Narcissists are known for many things, but some of the most disturbing things are the things they force their children to do when they are too young to do them.  They force children to assume either the parent or adult role, either in taking care of them or someone else or something else.

For one, my job as a child was "beer bringer".  Anyone who forces their children to either make them alcoholic beverages or fetch them is being 100% totally inappropriate.  Perhaps some parents today find this okay because they were made to do this as a child, but asking a child to get you alcohol says you have no respect for that child's childhood.  I remember at my dad's funeral how my aunt and uncle would force their little girl (who was around 8 at the time) to pour up their wine for them.  It was sick to watch, as they were slurring their words, yelling for their daughter to "pour them up another one" until they both went out to their van and passed out, while their daughter was left with me to care for (which I didn't mind, she was a great kid).   So, as I got a little older, I started connecting the dots that "beer", and the ones I was asked to get for them, was the root of their abusive problems (or so I thought) and I'd take to hiding the beer from them, which got me slapped once...so I stopped that very quickly.  But I thought it was my job to stop it all from happening...because I was allowed to touch that "forbidden fruit" to make them drunk, so then I was obviously allowed to touch it to stop them from being drunk. But apparently, I was very wrong.

As I got older and had my license, my job was to go fetch my dad from the bar and take him home.  Back then, crusty old white trash trucker bars did not card, nor did they care if I was in the bar or not.  So I could waltz right in, find my dad, have him and his drunk friends (that he just made while drinking there) offer me beer and whiskey and other drinks, I would politely decline, because I didn't drink, and then drag his ass out of there to take him home.  His favorite game on the way home was "Let's see how fast his puppy can go!!" while slapping the dash of their red 1998 Ford Windsor mini-van.  I'd have to find a road with no speed limit posted (which to my dad meant there was no speed limit) and tromp on the gas as hard as I could to see how fast his little mini-van would go.  And for a moment, he was free....windows down, going as fast as he could while yelling "WHOO HOO!", no oppressive wife to give him shit about anything.  Just me and him, riding in the night, while the wind blew our hair around driving 80mph in the middle of town.  Luckily the road was a mostly abandoned place where nobody drove.  But even though it was inappropriate of my mom to ask me to go get him at the bar when I was very underage, it was the only time him and I could be alone, without the horribleness of her.  And with him being drunk, he was happy.  And my dad was never happy.  But on those nights, we were happy, together.  Funny how you can remember something in your life that should be looked down on because your parents were so dumb and irresponsible, but instead can be some of the best memories ever.  Well, mostly because a) we didn't get caught speeding and b) nobody died or got hurt.


When I was seventeen, my grandparents moved in with us.  Grandpa's Alzheimer's was causing him to go downhill pretty fast and we set up the guest bedroom for them both in separate beds.  Grandpa eventually had a stationary IV in his arm (not sure if that's the correct terminology or not....maybe a port??) that was used for giving him meds without having to poke him with needles.  I can't remember what the meds were, I just remember the little vials with clear liquid.  Eventually, my narcissist mother got tired of giving him his meds and she told me to do it.  Ummmm, no.  She clearly told me that if I get ANY air bubbles in the syringe at all, I could kill him.  This scared the holy fucking shit out of me.  I could accidentally kill my grandpa.  Looking back, I wondered what in the holy fuck was my mother thinking?  Did she want me to kill him?  That would certainly take him off her hands for her.  And she'd get his life insurance money, as it'd be a total accident perpetrated by her underage kid.  This haunted me for so long, thinking how I loved him so much and I couldn't bear to be the person who ended his life.  Yes, his quality of life sucked ass, but at the same time, he was my grandpa.  And he deserved to live out his last days with those that loved him, not with his daughter who didn't give a rat's ass if her daughter would have to live the rest of her life knowing she accidentally killed her only grandfather.  But, alas, I didn't kill him and I am pretty sure that I eventually left the house enough so she stopped asking me to give him his meds.  But still, it should never have been asked of me to do it to begin with.  I was fucking seventeen years old.  What the hell?

Then my mom was hired by her next door neighbor to give her cat insulin shots.  So, just like with Grandpa, she got tired of it and expected me to do it.  I did it a few times and got freaked out and had to stop because I couldn't stop thinking, just like with Grandpa, if I did something wrong, it'd be my fault if the cat died.  She wasn't too happy I refused to do it, but I just had to stop.


But these above?  Are just child's play to the two horrible things that my husband can remember happening to him as a kid.  When he was in grade school, his parents decided to put down their Siamese kitty because she had intestinal issues they couldn't control.  So what did they have him do?  They gave him the cat carrier and forced him to catch her so they could bring her to the vet to have her put down. He loved his cat and couldn't figure out why they made him be the one to bet the last family member to touch her before putting her down.  He was just a child.  He never got over that horror.  He had to catch his own cat so she could taken to her death.

But the worst one of them all, the one that takes the cake beyond all things either one of us has had to endure at the hands of our narcissistic parents, was when his sister was practically dying from a stroke and he had to sit up with her "in case she started to die".  He was FOURTEEN years old.  His parents went to bed and he sat up on the couch all night with his sister, holding her, hoping she didn't die, not letting her fall asleep, all while she was shaking and jerking in his arms.  That has scarred him for life.  I can't even imagine what that was like for him or how he even got through that without freaking out.


The point here is, folks, that narcissistic parents will pawn off their most important duties to their children just because they can.  They are not only irresponsible, they are lazy and will leave their children in dangerous situations, putting them in the position to do something SO adult that it can and will scar that child for life.  If your sister dies in your arms at 53, it will scar you for life.  If she dies in your arms when you're 14, what do you think that could do to you for the rest of your life?  Why didn't his parents stay up with her instead?  Why was a child left in charge of the possibly dying other child?  What if she had died that night?  Oh yeah, they could blame him.  By putting their child in charge, they were no longer held accountable for what happened next.  The same goes for my own parents when I had to be put in charge of Grandpa's medicine injections or the neighbor's diabetic cat's insulin injections.

All of their accountability is erased when they are no longer in charge.  

It's like they have turned back into little kids, themselves, and they can't handle the outcomes anymore.  They need someone else to handle the "big stuff" instead of them.  Or they want someone to blame if things go wrong.  They don't want the blame, so they defer it to a child instead.  It's quite sick, if you ask me.  But then again, isn't most of what they do?  I mean, the situations they put us in repeatedly, waiting for something bad to happen to us, just so they can deny it later?  Or the gaslighting when they deny any abuse ever happened?  Or (insert a million things here)?  Honestly, most of what they do is sick.

And we won't even fully comprehend the extent to our abuse until later in life and maybe never will.  This is why I blog.  To explore all the facets of my abuse and those around me who were also abused.  Also to share our stories with you, so you can explore your own abuse.

Let's just hope we're all in a place where we can recognize when our parents are putting us in these positions and make sure they don't do that with our own children.  And so we don't repeat their mistakes on accident, because we don't understand it's wrong.

Because we are better than our parents and our kids deserve better than we got.