for his sins and that was just the way things would go." Its one thing to take an adult who had a chance and grew up with a good or even a alright family. (At least they were just bad parents who didn't try enough.) Our parents took an innocent child and purposely threw him to the wolves, without a care in the world. I wish I was blind again and was not shown behind the mask at this age. (55) Your not alone, its not your fault, does not change the facts and sleep never comes easy. (There is nothing so bad in my mind, that cannot be made worse in the dark of nightfall.) Thanks for letting me vent a bit.
@@darylkik777 I did, too. The narc father was ( and still is) the hero to his large extended family. He is adored by my cousins because he was supportive and concerned with them. With me he was evil, rejecting and demeaning. Didn’t even help with college and he was an educator. So disturbing.
@@freeandfabulous4310 Sickening how they have two faces for the world. I remember dad always saying for many years, " I won the world for God, and lost my family in the process." In all the years he was saying this, why didn't he work to win the family back? Because it was just said as an excuse and to make him look even better. This was also the man counseling so many young couples and others in the church when they needed advice. Death was not the end of this story as another in my family took over and has continued the hate and my life as the scapegoat. Glad to hear I am not alone but saddened anyone else has seen "hell" up so close.
I think the saddest realization is the Enabler parent will always put the Narcissist parent on a pedestal and they will always be no’ 1 in the enabler’s eyes - they will put the narcissist parent’s feelings, needs, wants & demands before their own and their children’s needs. They have a huge desperation for the relationship to work with the narcissist. When the scapegoat child can clearly see it never will.
So true. My narcissistic father passed away 4 months ago, leaving behind an epic financial mess that is falling on my enabler mother’s shoulders now. My father died suddenly and unexpectedly, and left behind a failing corporation with no succession plan and which has a pending multi-million dollar lawsuit about to go to trial. Like the good golden child, I helped my dad with the business here and there over the years. I suspected he might be doing some questionable things, and feared this day, but had no black and white proof or knowledge of what he was actually doing. He kept his cards VERY close to his vest and his records were locked up and not accessible even to my mother. Being a good enabler, my mom knew NOTHING whatsoever about the business and believed my dad’s lies that everything was in great shape. She had no access to any financial information and never pressed it, as she loves to bury her head in the sand and play the poor, unknowing victim. Since I’m the only one who knew anything about the company, I’ve spent hundreds of hours over the past 4 months trying to figure out its position and what to do with it, working for free. Her approach was “just leave it and let the workers find new jobs what did they ever do for me!!!” I didn’t even know about the lawsuit until after my dad passed, and figured it’d be worth at least attempting to deal with this as cleanly as is possible to avoid further fallout. After she defended my father yet again and tried to gaslight me, I finally told her I’m removing myself from anything further to do with the business. Anyway, I’ve managed to keep it afloat the past 4 months so it’s generating some revenue. I figured out what we needed to know and gave her advice on how to proceed. Just couldn’t take another second of the gaslighting and poor, sad widow bullshit as she continues to defend my father. They lived in grand style for years off of money that was made in some ethically questionable ways. She will now need to deal with the fallout that my sister and I tried to warn her about for years while she was busy throwing us under the bus and traveling the world in first class, staying at luxury hotels. When his business was failing, my father even tried to get me to open a new company (an LLC with ME as the sole managing member) for him to conduct new business under. After he passed, I found out exactly what the nefarious plans were for this LLC, which could’ve potentially caused me to lose everything... At this point, in my eyes, my mom is worse than my dad. She had a golden chance to get out when he was on top of his game before the shit hit the fan, but due to her own greed and misguided loyalty, she stayed, and now will get to ride the ship down. She continues to deny everything, despite all the black and white proof of what my dad has done (I have my dads’s business papers and computer), and insists that my father would never hurt my sister and I. Done with the gaslighting and instead of helping her will be spending my time in therapy trying to glue my broken psyche back together from living nearly 52 years with this torture…
My dad put my mom 🤣 n a psych ward - and then planned his big escape. My mom still went back after I called the police that I was homeless at 13 years old- to call out the plan where I was going to be abandoned. Shortly after this at 15 years I was sold to sicko executive. Cannda 1976. We still living in the dark ages. Usually people like me get murdered before they can afford a phone to text.
My mom was the narc and dad was the enabler and he sacrificed me to abuse by blaming me for anything to avoid my mothers wrath. Until recently I thought he was a victim until I visited in adulthood and he continued this pattern. They’re both toxic and abusive in their own way
Correct this is common. The enablers not only will not stand up for the abused child they will add charges to the main abusers reasons to abuse list. Anything that keeps them safe, and not a target they will put extra targets on their kids.
I so agree.. I always though my dad was a victim too but have realized he’s a very weak man who didn’t protect his child. He does whatever my mom tells him to do. So pathetic..
My father is definitely a covert narcissist. He always play the, "poor me, look how my wife mistreats me." Yet he knew what she was prior to marrying her. He always talked down to us kids, and provided money to other people so they could take care of their children. Meanwhile my brothers and I never received new clothes and supplies for the first day of school. Both him and her are evil.
My mom was narcissist and dad was enabler. Had an abusive childhood. Knowledge is a form of healing. Educated myself about narcissist and dysfunctional family. No contact with them. Healing more
most people probably wouldnt guess this is even a thing. my dad would always join in the insanity by flying into a cuck rage every time i stood up to my mother or called her out. fuck narcs but fuck cucks just as much!
My narc mom would order my enabler dad to beat me with a belt. If he hesitated she would fly into a narcisstic rage saying that he didnt parent equally and needed to back her up and enforce discipline. She also would often threaten to take us and leave him (in front of us kids) which would result in dad and all us kids crying and begging her not to split our family up. I will never forget the smug satisfied smile on her face when it got to that finale. I used to feel sorry for my father but now I realize he could have protected us and chose not to. We were children. Now they both are old and ill and people keep trying to involve me in their care. I have been no contact for 2 years and 2 months. Cycle breaker.
Tammy I truly understand why you would not want to get involved in the caretaking of your parents!! I will tell you I have learned a lot from working with the elderly and their family members. I remember on several occasions having family members moving their parents in to our assisted living and memory care unit and then not showing up for the longest time I remember hearing the staff members talk so harshly about the adult children who just didn’t seem to have the love for their parents that one would normally have, so I decided to let them in on some very important information that I learned right from their adult kids mouths and what I found out was at times just horrific. The abuse that these adult kids lived through was emotional and physical abuse that no one else would even remotely think about when you have their aging parents looking so fragile standing in front of you and acting so sweet and helpless and it’s because now some of them are because of the amazing meds their on and because memory has been lost. Unfortunately for the adult children their memories are quite fresh and the pain is unforgettable. To all caretakers, friends and golden children out there please don’t judge the adult children because the elderly person you see and find funny and cute now and they probably are all of that, and however for the adult children they experienced something totally different so please be kind and appreciate and show compassion to them as well.
@@tracieriley301 that level of understanding must have meant so much for the adult children you interacted with. It's something most ppl just don't get. My mom passed just before Xmas and I didn't go to her funeral or see her on her deathbed. So many people told me I might regret it if I didn't, even close friends who know mu story. What they didn't understand is I've been grieving that relationship my entire life and have already turned the corner on acceptance. My dad now lives with my sister and her family and I am still no contact but I wish him well and I feel happy for him that he can relax and enjoy his final years. I am no longer angry with him (that emotion protected me when I wasn't strong) but I also don't feel like I want a relationship. 3 years no contact.
I bet I can guess at some of the lines you have listened to from other relatives "you've become so hard hearted" is a favourite and "be the bigger person, go and see them" is another. They had the same free will you have and chose their path. There were times the Narcissist seemed to have times of clarity and could have been "the bigger person" and the enabler saw past their reality bubble but both chose to shove their heads back up their own a***s. Hope it's warm enough up there for them. Hard hearted, you bet!
My father was an abusive, malignant narcissist who had the world fooled for many years that he was a wonderful, magnanimous, brilliant, kind man. My mother looked on proudly and enabled him for almost all of her life....when we were children and he would abuse us and be crying in our rooms or literally huddled together in fear, she never once comforted us. Not once. In fact, she took on a "NOW look what you made him do" mentality. At the end of their lives, she became his "victim". He was not physically abusive to her, but verbally and emotionally. (silent treatments for days at a time for no reason, etc). I know she was miserable and she finally understood.
I have a memory of running to my dad, and asking him, “Please, just tell me-is she trying to hurt me? Is this a game? Please just tell me”. My dad put up his hands and said, “I can’t help you”. I wasn’t even asking him to protect me, I was just so confused, I could feel she was playing a game with me, and she was going to hurt me whether I answered her question correctly or not-the most unbearable part was that I couldn’t figure out if I was crazy or she was out to hurt me.
Omg your comment made me so sad. That’s a terrible thing to endure and I say that because I have been there. I struggle with the emotional toll and trauma it left me with at 40 years old and finally having to end my relationship with both of them Bc they tried to steal 40 k from me and the verbally abused me Bc I “‘accused” them of doing it when I had proof. So now they don’t talk to any of their 4 kids. I stuck around too long than my brothers and I couid have saved myself so much heart ache if I distanced sooner. Sending a hug to you
He could have. He chose not to. Shame on him and as old as this is, here's a hug from an Internet stranger if you want one. I'm so sorry that happened to you. I begged my mother literally on my KNEES when single-digit small to PLEASE just get us away from him. She said, "But then I'd have to get a job," and walked away. The enabler is JUST AS GUILTY imo.
@@NoMoreHeroesAnymore1334 that was a beautiful comment and it hurt my heart to read that. My mom used to say the same “ I don’t want to lose my house”. Now she lost all her kids. So was that unhappy crappy house worth it? Now I’m sending YOU a hug
Exactly right. When I was in my 30's, I asked my father why he allowed the abuse (which was still in full force) he shrugged and said " I have to live with her"... what a pitiful excuse for letting someone abuse your child.
My weak mother used to stand at the sink and clean while the narcissist father raged and bane called me to humiliation. She was just as cold and unloving and rejecting as he was. They both are the same as elderly people, now.
Holy shit, man. I cannot express just how intensely you're blowing my mind right now. This is like, three decades of pain and confusion suddenly being explained.
My father enabled my mother’s rages by closing the windows so the neighbors would not hear my screams. If it was cold weather and the windows were already closed, he would just watch her beat me. My father was orphaned when he was only two years old, and also suffered mild shell shock from WWII, so apparently he needed my mother’s authority. Mercifully my baby sitters were older women who treated me with such kindness, but I imagined their respect of me was because they did not know that I was truly bad. When my mother was eighty years old, she was diagnosed as mentally ill. I had been mothered by an unmedicated, unsupervised holy terror, who was supported by a man almost completely shut down. Your videos are invaluable. Please keep them coming.
My dad was the narcissist, my mom the enabler--my mom never tried to stop the abuse and, if we're being honest, not only was relieved to see him turn his attention on us kids (better you than me) but developed a kind of sadistic pleasure in seeing us being emotionally and physically abused, because when my dad did that, it would satisfy his need for control for awhile. My mom used us as human shields.
That’s disgusting. And I’m sorry you had to deal with that. I can say that Bc I was that child as well. Dealing with some severe issues and ptsd at 40 years old. I hate them. Sending you a hug
The only reason I am giving you a thumbs down is because of all the crap you and I went through, and mom just watched and agreed. "You will need to talk to your father, was the answer for anything". So thumbs down to them.
Im going through a very similar thing right now, but my father is the enabler. While i havent been physically abused since i was much younger (i just turned 18), i feel your pain. My father never stops her, he sometimes helps her at that. He never shows any guilt towards the pain ive been forced to go through. (im their only disabled kid. so im the one whos always hurt.). They always seem so glad, sometimes my parents will laugh at me while they tear me apart. Its terrifyingly painful. I do hope you are doing better now, i send lots of hugs!
@@cindymoya4759 I thought I got lucky after he passed away. He had two giant funerals and I had hear how lucky I was to have him as a father. My older sister took over to this day its not fun. I am thankful that I never treated my kids that way and they know and knew they are loved. I love to write so being alone right now I have about 1500 pages on everything from day one. As I write it helps to let it go a bit. Plus you get a few "Aha" moments and connect more dots. I hope your ok and the one thing I wish I had known was that I was not the only one in world scapegoated, physically abused, mentally abused. But my least favorite saying is still, "Daryl this is not about you." Still wish I had never seen behind the mask a few years ago. Daryl
An enabler parent can also be an enabler to a narcissistic golden child in a single parent household and gang up on the scapegoat child. That was my life experience as the scapegoat child. My enabler parent rewarded bad behavior from my sibling but did not treat me the same way.
This is my dad. And I've lost all respect for him. He is very emotionally and verbally abusive as well. He hides behind my mother's skirt like a little boy. I am completely disgusted by him. He is my mum's mouthpiece. Growing up I loved and looked up to him because he didn't overtly abuse me. But now that I'm older I see him for who he is. A coward that can never stand up to my mum. Controlled by her. Let her abuse as as kids and adults and has never stood up to her not once.
My family is so screwed up it's like both parents were double agents. Mother is the covert malicious narc and dad was the grandiose narc, but he also liked young girls and mother knew this and thought it was funny that we 'had to put up with it', and he enabled her rages and lies. What a mess. I think that's why I never got into drugs or alcohol, because trying to stay alert and on guard was the number one thing. Father is dead now and mother is completely out of control. Horrid beastly people.
