“What happened to you all?” asked Coraline. “How did you come here?”
“She left us here,” said one of the voices. “She stole our hearts, and she stole our souls, and she took our lives away, and she left us here, and forgot about us in the dark.”
“Flee!” said the very first of the voices – another girl.
“Flee, while there’s still air in your lungs and blood in your veins and warmth in your heart. Flee while you still have your mind and your soul.”
“She kept us, and she fed on us, until now we’ve nothing left of ourselves, only snakeskins and spider husks.”
“She will take your life and all you are and all you care’st for, and she will leave you with nothing but mist and fog. She’ll take your joy. And one day you’ll awake and your heart and soul will have gone. A husk you’ll be, a wisp you’ll be, and a thing no more than a dream on waking, or a memory of something forgotten.”
“Hollow,” whispered the third voice. “Hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow.”
“You must flee,” sighed a voice faintly.
It was true: the other mother loved her. But she loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon loves its gold. In the other mother’s button eyes, Coraline knew she was a possession, nothing more. A tolerated pet, whose behaviour was no longer amusing.
“She hates you,” blurted out the boy. “She hasn’t lost anything for so long.”
“Be wise. Be brave. Be tricky.”
From the novel “Coraline” by Neil Gaiman
In fairy tales and children’s books the sinister, soul-murdering mother is never represented as the abused child’s biological mother. That would be considered taboo, and much too frightening for children. Instead, she is portrayed as a step-mother, an aunt, or, in the case of Coraline, an evil replica of her real mother known as “The Other Mother” who exists in the twisted unreality of a warped “other” dimension.
Unfortunately for us ACoNs (Adult Children of Narcissists) our evil mothers, and or fathers were all too real. Blood real. Malignant Narcissist Personality Disorder Real! And we grew-up imprisoned in their twisted realm without a chance to flee. Indeed, it was like living in a warped “other” dimension. A dimension akin to a perverse and dangerous underworld where deviant behavior is the norm, the wicked preys and feeds on the good, and hate, lies and delusions reign supreme.
To the narcissist parent(s) nothing exists outside him or herself. They inhabit their own imaginary world where those near and dear are nothing but extensions, internal, assimilated objects – not external ones. We only exist as “parts” in the narcissists' demented mind. Welcome to bizarro world: a cruel and unusual place where living, breathing souls are dehumanized and objectified to a mere thought, a role, a function of the narcissists' stranger than fiction Universe. A hellish Universe where normal human feelings are illegal, independent thought is considered a crime, and love is replaced by pathological control.
Don’t feel. Don’t think. Don’t talk. DON’T BE! YOU don’t exist outside of ME! Obedience and silence is LAW! “It’s MY universe!” Screams the narcissist, “You function only for ME!” You better put-up and shut-up and prop-up if you want to survive the corrupt rule of “The Others”: the sick and twisted, needy, greedy, infantile and EVIL MALIGNANT NARCISSISTS.
Anonymous said:
I grew up in hell.
That’s the best description I can give you. My mother severely neglected and abused me.
In between all of this, she managed to parentify me – I ended up the equivalent of a 30 year old social worker in the body of a 10 year old. It was my job to worry about solving her problems and I’d better come up with all the right answers. There were months where she couldn’t pay her bills, so she needed my advice (at age 6, 7, 8) to work it out so that we wouldn’t be on the streets.
I think I had an anxiety disorder by the time I was 9.
Around that time, my mother found a young guy to marry, who quickly became my molester. I reported him to the school counsellor and she in turn reported it to social services. My step father was quickly jailed and I was returned to home.
I walked into the house to find my mother crying. “Why did you have to go to the school counsellor? Why didn’t you tell me?!” was the first thing out of her mouth. I guess I didn’t have a good enough answer because she kept crying. I remember being so upset that I started to cry. She screamed, “What the fuck are YOU crying for?! YOU are the cause of this! YOU put him in jail!”
The anguish was too much to bear. I just wanted to sink into the floor.