I had same family system. My dad was grandiose but more sociopathic and mother is borderline covert narc. Both were violent, lying, cheating, sadistic, cruel and abusive. Dad was rarely home, too boring for him, he craved stimulation, was gambling addict. Mother filled with anxiety filled homebody who hated to leave the house. She would fly into crazy rages out of nowhere. She whipped us with wires and belts, dragged me around my hair, kicked me in face, punched me and starved me all the time as a small child. No mercy whatsoever. She would sic her evil husband onto us to beat us while she watched. He broke bones in my face and splattered my blood all over her curtains and she screamed "you bitch look what you did to my curtains!" Her evil husband who cheated on her all the time finally died and now she tries to guilt me into doing for her only I moved to another state 20 years ago and haven't seen her in years. I'm not caring for her in old age, she can rot in her chair. I'll never forget or forgive her. She's still evil, they never ever change.
Omg this is SO what happened to me. My dad was the toxic narc but my mother was completely childlike and empty. They both had traumatic childhoods and were stuck inside at a very childlike level. She actually tried fighting back once with my dad, when I was 4, but he stormed out of the house, and she gave up. I took over defending her (I was the only girl and the youngest) so I was the scapegoat. I left home at 18 and never looked back. To the outside world, my mom was the nicest, coolest mom and she was my best friend, but it took me 40 years to figure out why I was so frustrated with her. She never defended us and if it came down to her looking bad to the outside world or throwing us under the bus, she would throw us under. I have 2 older brothers and as she got older, she would defer to them after my dad died, so I was 4th in line, and had to be the mom to her most of my life, which my bro’s never saw. I realized she just wanted to be “friends” with me, but I needed “a mom”. I had this convo with her multiple times (with real life examples!) even getting angry once, but I don’t think she ever really understood how a mother would really feel. It wasn’t till I had my own family and had gone thru about 30 years of therapy that I understood the dynamic. I actually felt more angry at her than my dad once I figured this out. And since my dad molested me all my life ( like a little boy with goofy touching - no boundaries - prob trying to control me), I’m just relieved they’re both gone.
I think the most sad thing about the dynamic of the narcissistic family system is that there is no one who could side with you /from a viewpoint of a scapegoat/ ever and stand up for you from young age in different situations when needed. You have to learn to stand up for yourself from very early age and be strong and be independent and be seeing as your voice really doesn´t matter or is just ridiculed /doesn´t matter if you are 20, 30 or 40 years old/. There is no emotional support. It seems that is getting worse and worse how you are getting older /from a viewpoint of a scapegoat/. The tactics are more and more brutal. I wrote that comment before I just started to watch the video and you just nailed it. Very sad and truthful.
It made me so sad reading or hearing about abused children who had a sister or brother or aunt or uncle who, at the very least, came to them in a quiet moment and made them realize that it was not okay how they were being treated. I never had that . They all just piled on, which of course makes a child believe, "I guess I really am as bad as they are saying I am."
When I told my mother she was mistreating me at 8, she beat me to blood. My first girlfriends asked me why I had that huge scar on my right thigh...because I was beat like a slave.
One of my first childhood memories is my father raging at me every night. It always would start the same, after dinner around the TV, he would become extremely dominant and abusive, he would bait me by saying harsher and meaner and meaner things untill I would bite and he had a free pass to abuse me even more. I would look at my mother for help and guidance, but all I saw was her looking straight forward in fear or just simply looking away. This image is embedded in my mind, the total submission to your child being abused night after night and just looking away to protect yourself. I remember the moment as if it was yesterday when it was happening again and I told myself in that moment: I am not vgoing to win this or can do anything about it, and that’s where the cognitive dissonance kicked it. Surviving one minute at a time.
This is why I tell people, "DON'T STAY 'for the children'!" You are doing them no favors, and are actually exacerbating the abuse! Teach your children well - that they don't have to put up with abuse and that if they do abuse, they lose. Of course, courts still favor mothers having custody over fathers...but at least there may have been one parent who felt safe. Maybe.
I feel with you so much! You should not have had to go through such pain 😢. If I had been your sister I would have comforted you. I dissociated all the time as well and became depressed. I remember going through the full pain later when I had to additionally go through life threatening withdrawals from an antidepressant that made me unable to work for a year. I spent hours crying and finally got through the emotional pain when I had cried enough about the fact that I truly didn’t matter to them. How did it go on for you later?
A well fleshed out explanation of some of what goes on in abusive families . Unfortunately these videos are probably only viewed by we who have lived it . Most people I try to talk to about this subject claim they never saw anything untoward going on . A kid growing up in these abusive circumstances whether with one or two abusive parents has no soft place to fall and soon learns the world is a dangerous and violent place . Hence the hypervigilence most of us feel . Thanks for providing this platform as a sounding ground for wounded souls .
Hey Barbara, yes, nobody seems to understand unless they've lived it. Dr. Jay here is blowing my mind with his understanding of it, very helpful. Best of luck to ya, stay strong.
"A kid growing up in these abusive circumstances whether with one or two abusive parents has no soft place to fall and soon learns the world is a dangerous and violent place. Hence the hypervigilence most of us feel." wow-- extremely well put.
@Sara Fox Yes, it doesn't feel like he's a know it all type, seems very sincere and unbelievably knowledgeable about our plight. Stop by my place here you get time, I even just put up a crazy cat video!
Please know that while you have been paying your karmic debt on this earth, they have been accumulating theirs! Knowing that you'd almost pity them for what's awaiting.
The part about feeling undeserving of protection really hit home for me - my older sister was my abuser growing up, and my mum just buried her head in the sand and acted like it was normal for me to have my sense of self eroded, or to have the daylights beaten out of me whenever my sister was in a strop about something. I still have those feelings of worthlessness, and find it extremely difficult to ask anyone for help or support, because I had it drummed into me from an early age that I was on my own in this world....
My Mom was like this with my younger brother the golden child could harass bully insult berate, cuss at me, throw things at me all the way until he was 17 and I was GONE! She actually would smile and enjoy it. I often wondered if my parents and brother were possessed by demons. Now I know for several facts, the three of them are all psychologically screwy, in some sinister ways, upstairs.
My dad is narc & mom enable, typical Asian family dynamics with my mom still clips my brother’s nails at age 34 & I got blame for everything as the daughter. Now my brother is in jail. I disown my dying parents at their most vulnerable & live my happy life in Australia with a super supportive husband. Everything can change for the better & starts with you.
This is insane! You described my upbringing to a tee Jay. Dad was the abusive narc, mom the enabler. From your video, I now understand why she didn't help me in my struggle, she tried in the beginning I think. But it was probably the fear of abandonment. She was an only child, spoiled rotten, but her dad died when I was 3, crushing both my mom and her mom. He had been a war hero and community leader, loved by all. She was a sweet beautiful woman when I was young. But my father ruined her, and she eventually became his partner in crime. 10 yrs no contact now with them. I just started the Wim Hof breathing technique recently. Crazy! Thank you Jay!
Wow that’s my life too! My mom’s father - which she described as being the greatest father ever - died when I was a toddler. She started drinking then and never stopped. She was an enabler and my dad a horrible raging narcissist. My brother and I had an awful upbringing .
@@robertaoliveto5559 So sorry to see this Roberta. I'm wondering if they made one of you the Black Sheep or just treated you both terribly all the time? Since leaving this initial comment, I've learned some things that make my grandfathers death awfully curious. We had just arrived for a weekend visit, and he suddenly got real sick. They said he died in the front yard playing with me, from a heart attack. Turns out that wasn't quite the truth, but I'll never know exactly what happened now. His death made my father the head of the family, the sole bread winner, and able to behave any way he chose. I'll go to my grave wondering about this, but I've a gut feeling about how it went down. Take care my friend and I hope you are having a great new year!
out of all the bad memories we have is there anything worse than remembering that look on her face when dad went to town on us, or in my case how she wouldnt be physically around until my dad calmed down and all of a sudden poof there she is asking who wants dinner? i get chills thinking about it
Both my parents were TOXIC and abusive, just straight up EVIL. Older sister was also a sociopath and most violent of them all. They all cover for each other and feed off the pain of others. Like a pack of wolves that just took down prey. Grandparents were covert narcs and part of the wolf pack. Best prey for these kinds is helpless vulnerable small child cause they're so weak and pathetic. My sociopathic father sure wasn't going to pick a fight with a man in a bar, hell no, that coward picked on small children. Well he died and is in hell now along with his parents.
You have described my childhood also Jay. My enabler mother never once said anything about my father’s treatment of me. Now my sister has turned into a worse narcissist than my father was. My mom wouldn’t discuss the issue with me either. Later, as an adult, I confronted her about allowing it. She ran away from me and locked herself in the bathroom in order to avoid the conversation. We never had that conversation.
Can’t relate more. I feel your mother was your sisters enabler too, and instead of listening to you and validating you’re feelings she didn’t want to take sides, but in a way she already had. I’m sorry, I can relate and it sucks. Wish you healing my friend
I know how that goes Jan. I did the same a few times with my mom. tried to talk about what was really going on. Same reaction, freaked out and ran away, then told my narc dad about it, only making matters worse. It's a crazy scene, I eventually had to go no contact, they were just too toxic, with no change in sight. Stay strong, we got this.
I am your twin, they are sick, they need help & are almost impossible to help, they are sadistic dopamine addicts, you are not the only person they abuse they are abusing everyone, you know that, they keep breaking the law expecting different results. It is a horrifying disease.
Thank you for these videos! I was labelled "highly-gifted," as a child, skipped ahead and put into a program for highly-gifted children. I also excelled in music and dance. Little did I know that all of this was the kiss of death with my Narcissistic mother and older sister. My dad is the classic enabler parent and, after divorcing my mother, married another Narcissist. You have described him perfectly, here! My childhood was hell with a jealous mother who triangulated me and my siblings to make sure we were at odds. I was the scapegoat and still am, although I am no longer in contact with most of them, thank goodness. I only wish I had understood this stuff when I was a teenager, desperate for help and thinking my only way out was suicide. Posting these videos has the potential to save someone who might be feeling what I was as a teen. Good work!
Very glad you survived those desperate teenage thoughts they brought you to. That is so very difficult after nearly 2 decades of progressive abuse, mental, emotional, or physical. I know this is hard, but I hope that you can still enjoy your talents and not bury them because they put a target on you. They rob all joys they can and if they can't take them they'll poison them.
The only thing I could do was to stiff everything in an unutterably miserable life. I developed a secret internal life. Nobody in the family had an inkling about how I really thought and felt. I presented an impassive, essentially expressionless facial expression as I moved about in their world, a figment.of their imaginations. My children, in visiting my childhood home, remarked to me, "They seem to be talking about someone else, someone we don't know" That was correct because whenever I spoke up in my.own self, I was shouted down by everyone in the family, and even labelled as "psychotic, totally out of touch with reality." Later, in my 70's, I started to try to tell my brother that I had a completely different, separate world. He said , "Why do you always try.to bring that up? That's psychotic!" From that point everything would get worse and worse because my protests would confirm my psychosis. To his credit he wrote back and said, "That's not valid," the first time he ever stood up for me that I recall. Once, also many years after reaching adulthood, my father called up and told me, "I didn't agree with everything that was done to you." My brother said, "You received 95 % negative reinforcement and 5% positive reinforcement." So there was a conscious awareness on the part of the enablers of the dynamics. Truly I feel like I could barely.regard myself as having a family at all. Naturally with such a dynamic I was effectively ejected from the family forever. Now both parents are dead and my brother wanted to carry on their abysmal traditions with me." Lol. I studied the humanities and social sciences to build my own reality and actually developed a great deal of scope (all unrecognized). I am pretty much.okay nowadays but there is a permanent empty place.in my heart.
I relate to this write up so much. I received several emails from the brother of a woman who was friends with one of my abusers & they were stunned to find out that I was nothing like how I was described & as you know they attract & invite other abusers but many other victims are like him where they dont know that you are being intentionally silenced & neglected while they create a whole world for you behind your back that has no ability to line up with reality. It is so great that you went ahead & studied & worked & built scope & I strongly relate to you & am super proud of you & feel validated by your experiences.
@Sara Fox Those retreats in my mind to dissociate probably saved my life too. I am no longer creative but they hated it. No wonder I have been considered a compulsive reader. Literature helped me to endure the abuse and find worlds better than mine.
yes we use limerence as well which is like chronic obsessive love even for someone who isnt with you because then we can live in a fantasy world with them in our head where they never hurt us
The enablers compliance in itself is abusive although they do not see it because they are in the fog of the narcissist. The enabler can change; the narcissist can not.
Thank you Jay. This is such an important topic. In my recovery I was hyper focused on the abuse by my narcissistic father for years. I found a good trauma therapist who encouraged me to focus on my enabler mother’s role. While my mother was a wonderful person in many ways, she did not protect me from the abuse and was therefore complicit. Confronting this in a therapeutic setting helped me heal a wound I didn’t know existed and moved my recovery forward.
"I found a good trauma therapist who encouraged me to focus on my enabler mother’s role. While my mother was a wonderful person in many ways, she did not protect me from the abuse and was therefore complicit. " yes
I agree , this is a VERY painful position to put a child in between. My mom was a super enabler and my dad got away with hitting us all emotionally+ physically. He never helped with anything and would always make my mom do everything. He treated us all like crap and I remeber getting very anxious the minute I hurt the garage door... Like the house loss all peace / comfort. My dad would call me fat and tell me to stop eating, he would also abuse my puppy and still to this day I'm traumatized by what a horrible situation it all was... Sorry I'm unloading here but I feel so safe in these comments.. I hope everyone out there who is reading this to know it's going to get better everyday you're away from the narcissist.
Nothing is scarier than seeing this all in action. For me, its the narcissistic mother and the enabling father who just sits on the couch saying nothing or if saying anything, is 100% agreeing with my mother, even when he knows thats not the truth. That creates a ton of distrust with my father and I because he's way different when just around me. Put him in a room with my narcissistic mother and sibling, he's their yes man.
This is my mom. I actually find myself more consistently triggered around her than I am with my narc dad. At least my narc dad mostly ignores me. My enabler mom pretends to be a supportive, loving parent while gaslighting me and condoning the abuse of me.
My Dad was the peacemaker... and totally unable to stop mom from abusing me. She verbally abused him, too. He did try to get me out of the house as often as possible; getting gas or car wash, going to the store, etc. Needless to say, it wasn't enough.
Yes, this is my father to a t. Whenever I go home, which is rarely, it breaks my heart to see my father in such misery because now hes stuck there alone with her, my narcissist mother. Even when I empathize with him it doesnt matter. So I'm leaving them both alone now.
@@youreaquickone Reminds me of my parents enablers are almost as bad as the narc my enabler gets upset when I finally get upset because of the narc after the enabler spends days and days ranting about them to me I give up I learned a little while back that there is no helping either one and the enabler doesn't want to be helped they may in fact be narcissist on the quieter end of the spectrum I will move far away and only be taking phone calls.
It is difficult to protect someone who does not protect himself. I have the same situation. My mom wanted me to visit them. Someway, I had an instinct that well: she wants me to go there because she needs a scapegoat. She has broken her leg and is at home together with my father. I cannot imagine the sufferinf of my father. I could not understand why he standed my mom before, and now it is even worse. They get nastier when they get older, those narcissistic people! But, I did not go. My life is a mess without them at the moment, so it would be a total catastrophe if I give them even my little finger. I am sorry. I just cannot go. If things had been diffetent in the past I’d naturally go to see my mom. Now, I simply cannot if I want to survive my personal situation. In a way, it was THEIR choose. I have said how I feel - nothing helps. There is only gaslighting back to me. And now: here we are. I am that ”bad” girl they always thought I am, even I was pretty normal. I did not even smoke a cigarrette. My badness was that I wanted to date and be a graphic designer instead of an arvhitect that they wanted me to be - which I then applied under the pressure. But, that was my sin, that I wanted my own life. What a fight about all of these things! I wondered many years, why the hell is is so normal to others to get these things but I am a devil, idiot, bad and whatever when I want my life. Then, I got known the word ”narcissist” abd things started to reveal to me. And now: I do not go there to be scapegoated again. My father then is in the mercy of my mon- and there is not much mercy there. But: it has been all the time HIS choise. His, not mine. He married that devil, I did not swore anything when I was born: I was born to fullfil my life, to live MY life.
It’s my father as well. My mother is ruthless. My Dad has Parkinson’s and she still belittles, snaps, yells, and debases him on a regular basis. I made the mistake of going over there for Father’s Day, with my husband and adult children. I knew deep down inside she’d be jealous, and threatened by the attention he was receiving. I had some drinks(mistake) and told her how cruel she is. I just couldn’t take it anymore. She told me to get out of HER house, and I complied. I’m done with the both of them. It’s always been his choice to be with her, and quite frankly, he’s not much better. I’m glad I said something. At least I stuck up for him, when he never protected me.
I dont know If i can express It correctly,but i d like to say that he stands up for her because he wants it. We cant save people of their own choices. Keep going on and dont blame on you because your fathers suffering. Hugs
In defense of my enabler mother, I remember reading in Erikson about children who hated their mothers for not protecting them in an age when women were powerless. But my mother, in the 1970's, was still a woman of that pre-feminist era. She succumbed to the abuse and completely lost herSELF and behaved in prescribed neurotic ways. This is all so unconscious. And then how they forget!!!!!!!!!
I'm very lucky to have had lots of conversations with my maternal grandmother about my mother's childhood so I know she was abused badly by my grandfather who came home from the war with PTSD. I probably know more about my mother than she does.
Yes, it is true. I once asked my mother why she did not protect me when father beat me. She replied: "You do not remember, it was not just anger, it was madness, he could have killed us both". And if he had killed just the child - no big deal. I feel worthless.
The invisible child in my family became the narcissist's flying monkey and enabler. It was absolutely painful to see. I just couldn't understand why she'd fall for it, but she did. I can no longer partake of the exchanges. After that many years of insanity, I was stunned that she still fell for it. I'd love to hear more about family mobbing. That's been one of my life's hardest things to understand.
How can a child resist the repeated brainwashing? She was young; she had no support; and she does it to survive. Just like you did things to her, so you could survive. How long did you serve as the flying monkey and enabler, before you figured it out and broke free?
My mum really hurt me (again) last may and i told her. My dad came over to my house to give out to me for "hurting her". Ive been trying to make them understand that it's not ok to hurt people and then get angry with the person u hurt, but they just throw themselves higher and higher up on the cross. They are martyr bullies but it is my mum who isc The Martyr and my dad who barates me if i dont buy in to that narrative.
I’m so sorry. I hear you. Same for me. My dad drove over 200 miles and showed up out of the blue because I had gone no contact with my narcissist mother. He was crying and upset because he couldn’t fix his “broken family”. Meaning, he couldn’t get me to talk to my mom again because I broke the family. I hope it has gotten easier for you. It’s a lot to deal with. Sending you much love and peace. 💕
The thing is, they won't ever "get it". This stuff is so basic that a 6 year old can grasp it. An adult who can't understand it is not mentally healthy and does not have the capacity to understand it. That doesn't excuse their behavior in any way. The only thing you can do is protect yourself.
@@Margo-oj5yc they never do. A year ago, when I stood up to my mum or rather, when I started the process of not backing down, I thought to myself, eventually I will get through to them, eventually I will be heard and eventually they will acknowledge that they have been very hurtful. They are intelligent people I thought. They are mostly good people I thought. BUT HERE I AM A YEAR LATER, trying to explain to them that when you do hurtful things, people get hurt, and I am not perpetrating an act of aggression against them when I state that I am hurt. But a year on, all I have seen is more and more extreme martyrdom. As we say in Ireland, she has *thrown* herself up on the cross and she is loving it up there. And my Dad just cannot see it. He is cross with me.
@@Margo-oj5yc And another thing (!) sorry, here I go! my dad told me ''I'm worried about you''. Argh. Like none of my hurt has anything to do with him or my Mum. Like it's just some private craziness I'm subjecting on them. Nothing to do with them. He is worried from afar. But yet will not listen to me. When I got the letter saying ''I'm worried about you'', although it seems caring, I knew in that instance that he was distancing himself totally from me, that he was making the estrangement all about me and taking *no* responsibility at all.
Yeah, well he has a pretty crazy world view and yeah, it can feel like you have to explain your way out. But really you don't - he can think what he does and you can know that what you do is a self protection reaction to what they did originally. I think they lose sense of causality - they can't see they did X then you did Y, they just see you doing Y, because they have so little self awareness that they can't see X even while they do it (it's like how anyone can walk around looking for their glasses when their glasses are perched upon their head, but that's a benign example)
I just found your channel and it’s so helpful. I’ve just left my family and they put me through hell for years. My. Sisters partner sexually assaulted me for years and when I came out with it my family took his side and abused me by letting him come into the home and telling me things like he only slapped me on the arse it’s not assault when that is not only what happened. Most of the abuse happened infront of them and recently they were laughing about it and even called the police on me for alleged harassment because in their words “I don’t shut up about it” I was always told to grow up because of the abuse and I wouldn’t let it go so I left.
This is my dad. He’s also narcissistic but has allowed his wife to mistreat & abuse two of his children from previous marriages. My half sister, their daughter, has been abusive & cruel as well. She learned it all from her mother, “the Queen Bee Narc”. I warned my grandparents for years about this woman but they put the needs of my dad before their grandchild in order to accomplish my grandfather’s goals. My dad is a very weak man and it is sad what he’s allowed.
So you are saying that your dad should have controlled your Narcissistic mother? Narcissistic wife can’t be controlled unless the husband wants to get divorced and lose everything because a narcissistic wife will ruin the husband by any means. We live in a society that “believe all “women that allows narcissistic women to have so much power. Stop blaming your dad for your mother’s actions.
Yup. My dad is weak too. Had no trouble jumping on me for speaking the truth. His actions shows that he will never protect me or do whats right. Now my younger brother has taken on an abusive role similar to my dead mom. Its sad because he used to be such sweet boy. Now he abuses me and my dad and my dad takes it.
@@jokerm5035 the thing is the enabler and the narc already established their dynamic before kids however before kids it is just 2 adults and the only one that may get hurt is the adult enabler if the enabler wasnt bonded or codependent they probably wouldve left before they even got to the point of having kids, the problem is once you have kids you brought them into this abusive dynamic.
So, the enabler believes that the child/children are being protected by them by keeping the harmonious act up. Happy Narcissistist, Happy Family. In the meantime, neglecting the very essence of real protection. 😢
You are right this adds to our trauma it is so excruciatingly sad, my enabler used to be a real & beautiful woman, so brilliant & beautiful , an angel, but she was battered & abused so badly mentally , emotionally, sexually, physically, & either didn't know how to ask for help or no one could help her we were over seas. Then she became exactly like her abuser & morphed into a sadistic covert/overt narcissist one of the most painful things to think of in my life.
After 58 years of marriage, my enabler mother divorced my abusive narcissist father. She was on the verge of losing her mind from all of the gaslighting. She acknowledges that I saved her life by explaining what was happening, then helping her escape. Despite this, I realize she will always invalidate me and perpetuate the "scapegoat narrative". I have gone no contact with all other members of my abusive narcissistic family, but now the most painful thing is realizing that I need to go no contact with my toxic enabler mother.
YES! THANK YOU for this, I've been searching all over for recognition and understanding on what I saw/see happening. Nobody seems to understand this dynamic. I just don't understand my own role fully, why I kept fighting for myself and everyone. As I understand from hundreds of videos I've seen, children usually give in at some point, go silent. I was (am) a 'truth teller' (therefor scapegoat as well) and have always stayed that way, which result(ed)s in constant fights. When I was being mistreated, I would tell my parents they needed to be a parent and treat me better, and then they would rage (mother rage, father go silent), blame me for all their misery, calling my self-defense parent abuse. My mother thought she was a victim of her own parents and of me, and of a passive husband she accused of not standing up for her (that way he would join). My mother was the narcissist, my father the enabler. As a child and teenager, I saw my father as a victim of my mother who I needed to protect, I still kinda do, being almost 40. But I'm now trying really hard to let go of that obligation so I can let them go forever for my own survival, finally. In my twenties and thirties, I slowly started seeing that my father was actually also a perpetrator by allowing all of it and I needed to face the fact that he actually joined the abuse party. It's so difficult to let go of the illusion that at least one parent loved me. When my mother raged against him and I tried to protect him, he would join her rage towards me. The bully dynamic makes so much sense! I often said I was being bullied both at school and at home, but I saw it as different still, but it's kind of the same. The only difference is that my parents weren't my peers and I depended on them (they turned that around though, I was made responsible for all their emotions and their trauma). Strange I didn't think of this all these years. They used me as a lightning rod to rage against, so they would "connect" over having a common enemy. Cause they connected over nothing else. It makes sense that way that they were never motivated to solve the family issues, they need(ed) them for their house of cards. I'd like to write more details and examples so read-along-ers get a better understanding, but that might just be too personal for youtube. I would love to get more clarity about myself though, I guess, I just don't understand that I had and have the personality that I do. I'm kind of proud that I saw it was all wrong and that I felt their wrong motivations, but it hurt me a lot as well.
By the way, my father rarely drank alcohol. He told us he didn't want to because his father would drink on Sundays after church and be nasty. No details. I wonder if his father hit his mother, others, or more. And that that might be the reason he always teams up with my mother, to not be like his father at least. Not realizing he still became an abuser that way. Clearly, he never learned about boundaries and non-codependent behavior. I've often thought he has psychopathic traits, the way he trusts nobody, lies every word, checks out, seems without any empathy, etc. But after this video I realize, this might be part of that 'checking out'. I laughed at the house chores. The house they live in gets so many unnecessary paint jobs, it's ridiculous.
I was close to my mom. She never scapegoated me but she never stopped my dad from scapegoating me. When he died I think she made up for her guilt by favoring me slightly over my siblings. I think we had a natural affinity which brought us closer. Of course I was the good child compared to the others. When I went into therapy in my late 20s, I really had to come to terms with how abandoned I had felt all those years when my mother never said one word to protect me against my father. And then of course, by favoring me for whatever reasons, there was jealousy toward me from my siblings, who, once my mother died, were quick to cast me back into the scapegoat role.
Please remember that the scapegoat in the family is the one who resembles Christ the most. Clearly that was you! Congrats on your salvation! Go forward knowing you are God's child, your karmic debt on this earth has been paid, while your parents did nothing but accumulate karmic debt.
My mother was the abuser and my father was the enabler who looked the other way whenever I got beaten up by her.......as long as he was allowed to drink alcohol he was compliant
The mysterious workings of my enabling father will go to the grave with him. No matter what the exact internal dynamics were, lack of protection of his two daughters against tyrant mother and sadistic golden child…it left a bigger mark of helplessness in my heart. This enabling made me the emotional orphan. And how perceptive of you Dr. Reed. We allow greater mistreatment and strife because we were praised, literally praised, for enduring abuse.
in our family, there were only two daughters, so I was the scapegoat of everybody. the golden sister abused me as she pleased and there was never a comment from the parents. I had nobody to help me. for years I imagined I was indeed 'dropped at their door step by Gypsies' as they often jeered at me. my great wish was to run away and live at an orphanage, but I knew police would bring me back and the abuse would increase.
@@ladyloungealot5119 The scapegoat in the family is the one who resembles Christ the most. May you find comfort in those words. Christ was also sacrificed, backstabbed, betrayed, and spat upon.