Personality disordered mother approached me a few days later on being really nice. She said, “You screwed-up, but you can fix this.” Willing to all but gnaw my right leg off to get out of this, I eagerly listened. She told me to go back to everyone (social workers, prosecuting attorney etc.) and tell them that I made this all up, so I did. In the meantime, she told my other family members that I was a liar, so she was covered on that front too. My step father came home from jail and treated me like garbage… until he begun sexually harassing and sexually abusing me again later. The difference this time was that I knew better than to tell, so I sucked it up and dealt with it.
By the time I was a teen, I was suicidal.
Determined to end my misery, I said my good-byes to my brother.
He told our mother who decided to “treat” this herself. She appeared in my doorway as red as a beet with a large leather belt in her hand. I don’t have the vocabulary to even describe the beating that I received that day. All I can say is that she beat me until I couldn’t catch my breath and started vomiting. She left me a crumpled heap of garbage, laying on the floor in my own vomit. All I could do is crawl to my bed, where I curled up in a ball and cried until I feel asleep. I was covered in bruises and welts so I had to miss school, but what sticks out in my mind about my extra time at home with her is that the next day she managed to make a joke about the incident.
She said something like, “Bet you won’t do that again” and burst out in laughter.
What kind of a monster would treat another human being with such brutality, let alone her own daughter?! Someone who is so inhuman that they are incapable of relating to another’s humanity; someone who is so warped in the membrane that they internalize significant others to mere functions of their henious selves; someone whose perverse self-serving control is crookedly disguised as love. A malignant narcissist. That’s who.
Clearly Anon’s mother is violent and dangerous and bat-shit-crazy. But she’s not “mental illness” crazy. She doesn’t deserve that kind of credit. She is of her own mind: a mind so debauched and out of control that she has no internal breaks on her sadistic behaviour. Anon’s mother is evil. Period. She is unfit for human interaction, and should not be allowed around vulnerable children never mind being placed in the power position of “mother.”
The true story of Anonymous is tragic and heart-breaking, and sadly all too common. I can’t relate to all the details of Anon’s horrific experience, but I can surely relate to having an insanely evil mother, and the systematic destruction of narcissistic abuse. My MN mother was covertly sadistic, and whether it’s outrageously cruel overt abuse or sly and skillful covert abuse, the drive behind it is malice, and the intended result is the same: total annihilation of the child. Class, gender or race does not play a roll. I explored this in the blog post (HERE).
If we break-down Anonymous’ story to its simplest form, we can see the process of Soul Murder, be it explicitly malicious and violent, or stealth and subtle and psychological.
Here’s what life is like for the abused and scapegoated child growing-up under the malignant narcissists' conspiracy of evil.
· I grew-up in hell.
· My mother severely neglected and abused me.
· I think I had an anxiety disorder by the time I was 9.
· The anguish was too much to bear. I just wanted to sink into the floor.
· By the time I was a teen, I was suicidal.
· Mother’s response to my agony was to inflict MORE pain and burst-out in laughter.
I too grew-up in hell. My mother severely neglected and abused me. I think I had an anxiety disorder by the time I was 9. She beat-down my confidence, sense of self, and enthusiasm for life. She covertly tried to drive me to suicide and told me that I wasn’t meant to live.
The shame was too much to bear and I withdrew from the world around me. At one point in my teens I was too nervous to speak and my body trembled uncontrollably. MN mother responded to my symptoms of her abuse with delight. When I was visibly insecure she would get an evil glint in her reptilian eyes and say to me in a happy sing song voice, “You have low self-worth.” Then she would walk-off humming, but not before she got a good look at me to make sure that I was deflated. When she was feeling more aggressive she would scream at me, “Your life is a mess!” If her slyly timed put-downs degraded me enough to make me stutter, she would crack a smug grin.