In some ways it is harder to forgive my father than my narc mother. There is huge accountability on his part. Aiding and abetting my mother for his image and reputation is just as if she stabbed me, he turned the knife.
As an adult child of a Narc mother, an enabler father and being a mental health professional, I fully concur with Jay Reid's opinion in this video. Excellent information.
All sounds familiar, my adopted mother ruled the roost, I was bullied and denigrated almost every day, physical abuse for minor or imagined transgressions. Adopted father, was playing golf, having a long term affair, which was apparently my fault too. He overtly favoured my adopted sister, I had to take her out with me to meet my friends, she didn't have any friends. He had little time for me from an early age. It was a massively disfunctional family, but they were constantly trying to convince me and themselves how much better they were than other people. I didn't buy it and left home to join the army. Long time ago now, I am still a bit angry how they managed to get through screening to be adopting parents.
Minute 12:50 is HUGE!!!! Once more, Jay, there are so many great vids on this topic but yours are truly healing due to their specificity. This whole idea of lowering the threshold of what constitutes mistreatment after narc abuse is a huge step but a challenging one because you doubt if you have the right to do it. You've been groomed to gaslight yourself into accepting lower forms of narcissistic radiation as sunlight.
I played this for my dad…I felt like I made progress today. Thank you for bringing awareness to this subject as so many people deal with this toxic family dynamic.
This really was fascinating. I was the scapegoat child that grew into a scapegoat enabler. It's a family system of bullying which goes on for years and years and years. I left it 6 months ago and now I've been told I'm the one hurting him in a deliberate way, I'm causing the narc pain and am responsible for destroying the family. Thank God for these videos.
Typical response and reaction. I took my space to heal and was blamed for causing the rift in the family. Scapegoating me while ignoring that my mother is the drama queen entirely and my father is the enabling parent to her dysfunction. I don’t accept the blame and stay away from all those associated with my parents. They are too toxic to engage in any way with, unfortunately.
We just began counseling recently...I value these videos so much...I often don't have the words to even describe things, from feeling so numb and almost deserving of the behavior. I almost wish you could just speak during the whole session for me 😭 I hope in time I'll come back to believing I'm worthy of these things and support myself when it isn't being offered to me 💕
"I often don't have the words to even describe things, from feeling so numb and almost deserving of the behavior." Abuse is intended to damage you then they get sadistic satisfaction, the cycle will end it must end if it has not for you yet I hope it does soon never ever let it happen again, document your interactions with witnesses because we attract narcs because narcissistic abuse causes brain damage. But it can heal, you will heal. You are fine this is such a great community.
You are valued. You are valuable. You are loved. You have been lovable every single day of your life. Someone is praying for you right now. And even if you don't believe those tings about yourself, believe that others do. Read the Psalms, especially 37 and 73.
❤ Psalm 37 Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.❤ part of psalm 37 KJV ❤❤❤
This was 100% my childhood. Father abused us endlessly based on what he was getting from our mother (also abused her) while my mother just stood by and let him do it. Father is dead now and I have stopped all contact with my mother as has my brother. Listening to this was really something... it's as though I've waited 46 years to hear my childhood trauma so eloquently explained.
Thank you so much for making this video. My heart breaks as I listen because I was the scapegoated child. My mother is the narcisist. She would fly into terrifying rages. I several times went to my father asking him why my mother was acting the way she acted. He was unmoving in his loyalty to her, refused to admit there was a problem, and would not allow me to speak about what was going on. On his deathbed he confessed to me that his dad used to mercilessly beat his mother. It is so sad.
This blows my mind. Under the fence abuse! To raise themselves 😢 , sadly normalized and enabled. I guess you stop all of this by? I mean, narcissists and enablers are everywhere. I suspect the secret weapon is caring and loving yourself. This is big for me. 😊 thank you so much Jay 🙏
Mine as well - so sad - Everyone had to bow down to "my mother" out of fear of her rage as well as her "taking to her bed" for a week or so at a time - drugged up, sleeping, subjecting us all to BLASTING the most maudlin classical music - because someone dissed her or didn't meet her needs. My father would always say - Can't you just...Not set her off, can't you just behave, can't you just keep your mouth shut...
@@perfectcirq did your mum die? You use past tense. Apologies if this is really blunt but did you manage to pick up any sort of relationship with your Dad?
@@SusanaXpeace2u Hello - No actually my father passed at 56yrs old. - 20 years ago. My father was a nice guy that everyone loved, especially at his work which he immersed himself into - they had been divorced for a long time when he passed - and I was referring to my childhood of hell, back in the 1960's early 70's when my parents were still together. She does still "take to her bed" when she's been upset and expects an excessive amount of grovelling from the perpetrator to make things right. I visited her back in November and the visit was very revealing, uncomfortable, loveless and ended, as always - in an explosive event with her telling me to leave because she needed a break - from me. After she screamed at me she's so tired of me, so tired, can't take it anymore - I thought you know what ? - that's exactly how I feel - I am finished trying - count me out!
Ok im living it live ! I cut ties with my narc father .. and 2 brothers .. The only one left my mother i begged her today to stop gaslighting me and to stop protecting im .. always changing subject or finding reasons .. she tries to emotionaly manipulate me ... she even faked crying on the phone today ... i asked for the last time ... Please mom please .. ibeged her ´dont let me down .. stop doin it .. i wont tolerate this shiit no more .. I know what your doin .. and i understand whyyiur doin it ... its a battle i dont wanna fight anymore .. its crazy
Thank you Jay. In my case my mother was a non-functional alcoholic who lost custody of my sisters and I. My Dad has been divorced 5x so there was no one who stuck around long enough to protect me (the oldest). It has taken me 50 years to realize the way my father treated me and the way he taught my siblings to treat me was unacceptable. Thankfully with the help of good therapy, the Al-Anon program, faith in my God and the support of loving friends as well as the amazing videos you share I’m recovering from all of this and feel the weight of the past being lifted from my shoulders. Thank you for what you are doing!
This was very concise and helpful - accurate from my experience… thank you! Divorced my mom - took a while to see my dad’s role in it all…. CBT has helped tremendously - but so have the videos I’ve listened to on RUclips
Narc mom and an enabler dad who still sticks up for her abusive tactics tries to blame anything he can on me. All his antics are to not destroy his fragile world he’s created which he knows can come crashing down if he upsets the apple cart (her). This video helps to not feel so alone, thank you.
I'm so appreciative for your insightful videos. I've yet to find a therapist that gets my scapegoated past. I'm so grateful for this opportunity to learn more from you as I seek healing
Not only did my enabler father did nothing, he kept pushing me to my narc mother, so he could escape her abuse towards him. It was very confusing as my narc mother was so envious of me, especially because my father preferred my company than hers. They both used me to the hilt. So amazed and grateful I survived this ultra fuck-up environment. The even more amazing thing is they both claimed they were great parents!
Thank you so much, I haven’t heard this described so well before and it captures my situation perfectly-with my mother enabling my dad’s emotional (occasionally physical) abuse and bullying. Coming to terms with the fact that my mom stood by and didn’t ever help or even comfort me, I actually was the one comforting and counseling her, is almost harder than coming to terms with my dad’s overtly abusive behavior. I’m almost thirty now and just starting to understand my childhood and teenage years. Thank you so much, videos like these are really changing my life.
Now that my mother has passed, and I speak only occasionally to my father, I see what a horrible nightmare of a house I lived in. It was horrid. Mom was the enabling, neurotic, anxious, wreck of a parent who just kept on driving the ship into the ice berg and taking me with her. My father was the bully narc we had to walk on eggshells around. More than once I remember saying ‘I don’t want to go home’ as my mother and I pulled into the driveway. ‘Me neither’. She had the complete ability to change our lives by leaving, but she chose to stay and subject herself and her daughter to constant neglect and abuse. For the longest time I looked up to her, but now that I’m healing and have done lots of therapy and reiki I realize she was a monster just like him. A while before she passed I looked at her and said ‘you know you’re an enabler, right?’ She just looked at me like she already knew it and didn’t care. That’s when I realized both parents had their own psychological and emotional issues and they would die that way. They know what they’re doing. They are completely aware.
Jay, you just explained my entire childhood. My mother died when I was 3. My dad remarried 2 years later. My step-mother was a malignant narcissist while my dad became the enabler. Our lives were filled with screaming, hitting, cursing, name calling by the step mother. She was extremely mentally ill. My dad just ignored her rages. Even one of the neighbor women approached my dad several times saying “he needed to do something about it.” He never did. I am 74 and recognize I adopt the freeze response whenever I feel stressed. How do I fix that?
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
It took me a long time to realise how abusive the enabler parent really is. When you really think about it they sacrifice their own children for their safety. Once I realised that it put things in perspective. Although horrible and unpleasant it's better to see the reality of the situation as well as the reality of who people are.
Painful
Agreed and so so painful ❤
The enabler throws their own child under the bus.
100% enabler is no better than the narcissist. It took a while but I found out what you said was true. They for their safety use their child. Add expectations, gaslight, play victim, and take control of their children and become a demon self when the child tries to individuate. They are the middle person who makes sure the child won't grip from their clutch..and it's brutal when the scapegoat tries to leave. That is the time for me personally, I found out it was never about me. It was for the enabler monsters safety.
@@johedges5946before the bus hit them. And they thrive like that for a long time. And when the child gets up and heals and tries to leave, their truth will be revealed
Enablers can also be abusive. Sometimes they also bully the kids to be accepted from the narcissist. Also, if the enablers feels threatened by the child because the scapegoat stands up against the narcissist they may abuse the scapegoat.( They want to keep the status quo no matter what)
I used to say to one of those, "How does that PUPPET HAND feel up your ass?!"
My situation as well.
Exactly right! By agreeing with the asshole parent, they are teaching the kid's to not trust their instincts, which kills self esteem. My friend medicates her children to keep them quiet, instead of kicking her drunk ass husband to the nearest detox centre or the gutter, whichever he prefer
Exactly
after marrying a narc i realized you either leave or you become the enabler those are your only 2 choices so what you see is those moral pious old school moms and dads staying in the name of not getting divorced and then automatically becoming passive abusers
Up until about a year ago, I was fond of my Dad. I knew there were issues, but somehow gave him a pass. Whenever I got into conflict with my narc mother, he would come and find me, calm me down, and entice me back into the family. In my early thirties, and shortly before his death, my mother and I had an epic conflict, she had done a despicable thing to my sister, and I was done.
Virtually our last conversation was him telling me "she means well." I told him, "If she means well, she can apologize." He knew that would never happen, and about a year later he died of brain cancer. We had a few brief contacts at my initiation.
I always felt guilty about not being around for him... But now I realize, it was a lifetime of gaslighting me. As the father... it was his role to reach out to me. It was his role to protect me. He didn't. Thirty years later, I have found peace in this. Thank-you Jay.
My Mom just passed a few weeks ago and wow. Your first few sentences hit me like a Mac truck. 🫂 My Dad is still here but my sister the golden child has taken her place. Now he has to follow her lead to make sure and exclude me the scapegoat.
He was a coward and he knew it was hard on you. F him.
Good for you. I still can't forgive
@@pennyp7382 All the best to you... If my experience is of any use to you--don't expect things to get better with them. Work on clarity, and it will get better for you.
I am now no contact with all of my family. Not some grand gesture... just zero tolerance with BS, and they will do all the rest.
@@gingerrivas5354 You may be asking too much of yourself to 'forgive.' Perhaps just start with just accepting that they did what they did.
Buddhist image? You don't get angry at the rock when you stub your toe.(Especially when the rock delights in your anger.) When you are angry, your anger keeps them tied to you. They continue to have a grip on your life.
For me this is ongoing. All the best.
It's the most infuriating thing in the whole world when you have to listen to everyone praise the narcissist when you know what really goes on behind closed doors and what they're really like.
They act so fake that its almost unbelievable to others that they can actually be this disgusting, abusive bully.
Amen to what you said. My father was a man of God (Ha) with a Doctorate and built a huge following with lots of big money behind. "You are so lucky to have him as a father." I heard that crap all the time so boy do I understand what your saying.
My parents, espec my dad did all their abusing “ in the name of God.” Told me and anybody anywherr who would listen that I was evil and had “the Devil” in me. He told me constsntly as a very small child I was going to burn in hell with all the other sinners. I was so scared I couldn’t sleep. He liked that. When they saw how frightened I was they would turn it all up. It made them feel powerful whereas in the real world they were the most feeble, ignorant, weak minded people imaginable. When it turned out their daughter was smarter than 10 of them together that became a serious problem for them. My dad said I had useless “book learning,” but no real wisdom or intelligence.
@@rs5570 Our comments sound like we are the same person. I was told around age 9, "The sins of the father would be visited upon the sons." He was telling me that even if I did nothing wrong, I would pay for his sins and that was just the way things would go." Its one thing to take an adult who had a chance and grew up with a good or even a alright family. (At least they were just bad parents who didn't try enough.) Our parents took an innocent child and purposely threw him to the wolves, without a care in the world. I wish I was blind again and was not shown behind the mask at this age. (55) Your not alone, its not your fault, does not change the facts and sleep never comes easy. (There is nothing so bad in my mind, that cannot be made worse in the dark of nightfall.) Thanks for letting me vent a bit.
@@darylkik777 I did, too. The narc father was ( and still is) the hero to his large extended family. He is adored by my cousins because he was supportive and concerned with them. With me he was evil, rejecting and demeaning. Didn’t even help with college and he was an educator. So disturbing.
@@freeandfabulous4310 Sickening how they have two faces for the world. I remember dad always saying for many years, " I won the world for God, and lost my family in the process." In all the years he was saying this, why didn't he work to win the family back? Because it was just said as an excuse and to make him look even better. This was also the man counseling so many young couples and others in the church when they needed advice. Death was not the end of this story as another in my family took over and has continued the hate and my life as the scapegoat. Glad to hear I am not alone but saddened anyone else has seen "hell" up so close.
I think the saddest realization is the Enabler parent will always put the Narcissist parent on a pedestal and they will always be no’ 1 in the enabler’s eyes - they will put the narcissist parent’s feelings, needs, wants & demands before their own and their children’s needs. They have a huge desperation for the relationship to work with the narcissist. When the scapegoat child can clearly see it never will.
So true. My narcissistic father passed away 4 months ago, leaving behind an epic financial mess that is falling on my enabler mother’s shoulders now.
My father died suddenly and unexpectedly, and left behind a failing corporation with no succession plan and which has a pending multi-million dollar lawsuit about to go to trial.
Like the good golden child, I helped my dad with the business here and there over the years. I suspected he might be doing some questionable things, and feared this day, but had no black and white proof or knowledge of what he was actually doing. He kept his cards VERY close to his vest and his records were locked up and not accessible even to my mother. Being a good enabler, my mom knew NOTHING whatsoever about the business and believed my dad’s lies that everything was in great shape. She had no access to any financial information and never pressed it, as she loves to bury her head in the sand and play the poor, unknowing victim.
Since I’m the only one who knew anything about the company, I’ve spent hundreds of hours over the past 4 months trying to figure out its position and what to do with it, working for free. Her approach was “just leave it and let the workers find new jobs what did they ever do for me!!!” I didn’t even know about the lawsuit until after my dad passed, and figured it’d be worth at least attempting to deal with this as cleanly as is possible to avoid further fallout. After she defended my father yet again and tried to gaslight me, I finally told her I’m removing myself from anything further to do with the business. Anyway, I’ve managed to keep it afloat the past 4 months so it’s generating some revenue. I figured out what we needed to know and gave her advice on how to proceed. Just couldn’t take another second of the gaslighting and poor, sad widow bullshit as she continues to defend my father.
They lived in grand style for years off of money that was made in some ethically questionable ways. She will now need to deal with the fallout that my sister and I tried to warn her about for years while she was busy throwing us under the bus and traveling the world in first class, staying at luxury hotels. When his business was failing, my father even tried to get me to open a new company (an LLC with ME as the sole managing member) for him to conduct new business under. After he passed, I found out exactly what the nefarious plans were for this LLC, which could’ve potentially caused me to lose everything... At this point, in my eyes, my mom is worse than my dad. She had a golden chance to get out when he was on top of his game before the shit hit the fan, but due to her own greed and misguided loyalty, she stayed, and now will get to ride the ship down. She continues to deny everything, despite all the black and white proof of what my dad has done (I have my dads’s business papers and computer), and insists that my father would never hurt my sister and I. Done with the gaslighting and instead of helping her will be spending my time in therapy trying to glue my broken psyche back together from living nearly 52 years with this torture…
This exactly. It hits the enabler hard when the narcisstic partner then discards them. They don't see it coming, but the children do.
Trauma bond & Stockholm Syndrome. I said no. I only accept proper trust & respect otherwise I’ll fight. 😂
My dad put my mom 🤣 n a psych ward - and then planned his big escape.
My mom still went back after I called the police that I was homeless at 13 years old- to call out the plan where I was going to be abandoned. Shortly after this at 15 years I was sold to sicko executive. Cannda 1976.
We still living in the dark ages.
Usually people like me get murdered before they can afford a phone to text.
Even after divorce
Even after the narc smears their name
My mom was the narc and dad was the enabler and he sacrificed me to abuse by blaming me for anything to avoid my mothers wrath. Until recently I thought he was a victim until I visited in adulthood and he continued this pattern. They’re both toxic and abusive in their own way
O rosa I feel your Pain.
Correct this is common. The enablers not only will not stand up for the abused child they will add charges to the main abusers reasons to abuse list. Anything that keeps them safe, and not a target they will put extra targets on their kids.
Yes that's right because the enablers are cowards.
I so agree.. I always though my dad was a victim too but have realized he’s a very weak man who didn’t protect his child. He does whatever my mom tells him to do. So pathetic..
It’s horrible
The enabler parent isn't always a victim or innocent. They're accessory to the crime(s).
Not always black & white. Depends on family.
Def at fault for not getting their partner mental help before it affects the kids.
Some of the enablers are covert narcissists.
My father is definitely a covert narcissist. He always play the, "poor me, look how my wife mistreats me." Yet he knew what she was prior to marrying her. He always talked down to us kids, and provided money to other people so they could take care of their children. Meanwhile my brothers and I never received new clothes and supplies for the first day of school. Both him and her are evil.
@@annaandrea8320Yes, my mother.
My mom was narcissist and dad was enabler. Had an abusive childhood. Knowledge is a form of healing. Educated myself about narcissist and dysfunctional family. No contact with them. Healing more
mine too
same
most people probably wouldnt guess this is even a thing. my dad would always join in the insanity by flying into a cuck rage every time i stood up to my mother or called her out.
fuck narcs but fuck cucks just as much!
Ditto
Trying to go no contact too...any advice on how to fight the hoovering??
My narc mom would order my enabler dad to beat me with a belt. If he hesitated she would fly into a narcisstic rage saying that he didnt parent equally and needed to back her up and enforce discipline. She also would often threaten to take us and leave him (in front of us kids) which would result in dad and all us kids crying and begging her not to split our family up. I will never forget the smug satisfied smile on her face when it got to that finale. I used to feel sorry for my father but now I realize he could have protected us and chose not to. We were children. Now they both are old and ill and people keep trying to involve me in their care. I have been no contact for 2 years and 2 months. Cycle breaker.
Tammy I truly understand why you would not want to get involved in the caretaking of your parents!!
I will tell you I have learned a lot from working with the elderly and their family members.
I remember on several occasions having family members moving their parents in to our assisted living and memory care unit and then not showing up for the longest time I remember hearing the staff members talk so harshly about the adult children who just didn’t seem to have the love for their parents that one would normally have, so I decided to let them in on some very important information that I learned right from their adult kids mouths and what I found out was at times just horrific.
The abuse that these adult kids lived through was emotional and physical abuse that no one else would even remotely think about when you have their aging parents looking so fragile standing in front of you and acting so sweet and helpless and it’s because now some of them are because of the amazing meds their on and because memory has been lost.
Unfortunately for the adult children their memories are quite fresh and the pain is unforgettable.
To all caretakers, friends and golden children out there please don’t judge
the adult children because the elderly person you see and find funny and cute now and they probably are all of that, and however for the adult children they experienced something totally different so please be kind and appreciate and show compassion to them as well.
@@tracieriley301 that level of understanding must have meant so much for the adult children you interacted with. It's something most ppl just don't get. My mom passed just before Xmas and I didn't go to her funeral or see her on her deathbed. So many people told me I might regret it if I didn't, even close friends who know mu story. What they didn't understand is I've been grieving that relationship my entire life and have already turned the corner on acceptance. My dad now lives with my sister and her family and I am still no contact but I wish him well and I feel happy for him that he can relax and enjoy his final years. I am no longer angry with him (that emotion protected me when I wasn't strong) but I also don't feel like I want a relationship. 3 years no contact.
congrats on no contact. 100% the right path
I bet I can guess at some of the lines you have listened to from other relatives "you've become so hard hearted" is a favourite and "be the bigger person, go and see them" is another. They had the same free will you have and chose their path. There were times the Narcissist seemed to have times of clarity and could have been "the bigger person" and the enabler saw past their reality bubble but both chose to shove their heads back up their own a***s. Hope it's warm enough up there for them. Hard hearted, you bet!
@@jelkel25 Hard-hearted towards those pricks.
Soft-hearted to people who deserve it.
"Do whatever it takes to make the narc happy". The narc will never be happy. That is a given constant.
Its so true, they create conflict constantly even staying silent and unseen does not stop them from targeting you, I hope you're ok
My father was an abusive, malignant narcissist who had the world fooled for many years that he was a wonderful, magnanimous, brilliant, kind man. My mother looked on proudly and enabled him for almost all of her life....when we were children and he would abuse us and be crying in our rooms or literally huddled together in fear, she never once comforted us. Not once. In fact, she took on a "NOW look what you made him do" mentality. At the end of their lives, she became his "victim". He was not physically abusive to her, but verbally and emotionally. (silent treatments for days at a time for no reason, etc). I know she was miserable and she finally understood.
Same here.
I have a memory of running to my dad, and asking him, “Please, just tell me-is she trying to hurt me? Is this a game? Please just tell me”. My dad put up his hands and said, “I can’t help you”.
I wasn’t even asking him to protect me, I was just so confused, I could feel she was playing a game with me, and she was going to hurt me whether I answered her question correctly or not-the most unbearable part was that I couldn’t figure out if I was crazy or she was out to hurt me.
Omg your comment made me so sad. That’s a terrible thing to endure and I say that because I have been there. I struggle with the emotional toll and trauma it left me with at 40 years old and finally having to end my relationship with both of them Bc they tried to steal 40 k from me and the verbally abused me Bc I “‘accused” them of doing it when I had proof. So now they don’t talk to any of their 4 kids. I stuck around too long than my brothers and I couid have saved myself so much heart ache if I distanced sooner. Sending a hug to you
What a coward. Enablers do just as much damage as the abuser and should be held just as accountable.
He could have. He chose not to. Shame on him and as old as this is, here's a hug from an Internet stranger if you want one. I'm so sorry that happened to you.
I begged my mother literally on my KNEES when single-digit small to PLEASE just get us away from him. She said, "But then I'd have to get a job," and walked away.
The enabler is JUST AS GUILTY imo.
@@NoMoreHeroesAnymore1334 that was a beautiful comment and it hurt my heart to read that. My mom used to say the same “ I don’t want to lose my house”. Now she lost all her kids. So was that unhappy crappy house worth it? Now I’m sending YOU a hug
Walk away kid. AND YOU WIN THE WAR IMMEDIATELY
Exactly right. When I was in my 30's, I asked my father why he allowed the abuse (which was still in full force) he shrugged and said " I have to live with her"... what a pitiful excuse for letting someone abuse your child.
My weak mother used to stand at the sink and clean while the narcissist father raged and bane called me to humiliation. She was just as cold and unloving and rejecting as he was. They both are the same as elderly people, now.
Yes.
Holy shit, man. I cannot express just how intensely you're blowing my mind right now. This is like, three decades of pain and confusion suddenly being explained.
I hope it helps!
Yeah, it hits hard. And you cannot un-see it.
I felt the same way ❤
My father enabled my mother’s rages by closing the windows so the neighbors would not hear my screams. If it was cold weather and the windows were already closed, he would just watch her beat me. My father was orphaned when he was only two years old, and also suffered mild shell shock from WWII, so apparently he needed my mother’s authority. Mercifully my baby sitters were older women who treated me with such kindness, but I imagined their respect of me was because they did not know that I was truly bad. When my mother was eighty years old, she was diagnosed as mentally ill. I had been mothered by an unmedicated, unsupervised holy terror, who was supported by a man almost completely shut down. Your videos are invaluable. Please keep them coming.
Enablers are selfish and toxic in their own way
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Good men don’t do nothing.
My dad was the narcissist, my mom the enabler--my mom never tried to stop the abuse and, if we're being honest, not only was relieved to see him turn his attention on us kids (better you than me) but developed a kind of sadistic pleasure in seeing us being emotionally and physically abused, because when my dad did that, it would satisfy his need for control for awhile. My mom used us as human shields.
That’s disgusting. And I’m sorry you had to deal with that. I can say that Bc I was that child as well. Dealing with some severe issues and ptsd at 40 years old. I hate them. Sending you a hug
The only reason I am giving you a thumbs down is because of all the crap you and I went through, and mom just watched and agreed. "You will need to talk to your father, was the answer for anything". So thumbs down to them.
Im going through a very similar thing right now, but my father is the enabler. While i havent been physically abused since i was much younger (i just turned 18), i feel your pain. My father never stops her, he sometimes helps her at that. He never shows any guilt towards the pain ive been forced to go through. (im their only disabled kid. so im the one whos always hurt.). They always seem so glad, sometimes my parents will laugh at me while they tear me apart. Its terrifyingly painful. I do hope you are doing better now, i send lots of hugs!
I’m sorry you went through it - I did as well and it has never stopped through my adult life.
@@cindymoya4759 I thought I got lucky after he passed away. He had two giant funerals and I had hear how lucky I was to have him as a father. My older sister took over to this day its not fun. I am thankful that I never treated my kids that way and they know and knew they are loved. I love to write so being alone right now I have about 1500 pages on everything from day one. As I write it helps to let it go a bit. Plus you get a few "Aha" moments and connect more dots. I hope your ok and the one thing I wish I had known was that I was not the only one in world scapegoated, physically abused, mentally abused. But my least favorite saying is still, "Daryl this is not about you."
Still wish I had never seen behind the mask a few years ago. Daryl
An enabler parent can also be an enabler to a narcissistic golden child in a single parent household and gang up on the scapegoat child. That was my life experience as the scapegoat child. My enabler parent rewarded bad behavior from my sibling but did not treat me the same way.
This is my dad. And I've lost all respect for him. He is very emotionally and verbally abusive as well. He hides behind my mother's skirt like a little boy. I am completely disgusted by him. He is my mum's mouthpiece. Growing up I loved and looked up to him because he didn't overtly abuse me. But now that I'm older I see him for who he is. A coward that can never stand up to my mum. Controlled by her. Let her abuse as as kids and adults and has never stood up to her not once.