These are stories of SOUL MURDER. This is about won ton human destruction. This is about malice without motive. This is about unmitigated hatred that has no basis in reality. The malignant narcissists’ evil is a result of their sick and twisted mind. It is a by-product of the darkness that lies within them. It has nothing to do with external circumstances. Malignant narcissists are so diseased, so depraved and so disturbed that although their goal is total annihilation, they become even more punishing when their victim dares to succumb to their torture. This is about EVIL finding so much pleasure is another’s suffering, that they drive their victim to suicide and then prevent the suicide by inflicting more pain. This is about CONTROL. This is about OWNERSHIP of another living, breathing human being. Sure, the malignant narcissist wants to drive you to suicide, but they’re loath to relinquish any power so that it’s your decision alone. No. The malignant narcissist decides how and when you will die. And, they much prefer to kill you slowly and surely of their OWN measure.
Malignant narcissists are despicable parasites and they don’t want to lose their hosts. This might explain why they get more insanely evil when they notice their victim is checking-out. They NEED to keep you around to feed on until there is nothing left of you but a husk and you are hollow, hollow, hollow! Dead hearts, dead souls, and dead minds are much easier to control and fill with their fraudulent selves. And remember, the MN has internalized you to mere elements in his or her demented imagination so being unable to control and manipulate YOU literally means the narcissist is losing his or her mind. This might be why they go berserk when their victim flees. They are not only losing their grip on their host, they are losing their grip on their false self.
What if an adult child doesn’t flee from the evil clutches of a malignant narcissist parent? What then? MN mother has been out of my life longer than she has been in it, so I can’t factually write of the experience. Though, I’ve often wondered what would have become of me if she and evil MN sister had remained in my life. What I know for certain is that I would still be living in a fog of their projection, lies and delusions. I know for sure that they would still be ganging-up on me and messing with my mind. I have no doubt that they would still be trying to undermine my confidence and toy with me every chance they got. The systematic destruction would continue and the abuse would escalate with each passing year. It’s who they are. It’s what they do. They never change. They’re malignant narcissists.
Why would I ever have warm and fuzzy feelings for someone who proved over and over and over again that they are motivated by hatred and their intention is to cause me harm? Because that creature is my mother? Get real. The fact that I’m her daughter is precisely the reason why she should be held to a HIGHER standard of human decency toward me, NOT a lower one. This is not rocket science. This is bare bones common sense. Why would I knowingly and willingly allow someone seething with contempt for me to remain in my life? Why would I even accept a telephone call from such a sick and destructive predator?
I was able to flee from the malignant narcissists' treachery, and I flushed their poison out of my system. But, had I remained in MN mother and MN sister’s evil presence, not only would I still be contaminated, their venom would be compounded by 20 plus years, and I’d be oblivious to new toxins. There’s no question that my mind, heart, body, and soul would be quite sick and that I would be more vulnerable than ever… I shudder to think.
The only way to gain clarity and understanding of just how twisted these freaks are is to get the hell away from them. You cannot protect yourself from the malignant narcissists’ vile nature while they are still contaminating you. MNs are diseased souls and if you remain too long in their presence your soul will become badly infected or die altogether. In other words, your sense of self, your identity will barely cling to life or cease to exist.
Even though Anon’s malignant narcissist mother viciously abused, exploited and sacrificed her to another known abuser, and even though she was a threat to her mental, emotional and physical safety, Anon wasn’t able to flush the toxic witch out of her system, and thus never knew a life without the devastating influence of a malignant narcissist. Anonymous’ story is to be continued. And it’s one of caution to those allowing a malignant narcissist parent to remain not only in their life, but in the lives of their children and loved ones.
“She will take your life and all you are and all you care’st for, and she will leave you with nothing but mist and fog. She’ll take your joy. And one day you’ll awake and your heart and soul will have gone. A husk you’ll be, a wisp you’ll be, and a thing no more than a dream on waking, or a memory of something forgotten.
“Flee, while there’s still air in your lungs and blood in your veins and warmth in your heart. Flee while you still have your mind and your soul.”