My family is so screwed up it's like both parents were double agents. Mother is the covert malicious narc and dad was the grandiose narc, but he also liked young girls and mother knew this and thought it was funny that we 'had to put up with it', and he enabled her rages and lies. What a mess. I think that's why I never got into drugs or alcohol, because trying to stay alert and on guard was the number one thing. Father is dead now and mother is completely out of control. Horrid beastly people.
Yes stay healthy, we made it, I'm with you..
Yes +1 & victims are hyper-vigilant aren't we you are right.
I feel that Heather. Can't wait for my old man to kick the f
I had same family system. My dad was grandiose but more sociopathic and mother is borderline covert narc. Both were violent, lying, cheating, sadistic, cruel and abusive. Dad was rarely home, too boring for him, he craved stimulation, was gambling addict. Mother filled with anxiety filled homebody who hated to leave the house. She would fly into crazy rages out of nowhere. She whipped us with wires and belts, dragged me around my hair, kicked me in face, punched me and starved me all the time as a small child. No mercy whatsoever. She would sic her evil husband onto us to beat us while she watched. He broke bones in my face and splattered my blood all over her curtains and she screamed "you bitch look what you did to my curtains!" Her evil husband who cheated on her all the time finally died and now she tries to guilt me into doing for her only I moved to another state 20 years ago and haven't seen her in years. I'm not caring for her in old age, she can rot in her chair. I'll never forget or forgive her. She's still evil, they never ever change.
Liking young girls is another thing but harassing own family member is another
My father was the classic enabler. He used me as a buffer for my mother’s rages & didn’t protect me.
Omg this is SO what happened to me. My dad was the toxic narc but my mother was completely childlike and empty. They both had traumatic childhoods and were stuck inside at a very childlike level. She actually tried fighting back once with my dad, when I was 4, but he stormed out of the house, and she gave up. I took over defending her (I was the only girl and the youngest) so I was the scapegoat. I left home at 18 and never looked back. To the outside world, my mom was the nicest, coolest mom and she was my best friend, but it took me 40 years to figure out why I was so frustrated with her. She never defended us and if it came down to her looking bad to the outside world or throwing us under the bus, she would throw us under. I have 2 older brothers and as she got older, she would defer to them after my dad died, so I was 4th in line, and had to be the mom to her most of my life, which my bro’s never saw. I realized she just wanted to be “friends” with me, but I needed “a mom”. I had this convo with her multiple times (with real life examples!) even getting angry once, but I don’t think she ever really understood how a mother would really feel. It wasn’t till I had my own family and had gone thru about 30 years of therapy that I understood the dynamic. I actually felt more angry at her than my dad once I figured this out. And since my dad molested me all my life ( like a little boy with goofy touching - no boundaries - prob trying to control me), I’m just relieved they’re both gone.
I think the most sad thing about the dynamic of the narcissistic family system is that there is no one who could side with you /from a viewpoint of a scapegoat/ ever and stand up for you from young age in different situations when needed. You have to learn to stand up for yourself from very early age and be strong and be independent and be seeing as your voice really doesn´t matter or is just ridiculed /doesn´t matter if you are 20, 30 or 40 years old/. There is no emotional support. It seems that is getting worse and worse how you are getting older /from a viewpoint of a scapegoat/. The tactics are more and more brutal.
I wrote that comment before I just started to watch the video and you just nailed it. Very sad and truthful.
It made me so sad reading or hearing about abused children who had a sister or brother or aunt or uncle who, at the very least, came to them in a quiet moment and made them realize that it was not okay how they were being treated. I never had that . They all just piled on, which of course makes a child believe, "I guess I really am as bad as they are saying I am."
When I told my mother she was mistreating me at 8, she beat me to blood. My first girlfriends asked me why I had that huge scar on my right thigh...because I was beat like a slave.
One of my first childhood memories is my father raging at me every night. It always would start the same, after dinner around the TV, he would become extremely dominant and abusive, he would bait me by saying harsher and meaner and meaner things untill I would bite and he had a free pass to abuse me even more. I would look at my mother for help and guidance, but all I saw was her looking straight forward in fear or just simply looking away. This image is embedded in my mind, the total submission to your child being abused night after night and just looking away to protect yourself. I remember the moment as if it was yesterday when it was happening again and I told myself in that moment: I am not vgoing to win this or can do anything about it, and that’s where the cognitive dissonance kicked it. Surviving one minute at a time.
This is why I tell people, "DON'T STAY 'for the children'!" You are doing them no favors, and are actually exacerbating the abuse! Teach your children well - that they don't have to put up with abuse and that if they do abuse, they lose.
Of course, courts still favor mothers having custody over fathers...but at least there may have been one parent who felt safe. Maybe.
I feel with you so much! You should not have had to go through such pain 😢. If I had been your sister I would have comforted you.
I dissociated all the time as well and became depressed. I remember going through the full pain later when I had to additionally go through life threatening withdrawals from an antidepressant that made me unable to work for a year. I spent hours crying and finally got through the emotional pain when I had cried enough about the fact that I truly didn’t matter to them. How did it go on for you later?
A well fleshed out explanation of some of what goes on in abusive families . Unfortunately these videos are probably only viewed by we who have lived it . Most people I try to talk to about this subject claim they never saw anything untoward going on . A kid growing up in these abusive circumstances whether with one or two abusive parents has no soft place to fall and soon learns the world is a dangerous and violent place . Hence the hypervigilence most of us feel . Thanks for providing this platform as a sounding ground for wounded souls .
Hey Barbara, yes, nobody seems to understand unless they've lived it. Dr. Jay here is blowing my mind with his understanding of it, very helpful. Best of luck to ya, stay strong.
"A kid growing up in these abusive circumstances whether with one or two abusive parents has no soft place to fall and soon learns the world is a dangerous and violent place. Hence the hypervigilence most of us feel." wow-- extremely well put.
@Sara Fox Yes, it doesn't feel like he's a know it all type, seems very sincere and unbelievably knowledgeable about our plight. Stop by my place here you get time, I even just put up a crazy cat video!
Well said.
A narc mom and an enabler dad can make so much damages...
still ongoing for me. fuck them.
Please know that while you have been paying your karmic debt on this earth, they have been accumulating theirs!
Knowing that you'd almost pity them for what's awaiting.
The part about feeling undeserving of protection really hit home for me - my older sister was my abuser growing up, and my mum just buried her head in the sand and acted like it was normal for me to have my sense of self eroded, or to have the daylights beaten out of me whenever my sister was in a strop about something. I still have those feelings of worthlessness, and find it extremely difficult to ask anyone for help or support, because I had it drummed into me from an early age that I was on my own in this world....
My Mom was like this with my younger brother the golden child could harass bully insult berate, cuss at me, throw things at me all the way until he was 17 and I was GONE! She actually would smile and enjoy it. I often wondered if my parents and brother were possessed by demons. Now I know for several facts, the three of them are all psychologically screwy, in some sinister ways, upstairs.
My dad is narc & mom enable, typical Asian family dynamics with my mom still clips my brother’s nails at age 34 & I got blame for everything as the daughter. Now my brother is in jail. I disown my dying parents at their most vulnerable & live my happy life in Australia with a super supportive husband. Everything can change for the better & starts with you.
You give me hope!
This is insane! You described my upbringing to a tee Jay. Dad was the abusive narc, mom the enabler. From your video, I now understand why she didn't help me in my struggle, she tried in the beginning I think. But it was probably the fear of abandonment. She was an only child, spoiled rotten, but her dad died when I was 3, crushing both my mom and her mom. He had been a war hero and community leader, loved by all. She was a sweet beautiful woman when I was young. But my father ruined her, and she eventually became his partner in crime. 10 yrs no contact now with them. I just started the Wim Hof breathing technique recently. Crazy! Thank you Jay!
Are you describing my life? How strange. My grandfather died when I was 2 otherwise it is the exact same story
Wow that’s my life too! My mom’s father - which she described as being the greatest father ever - died when I was a toddler. She started drinking then and never stopped. She was an enabler and my dad a horrible raging narcissist. My brother and I had an awful upbringing .
@@robertaoliveto5559 So sorry to see this Roberta. I'm wondering if they made one of you the Black Sheep or just treated you both terribly all the time? Since leaving this initial comment, I've learned some things that make my grandfathers death awfully curious. We had just arrived for a weekend visit, and he suddenly got real sick. They said he died in the front yard playing with me, from a heart attack. Turns out that wasn't quite the truth, but I'll never know exactly what happened now. His death made my father the head of the family, the sole bread winner, and able to behave any way he chose. I'll go to my grave wondering about this, but I've a gut feeling about how it went down. Take care my friend and I hope you are having a great new year!
out of all the bad memories we have is there anything worse than remembering that look on her face when dad went to town on us, or in my case how she wouldnt be physically around until my dad calmed down and all of a sudden poof there she is asking who wants dinner? i get chills thinking about it
My mother told me a few months back that she had a friend that told her thet she should take all of us and leave my narc father
I once had the nerve to ask my dad to defend me from my mom's anger. He replied, "I typically don't intervene in family matters."
Coward
Enraging isn't it? His OWN family. These Enablers have a mealymouth playback they trot out. Sanctimonious sobs.
Wow!
He’s a coward
My narc and enabler parents were the other way round to you. My dad would beat me and mother would say ” rather you than me”...... I hate them both.
Love the notion of protecting self, tuning in to self and being that inner beautiful loving parent for self.
Both my parents were TOXIC and abusive, just straight up EVIL. Older sister was also a sociopath and most violent of them all. They all cover for each other and feed off the pain of others. Like a pack of wolves that just took down prey. Grandparents were covert narcs and part of the wolf pack. Best prey for these kinds is helpless vulnerable small child cause they're so weak and pathetic. My sociopathic father sure wasn't going to pick a fight with a man in a bar, hell no, that coward picked on small children. Well he died and is in hell now along with his parents.
Little sister in my family. Sadistic is an understatement, I think she's pure evil but hides it all under an innocent facade.
You have described my childhood also Jay. My enabler mother never once said anything about my father’s treatment of me. Now my sister has turned into a worse narcissist than my father was. My mom wouldn’t discuss the issue with me either. Later, as an adult, I confronted her about allowing it. She ran away from me and locked herself in the bathroom in order to avoid the conversation. We never had that conversation.
Can’t relate more. I feel your mother was your sisters enabler too, and instead of listening to you and validating you’re feelings she didn’t want to take sides, but in a way she already had. I’m sorry, I can relate and it sucks. Wish you healing my friend
I know how that goes Jan. I did the same a few times with my mom. tried to talk about what was really going on. Same reaction, freaked out and ran away, then told my narc dad about it, only making matters worse. It's a crazy scene, I eventually had to go no contact, they were just too toxic, with no change in sight. Stay strong, we got this.
I am your twin, they are sick, they need help & are almost impossible to help, they are sadistic dopamine addicts, you are not the only person they abuse they are abusing everyone, you know that, they keep breaking the law expecting different results. It is a horrifying disease.
+1
@@quantumfineartsandfossils2152 The "disease" is called e v i l
Thank you for these videos! I was labelled "highly-gifted," as a child, skipped ahead and put into a program for highly-gifted children. I also excelled in music and dance. Little did I know that all of this was the kiss of death with my Narcissistic mother and older sister. My dad is the classic enabler parent and, after divorcing my mother, married another Narcissist. You have described him perfectly, here! My childhood was hell with a jealous mother who triangulated me and my siblings to make sure we were at odds. I was the scapegoat and still am, although I am no longer in contact with most of them, thank goodness. I only wish I had understood this stuff when I was a teenager, desperate for help and thinking my only way out was suicide. Posting these videos has the potential to save someone who might be feeling what I was as a teen. Good work!
Very glad you survived those desperate teenage thoughts they brought you to. That is so very difficult after nearly 2 decades of progressive abuse, mental, emotional, or physical. I know this is hard, but I hope that you can still enjoy your talents and not bury them because they put a target on you. They rob all joys they can and if they can't take them they'll poison them.
The only thing I could do was to stiff everything in an unutterably miserable life. I developed a secret internal life. Nobody in the family had an inkling about how I really thought and felt. I presented an impassive, essentially expressionless facial expression as I moved about in their world, a figment.of their imaginations. My children, in visiting my childhood home, remarked to me, "They seem to be talking about someone else, someone we don't know" That was correct because whenever I spoke up in my.own self, I was shouted down by everyone in the family, and even labelled as "psychotic, totally out of touch with reality." Later, in my 70's, I started to try to tell my brother that I had a completely different, separate world. He said
, "Why do you always try.to bring that up? That's psychotic!" From that point everything would get worse and worse because my protests would confirm my psychosis. To his credit he wrote back and said, "That's not valid," the first time he ever stood up for me that I recall. Once, also many years after reaching adulthood, my father called up and told me, "I didn't agree with everything that was done to you." My brother said, "You received 95 % negative reinforcement and 5% positive reinforcement."
So there was a conscious awareness on the part of the enablers of the dynamics. Truly I feel like I could barely.regard myself as having a family at all.
Naturally with such a dynamic I was effectively ejected from the family forever. Now both parents are dead and my brother wanted to carry on their abysmal traditions with me." Lol. I studied the humanities and social sciences to build my own reality and actually developed a great deal of scope (all unrecognized). I am pretty much.okay nowadays but there is a permanent empty place.in my heart.
I relate to this write up so much. I received several emails from the brother of a woman who was friends with one of my abusers & they were stunned to find out that I was nothing like how I was described & as you know they attract & invite other abusers but many other victims are like him where they dont know that you are being intentionally silenced & neglected while they create a whole world for you behind your back that has no ability to line up with reality. It is so great that you went ahead & studied & worked & built scope & I strongly relate to you & am super proud of you & feel validated by your experiences.
@Sara Fox
Those retreats in my mind to dissociate probably saved my life too. I am no longer creative but they hated it.
No wonder I have been considered a compulsive reader. Literature helped me to endure the abuse and find worlds better than mine.
yes we use limerence as well which is like chronic obsessive love even for someone who isnt with you because then we can live in a fantasy world with them in our head where they never hurt us
The enablers compliance in itself is abusive although they do not see it because they are in the fog of the narcissist. The enabler can change; the narcissist can not.
My father never stood up for me or protected me.
My mom just sleeps in bed watching reality tv and sometimes visits grandma and does gardening.
Thank you Jay. This is such an important topic. In my recovery I was hyper focused on the abuse by my narcissistic father for years. I found a good trauma therapist who encouraged me to focus on my enabler mother’s role. While my mother was a wonderful person in many ways, she did not protect me from the abuse and was therefore complicit. Confronting this in a therapeutic setting helped me heal a wound I didn’t know existed and moved my recovery forward.
"I found a good trauma therapist who encouraged me to focus on my enabler mother’s role. While my mother was a wonderful person in many ways, she did not protect me from the abuse and was therefore complicit. " yes
@Sara Fox it is very painful. ❤️
I agree , this is a VERY painful position to put a child in between. My mom was a super enabler and my dad got away with hitting us all emotionally+ physically. He never helped with anything and would always make my mom do everything. He treated us all like crap and I remeber getting very anxious the minute I hurt the garage door... Like the house loss all peace / comfort. My dad would call me fat and tell me to stop eating, he would also abuse my puppy and still to this day I'm traumatized by what a horrible situation it all was... Sorry I'm unloading here but I feel so safe in these comments.. I hope everyone out there who is reading this to know it's going to get better everyday you're away from the narcissist.
@@starrysoup I’m very sorry you went through that and I’m glad we both got away. I hope you’re doing well in your healing journey. ❤️❤️❤️
@@belovedchild9812 thank you kind stranger💓 wishing you all of the best on your journey as well :)
Nothing is scarier than seeing this all in action. For me, its the narcissistic mother and the enabling father who just sits on the couch saying nothing or if saying anything, is 100% agreeing with my mother, even when he knows thats not the truth. That creates a ton of distrust with my father and I because he's way different when just around me. Put him in a room with my narcissistic mother and sibling, he's their yes man.
This is my mom. I actually find myself more consistently triggered around her than I am with my narc dad. At least my narc dad mostly ignores me. My enabler mom pretends to be a supportive, loving parent while gaslighting me and condoning the abuse of me.
My Dad was the peacemaker... and totally unable to stop mom from abusing me. She verbally abused him, too. He did try to get me out of the house as often as possible; getting gas or car wash, going to the store, etc. Needless to say, it wasn't enough.
This is the first time I’ve ever heard of the covert enabler. Now it is all making sense.
Yes, this is my father to a t. Whenever I go home, which is rarely, it breaks my heart to see my father in such misery because now hes stuck there alone with her, my narcissist mother. Even when I empathize with him it doesnt matter. So I'm leaving them both alone now.
@@youreaquickone Reminds me of my parents enablers are almost as bad as the narc my enabler gets upset when I finally get upset because of the narc after the enabler spends days and days ranting about them to me I give up I learned a little while back that there is no helping either one and the enabler doesn't want to be helped they may in fact be narcissist on the quieter end of the spectrum I will move far away and only be taking phone calls.
It is difficult to protect someone who does not protect himself. I have the same situation. My mom wanted me to visit them. Someway, I had an instinct that well: she wants me to go there because she needs a scapegoat. She has broken her leg and is at home together with my father. I cannot imagine the sufferinf of my father. I could not understand why he standed my mom before, and now it is even worse. They get nastier when they get older, those narcissistic people!
But, I did not go. My life is a mess without them at the moment, so it would be a total catastrophe if I give them even my little finger. I am sorry. I just cannot go. If things had been diffetent in the past I’d naturally go to see my mom. Now, I simply cannot if I want to survive my personal situation.
In a way, it was THEIR choose. I have said how I feel - nothing helps. There is only gaslighting back to me. And now: here we are. I am that ”bad” girl they always thought I am, even I was pretty normal. I did not even smoke a cigarrette. My badness was that I wanted to date and be a graphic designer instead of an arvhitect that they wanted me to be - which I then applied under the pressure. But, that was my sin, that I wanted my own life. What a fight about all of these things! I wondered many years, why the hell is is so normal to others to get these things but I am a devil, idiot, bad and whatever when I want my life. Then, I got known the word ”narcissist” abd things started to reveal to me.
And now: I do not go there to be scapegoated again. My father then is in the mercy of my mon- and there is not much mercy there. But: it has been all the time HIS choise. His, not mine. He married that devil, I did not swore anything when I was born: I was born to fullfil my life, to live MY life.
It’s my father as well. My mother is ruthless. My Dad has Parkinson’s and she still belittles, snaps, yells, and debases him on a regular basis. I made the mistake of going over there for Father’s Day, with my husband and adult children. I knew deep down inside she’d be jealous, and threatened by the attention he was receiving. I had some drinks(mistake) and told her how cruel she is. I just couldn’t take it anymore. She told me to get out of HER house, and I complied. I’m done with the both of them. It’s always been his choice to be with her, and quite frankly, he’s not much better. I’m glad I said something. At least I stuck up for him, when he never protected me.
I dont know If i can express It correctly,but i d like to say that he stands up for her because he wants it. We cant save people of their own choices. Keep going on and dont blame on you because your fathers suffering. Hugs
@@youreaquickone Like my mom seems to be trying to help his demise along.
The insight about the extension of the “cool kids from school” dynamic into the narcissistic family system is 🤯🎯
My dad would say “Just ignore her” Really! I see it now
As a lost child, then an enabler, I confirm all of your analysis. Thank you for your videos.
In defense of my enabler mother, I remember reading in Erikson about children who hated their mothers for not protecting them in an age when women were powerless. But my mother, in the 1970's, was still a woman of that pre-feminist era. She succumbed to the abuse and completely lost herSELF and behaved in prescribed neurotic ways. This is all so unconscious. And then how they forget!!!!!!!!!
I'm very lucky to have had lots of conversations with my maternal grandmother about my mother's childhood so I know she was abused badly by my grandfather who came home from the war with PTSD. I probably know more about my mother than she does.
@@lambsauce1468 Great to have validation!
I was born in thev70's. They were able to divorce, they are just the generation of the boomer narcissits. My grandmothers would have had it difficult.
Yes, it is true. I once asked my mother why she did not protect me when father beat me. She replied: "You do not remember, it was not just anger, it was madness, he could have killed us both". And if he had killed just the child - no big deal. I feel worthless.
The invisible child in my family became the narcissist's flying monkey and enabler. It was absolutely painful to see. I just couldn't understand why she'd fall for it, but she did. I can no longer partake of the exchanges. After that many years of insanity, I was stunned that she still fell for it. I'd love to hear more about family mobbing. That's been one of my life's hardest things to understand.
When ones own family was the most lonely place to be...
It can be disheartening to see your adult siblings repeating history in their own families.
How can a child resist the repeated brainwashing? She was young; she had no support; and she does it to survive.
Just like you did things to her, so you could survive.
How long did you serve as the flying monkey and enabler,
before you figured it out and broke free?
The enabler parent is like a terrier on the side line nipping at one of the dogs in a fight .. They are just as bad as they are even more cowardly !
My enabler/covert narc father's favorite dog breed is terrier...
Perfectly stated
the enabler is just someone you think is your friend but is actually committing just as much evil against you as the narcissist.
Yes, I am not crazy about the enabler parent. I held him in high regard, but I do not any more. He died when I was fourteen.
My mum really hurt me (again) last may and i told her. My dad came over to my house to give out to me for "hurting her".
Ive been trying to make them understand that it's not ok to hurt people and then get angry with the person u hurt, but they just throw themselves higher and higher up on the cross. They are martyr bullies but it is my mum who isc The Martyr and my dad who barates me if i dont buy in to that narrative.
I’m so sorry. I hear you. Same for me. My dad drove over 200 miles and showed up out of the blue because I had gone no contact with my narcissist mother. He was crying and upset because he couldn’t fix his “broken family”. Meaning, he couldn’t get me to talk to my mom again because I broke the family.
I hope it has gotten easier for you. It’s a lot to deal with. Sending you much love and peace. 💕
The thing is, they won't ever "get it". This stuff is so basic that a 6 year old can grasp it. An adult who can't understand it is not mentally healthy and does not have the capacity to understand it. That doesn't excuse their behavior in any way. The only thing you can do is protect yourself.
@@Margo-oj5yc they never do. A year ago, when I stood up to my mum or rather, when I started the process of not backing down, I thought to myself, eventually I will get through to them, eventually I will be heard and eventually they will acknowledge that they have been very hurtful. They are intelligent people I thought. They are mostly good people I thought. BUT HERE I AM A YEAR LATER, trying to explain to them that when you do hurtful things, people get hurt, and I am not perpetrating an act of aggression against them when I state that I am hurt. But a year on, all I have seen is more and more extreme martyrdom. As we say in Ireland, she has *thrown* herself up on the cross and she is loving it up there. And my Dad just cannot see it. He is cross with me.
@@Margo-oj5yc And another thing (!) sorry, here I go! my dad told me ''I'm worried about you''. Argh. Like none of my hurt has anything to do with him or my Mum. Like it's just some private craziness I'm subjecting on them. Nothing to do with them. He is worried from afar. But yet will not listen to me. When I got the letter saying ''I'm worried about you'', although it seems caring, I knew in that instance that he was distancing himself totally from me, that he was making the estrangement all about me and taking *no* responsibility at all.
Yeah, well he has a pretty crazy world view and yeah, it can feel like you have to explain your way out. But really you don't - he can think what he does and you can know that what you do is a self protection reaction to what they did originally. I think they lose sense of causality - they can't see they did X then you did Y, they just see you doing Y, because they have so little self awareness that they can't see X even while they do it (it's like how anyone can walk around looking for their glasses when their glasses are perched upon their head, but that's a benign example)
I just found your channel and it’s so helpful. I’ve just left my family and they put me through hell for years. My. Sisters partner sexually assaulted me for years and when I came out with it my family took his side and abused me by letting him come into the home and telling me things like he only slapped me on the arse it’s not assault when that is not only what happened. Most of the abuse happened infront of them and recently they were laughing about it and even called the police on me for alleged harassment because in their words “I don’t shut up about it” I was always told to grow up because of the abuse and I wouldn’t let it go so I left.
This is my dad. He’s also narcissistic but has allowed his wife to mistreat & abuse two of his children from previous marriages. My half sister, their daughter, has been abusive & cruel as well. She learned it all from her mother, “the Queen Bee Narc”. I warned my grandparents for years about this woman but they put the needs of my dad before their grandchild in order to accomplish my grandfather’s goals. My dad is a very weak man and it is sad what he’s allowed.
So you are saying that your dad should have controlled your Narcissistic mother? Narcissistic wife can’t be controlled unless the husband wants to get divorced and lose everything because a narcissistic wife will ruin the husband by any means. We live in a society that “believe all “women that allows narcissistic women to have so much power. Stop blaming your dad for your mother’s actions.
Yup. My dad is weak too. Had no trouble jumping on me for speaking the truth. His actions shows that he will never protect me or do whats right. Now my younger brother has taken on an abusive role similar to my dead mom. Its sad because he used to be such sweet boy. Now he abuses me and my dad and my dad takes it.
@@jokerm5035 the thing is the enabler and the narc already established their dynamic before kids however before kids it is just 2 adults and the only one that may get hurt is the adult enabler if the enabler wasnt bonded or codependent they probably wouldve left before they even got to the point of having kids, the problem is once you have kids you brought them into this abusive dynamic.
You are telling my family story
So, the enabler believes that the child/children are being protected by them by keeping the harmonious act up. Happy Narcissistist, Happy Family. In the meantime, neglecting the very essence of real protection. 😢
I think the enablers sense of self love is one that requires they enable if they want to feel self love.
You are right this adds to our trauma it is so excruciatingly sad, my enabler used to be a real & beautiful woman, so brilliant & beautiful , an angel, but she was battered & abused so badly mentally , emotionally, sexually, physically, & either didn't know how to ask for help or no one could help her we were over seas. Then she became exactly like her abuser & morphed into a sadistic covert/overt narcissist one of the most painful things to think of in my life.
Unfortunately it isnt healthy self love, just fragile conditional external validation they are addicted to and reliant on.
After 58 years of marriage, my enabler mother divorced my abusive narcissist father. She was on the verge of losing her mind from all of the gaslighting. She acknowledges that I saved her life by explaining what was happening, then helping her escape. Despite this, I realize she will always invalidate me and perpetuate the "scapegoat narrative". I have gone no contact with all other members of my abusive narcissistic family, but now the most painful thing is realizing that I need to go no contact with my toxic enabler mother.
YES! THANK YOU for this, I've been searching all over for recognition and understanding on what I saw/see happening. Nobody seems to understand this dynamic. I just don't understand my own role fully, why I kept fighting for myself and everyone. As I understand from hundreds of videos I've seen, children usually give in at some point, go silent. I was (am) a 'truth teller' (therefor scapegoat as well) and have always stayed that way, which result(ed)s in constant fights. When I was being mistreated, I would tell my parents they needed to be a parent and treat me better, and then they would rage (mother rage, father go silent), blame me for all their misery, calling my self-defense parent abuse. My mother thought she was a victim of her own parents and of me, and of a passive husband she accused of not standing up for her (that way he would join). My mother was the narcissist, my father the enabler. As a child and teenager, I saw my father as a victim of my mother who I needed to protect, I still kinda do, being almost 40. But I'm now trying really hard to let go of that obligation so I can let them go forever for my own survival, finally. In my twenties and thirties, I slowly started seeing that my father was actually also a perpetrator by allowing all of it and I needed to face the fact that he actually joined the abuse party. It's so difficult to let go of the illusion that at least one parent loved me. When my mother raged against him and I tried to protect him, he would join her rage towards me. The bully dynamic makes so much sense! I often said I was being bullied both at school and at home, but I saw it as different still, but it's kind of the same. The only difference is that my parents weren't my peers and I depended on them (they turned that around though, I was made responsible for all their emotions and their trauma). Strange I didn't think of this all these years. They used me as a lightning rod to rage against, so they would "connect" over having a common enemy. Cause they connected over nothing else. It makes sense that way that they were never motivated to solve the family issues, they need(ed) them for their house of cards. I'd like to write more details and examples so read-along-ers get a better understanding, but that might just be too personal for youtube. I would love to get more clarity about myself though, I guess, I just don't understand that I had and have the personality that I do. I'm kind of proud that I saw it was all wrong and that I felt their wrong motivations, but it hurt me a lot as well.
By the way, my father rarely drank alcohol. He told us he didn't want to because his father would drink on Sundays after church and be nasty. No details. I wonder if his father hit his mother, others, or more. And that that might be the reason he always teams up with my mother, to not be like his father at least. Not realizing he still became an abuser that way. Clearly, he never learned about boundaries and non-codependent behavior. I've often thought he has psychopathic traits, the way he trusts nobody, lies every word, checks out, seems without any empathy, etc. But after this video I realize, this might be part of that 'checking out'. I laughed at the house chores. The house they live in gets so many unnecessary paint jobs, it's ridiculous.
I was close to my mom. She never scapegoated me but she never stopped my dad from scapegoating me. When he died I think she made up for her guilt by favoring me slightly over my siblings. I think we had a natural affinity which brought us closer. Of course I was the good child compared to the others. When I went into therapy in my late 20s, I really had to come to terms with how abandoned I had felt all those years when my mother never said one word to protect me against my father. And then of course, by favoring me for whatever reasons, there was jealousy toward me from my siblings, who, once my mother died, were quick to cast me back into the scapegoat role.
My father sacrificed his daughter to save himself, I am 59 and never recovered.
Please remember that the scapegoat in the family is the one who resembles Christ the most.
Clearly that was you!
Congrats on your salvation!
Go forward knowing you are God's child, your karmic debt on this earth has been paid, while your parents did nothing but accumulate karmic debt.
My mother was the abuser and my father was the enabler who looked the other way whenever I got beaten up by her.......as long as he was allowed to drink alcohol he was compliant
You are right on point my enabler father would definitely carry out harm to me... Trash talk so he can live be accepted by my NMom
The mysterious workings of my enabling father will go to the grave with him. No matter what the exact internal dynamics were, lack of protection of his two daughters against tyrant mother and sadistic golden child…it left a bigger mark of helplessness in my heart. This enabling made me the emotional orphan. And how perceptive of you Dr. Reed. We allow greater mistreatment and strife because we were praised, literally praised, for enduring abuse.
in our family, there were only two daughters, so I was the scapegoat of everybody. the golden sister abused me as she pleased and there was never a comment from the parents. I had nobody to help me. for years I imagined I was indeed 'dropped at their door step by Gypsies' as they often jeered at me. my great wish was to run away and live at an orphanage, but I knew police would bring me back and the abuse would increase.
@@ladyloungealot5119
The scapegoat in the family is the one who resembles Christ the most.
May you find comfort in those words.
Christ was also sacrificed, backstabbed, betrayed, and spat upon.
My stepfather was a narcissist and mum, the leader narcissist. So, I faced a duel of abuse. I became withdrawn and very depressed.
In some ways it is harder to forgive my father than my narc mother. There is huge accountability on his part.
Aiding and abetting my mother for his image and reputation is just as if she stabbed me, he turned the knife.
If someone does nothing,they are not good.
As an adult child of a Narc mother, an enabler father and being a mental health professional, I fully concur with Jay Reid's opinion in this video. Excellent information.
This was my Mum. I've come to learn she was suffering too.
All sounds familiar, my adopted mother ruled the roost, I was bullied and denigrated almost every day, physical abuse for minor or imagined transgressions. Adopted father, was playing golf, having a long term affair, which was apparently my fault too. He overtly favoured my adopted sister, I had to take her out with me to meet my friends, she didn't have any friends. He had little time for me from an early age. It was a massively disfunctional family, but they were constantly trying to convince me and themselves how much better they were than other people. I didn't buy it and left home to join the army. Long time ago now, I am still a bit angry how they managed to get through screening to be adopting parents.
😢
Minute 12:50 is HUGE!!!! Once more, Jay, there are so many great vids on this topic but yours are truly healing due to their specificity. This whole idea of lowering the threshold of what constitutes mistreatment after narc abuse is a huge step but a challenging one because you doubt if you have the right to do it. You've been groomed to gaslight yourself into accepting lower forms of narcissistic radiation as sunlight.
groomed to gaslight yourself lol!
Do you think it could be possible that the enabler parent is a covert narcissist?
Never have I related so much to a topic in all my days. NM and EF - in fact my EF has turned into a narc himself
I played this for my dad…I felt like I made progress today. Thank you for bringing awareness to this subject as so many people deal with this toxic family dynamic.
This really was fascinating. I was the scapegoat child that grew into a scapegoat enabler. It's a family system of bullying which goes on for years and years and years.
I left it 6 months ago and now I've been told I'm the one hurting him in a deliberate way, I'm causing the narc pain and am responsible for destroying the family. Thank God for these videos.
Never go back
Typical response and reaction.
I took my space to heal and was blamed for causing the rift in the family. Scapegoating me while ignoring that my mother is the drama queen entirely and my father is the enabling parent to her dysfunction. I don’t accept the blame and stay away from all those associated with my parents. They are too toxic to engage in any way with, unfortunately.
That's what my biological family say. "I am the one causing strife in the family "
They say that to me as well
We just began counseling recently...I value these videos so much...I often don't have the words to even describe things, from feeling so numb and almost deserving of the behavior. I almost wish you could just speak during the whole session for me 😭 I hope in time I'll come back to believing I'm worthy of these things and support myself when it isn't being offered to me 💕
"I often don't have the words to even describe things, from feeling so numb and almost deserving of the behavior." Abuse is intended to damage you then they get sadistic satisfaction, the cycle will end it must end if it has not for you yet I hope it does soon never ever let it happen again, document your interactions with witnesses because we attract narcs because narcissistic abuse causes brain damage. But it can heal, you will heal. You are fine this is such a great community.
You are valued. You are valuable. You are loved. You have been lovable every single day of your life. Someone is praying for you right now.
And even if you don't believe those tings about yourself, believe that others do. Read the Psalms, especially 37 and 73.
❤ Psalm 37 Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.
For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.
Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.
Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.
And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.
Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.❤ part of psalm 37 KJV ❤❤❤
This was 100% my childhood. Father abused us endlessly based on what he was getting from our mother (also abused her) while my mother just stood by and let him do it. Father is dead now and I have stopped all contact with my mother as has my brother. Listening to this was really something... it's as though I've waited 46 years to hear my childhood trauma so eloquently explained.
I would love to hear you talk about parents standing up for themselves but not the child.
Thank you so much for making this video. My heart breaks as I listen because I was the scapegoated child. My mother is the narcisist. She would fly into terrifying rages. I several times went to my father asking him why my mother was acting the way she acted. He was unmoving in his loyalty to her, refused to admit there was a problem, and would not allow me to speak about what was going on. On his deathbed he confessed to me that his dad used to mercilessly beat his mother. It is so sad.
THANK You!!
I have never heard my dad explained so well!
My Dad is a "Man's Man" but would let my mom do ANYTHING.
This blows my mind. Under the fence abuse! To raise themselves 😢 , sadly normalized and enabled. I guess you stop all of this by? I mean, narcissists and enablers are everywhere. I suspect the secret weapon is caring and loving yourself. This is big for me. 😊 thank you so much Jay 🙏
This is my Dad. 😥
Same here
Yep! -.-
Mine as well - so sad - Everyone had to bow down to "my mother" out of fear of her rage as well as her "taking to her bed" for a week or so at a time - drugged up, sleeping, subjecting us all to BLASTING the most maudlin classical music - because someone dissed her or didn't meet her needs. My father would always say - Can't you just...Not set her off, can't you just behave, can't you just keep your mouth shut...
@@perfectcirq did your mum die? You use past tense. Apologies if this is really blunt but did you manage to pick up any sort of relationship with your Dad?
@@SusanaXpeace2u Hello - No actually my father passed at 56yrs old. - 20 years ago. My father was a nice guy that everyone loved, especially at his work which he immersed himself into - they had been divorced for a long time when he passed - and I was referring to my childhood of hell, back in the 1960's early 70's when my parents were still together. She does still "take to her bed" when she's been upset and expects an excessive amount of grovelling from the perpetrator to make things right. I visited her back in November and the visit was very revealing, uncomfortable, loveless and ended, as always - in an explosive event with her telling me to leave because she needed a break - from me. After she screamed at me she's so tired of me, so tired, can't take it anymore - I thought you know what ? - that's exactly how I feel - I am finished trying - count me out!
Ok im living it live ! I cut ties with my narc father .. and 2 brothers .. The only one left my mother i begged her today to stop gaslighting me and to stop protecting im .. always changing subject or finding reasons .. she tries to emotionaly manipulate me ... she even faked crying on the phone today ... i asked for the last time ... Please mom please .. ibeged her ´dont let me down ..
stop doin it .. i wont tolerate this shiit no more .. I know what your doin .. and i understand whyyiur doin it ... its a battle i dont wanna fight anymore .. its crazy
Thank you Jay. In my case my mother was a non-functional alcoholic who lost custody of my sisters and I. My Dad has been divorced 5x so there was no one who stuck around long enough to protect me (the oldest). It has taken me 50 years to realize the way my father treated me and the way he taught my siblings to treat me was unacceptable. Thankfully with the help of good therapy, the Al-Anon program, faith in my God and the support of loving friends as well as the amazing videos you share I’m recovering from all of this and feel the weight of the past being lifted from my shoulders. Thank you for what you are doing!
wow I checked all the boxes. thanks for the video homie
This was very concise and helpful - accurate from my experience… thank you! Divorced my mom - took a while to see my dad’s role in it all…. CBT has helped tremendously - but so have the videos I’ve listened to on RUclips
Narc mom and an enabler dad who still sticks up for her abusive tactics tries to blame anything he can on me. All his antics are to not destroy his fragile world he’s created which he knows can come crashing down if he upsets the apple cart (her). This video helps to not feel so alone, thank you.
I'm so appreciative for your insightful videos. I've yet to find a therapist that gets my scapegoated past. I'm so grateful for this opportunity to learn more from you as I seek healing
Jay Reid - you are awesome and have helped me in many ways! thank you for your compassion and your knowledge!
Not only did my enabler father did nothing, he kept pushing me to my narc mother, so he could escape her abuse towards him. It was very confusing as my narc mother was so envious of me, especially because my father preferred my company than hers. They both used me to the hilt. So amazed and grateful I survived this ultra fuck-up environment. The even more amazing thing is they both claimed they were great parents!
Thank you so much, I haven’t heard this described so well before and it captures my situation perfectly-with my mother enabling my dad’s emotional (occasionally physical) abuse and bullying. Coming to terms with the fact that my mom stood by and didn’t ever help or even comfort me, I actually was the one comforting and counseling her, is almost harder than coming to terms with my dad’s overtly abusive behavior.
I’m almost thirty now and just starting to understand my childhood and teenage years. Thank you so much, videos like these are really changing my life.
My father was the narcissist and my mother the enabler.. Thank you for this lesson. I have learned a lot today. ❤
You are so welcome
Good Topic ! Thank you -) I just stopt contact with my family . It is hard but I have to this if I want to heal .
Me too, stay healthy.
@@quantumfineartsandfossils2152 Hey , thank you Amy you too ;-)
Now that my mother has passed, and I speak only occasionally to my father, I see what a horrible nightmare of a house I lived in. It was horrid. Mom was the enabling, neurotic, anxious, wreck of a parent who just kept on driving the ship into the ice berg and taking me with her. My father was the bully narc we had to walk on eggshells around.
More than once I remember saying ‘I don’t want to go home’ as my mother and I pulled into the driveway. ‘Me neither’. She had the complete ability to change our lives by leaving, but she chose to stay and subject herself and her daughter to constant neglect and abuse.
For the longest time I looked up to her, but now that I’m healing and have done lots of therapy and reiki I realize she was a monster just like him.
A while before she passed I looked at her and said ‘you know you’re an enabler, right?’ She just looked at me like she already knew it and didn’t care.
That’s when I realized both parents had their own psychological and emotional issues and they would die that way.
They know what they’re doing. They are completely aware.
Jay, you just explained my entire childhood. My mother died when I was 3. My dad remarried 2 years later. My step-mother was a malignant narcissist while my dad became the enabler. Our lives were filled with screaming, hitting, cursing, name calling by the step mother. She was extremely mentally ill. My dad just ignored her rages. Even one of the neighbor women approached my dad several times saying “he needed to do something about it.” He never did. I am 74 and recognize I adopt the freeze response whenever I feel stressed. How do I fix that?
🙏💗 Thank you again for improving my Sunday! 😊👌