What Can You Do If You’re the Child of a Narcissist?
When we are children, we tend to take everything personally. Children’s boundaries between themselves and others have yet to be formed, and the structure those boundaries take depend to a large extent on a child’s experiences and the parenting they receive.
If a child’s parents fight, a child typically thinks it’s somehow their fault. If someone they know gets hurt, they believe it might be because of them. It is up to a child’s parents to help a child differentiate between themselves and others. To let their children know that other people are responsible for their own emotions.
Unfortunately, children of narcissistic parents are never taught this differentiation. For these children, if something is wrong, their narcissistic parents usually agree that it is the fault of the child.
Narcissistic parents’ complete focus is on their own happiness and their children realize early on that their role is to serve and validate their parent’s existence. Nothing more.
Children of narcissistic parents learn to equate their parent’s happiness with their own and are expected to be unwaveringly devoted, loyal, and grateful for whatever their parents provide. Each day the child’s life hangs on the whims of his or her parent, leading the child to live with constant uncertain, anxiety, and even fear.
Because young children can’t make sense of the capricious whims and interpersonal tricks of their narcissistic parents, these children internalize intense shame which they then turn into anger at themselves for not living up to their parent’s expectations.
And, yet, because narcissists view themselves as being perfect, they also tend to believe wholeheartedly that they are doing their best as parents and that any resistance on the part of the child is nothing but ingratitude.
For children of narcissistic parents who are too young to know any other way of interacting, who don’t know that there are any other types of parent/child relationships, and who are too young to learn positive coping skills on their own, much of life becomes a painful mystery… A mystery in which they are responsible for everything, both their parent’s misery and happiness… and a mystery with lasting consequences.
The Consequences of Having Narcissistic Parents
It can take years of frustration and anguish for the child of a narcissist to figure out that the root of the problem lies not inside them but with their parent and the emotionally abusive parenting they received.
There are numerous, lasting consequences of having narcissistic parents, and none of them are beneficial. A short list includes…
Steps You Can Take
Most adult children of narcissists spend years, if not their whole lifetimes, going round and round on a merry-go-round of flawed relationships, both with themselves and others, that unconsciously repeat the initial flawed relationship they had with their parents.
But, it doesn’t have to be that way!
Here are some things you can do…
4,Break the Cycle – By taking each of the steps above – especially seeking professional counseling and therapy to work through your childhood wounds and forgive yourself – you’ll be taking the steps necessary to break the cycle of narcissistic abuse in your family.
While it’s not easy, there is healing and hope for adult children of narcissistic parents. The best place to start is to be kind to yourself, recognize that what you were forced to endure as a child was in now way your fault, and seek the professional help you need to forgive yourself and your parents and start creating the life you know is possible!
If a child’s parents fight, a child typically thinks it’s somehow their fault. If someone they know gets hurt, they believe it might be because of them. It is up to a child’s parents to help a child differentiate between themselves and others. To let their children know that other people are responsible for their own emotions.
Unfortunately, children of narcissistic parents are never taught this differentiation. For these children, if something is wrong, their narcissistic parents usually agree that it is the fault of the child.
Narcissistic parents’ complete focus is on their own happiness and their children realize early on that their role is to serve and validate their parent’s existence. Nothing more.
Children of narcissistic parents learn to equate their parent’s happiness with their own and are expected to be unwaveringly devoted, loyal, and grateful for whatever their parents provide. Each day the child’s life hangs on the whims of his or her parent, leading the child to live with constant uncertain, anxiety, and even fear.
Because young children can’t make sense of the capricious whims and interpersonal tricks of their narcissistic parents, these children internalize intense shame which they then turn into anger at themselves for not living up to their parent’s expectations.
And, yet, because narcissists view themselves as being perfect, they also tend to believe wholeheartedly that they are doing their best as parents and that any resistance on the part of the child is nothing but ingratitude.
For children of narcissistic parents who are too young to know any other way of interacting, who don’t know that there are any other types of parent/child relationships, and who are too young to learn positive coping skills on their own, much of life becomes a painful mystery… A mystery in which they are responsible for everything, both their parent’s misery and happiness… and a mystery with lasting consequences.
The Consequences of Having Narcissistic Parents
It can take years of frustration and anguish for the child of a narcissist to figure out that the root of the problem lies not inside them but with their parent and the emotionally abusive parenting they received.
There are numerous, lasting consequences of having narcissistic parents, and none of them are beneficial. A short list includes…
- Lack of Trust and Intimacy in Relationships – Children of narcissistic parents learn at a young age that it’s best not to express feelings or confide in others and that trusting another to protect you is a mistake. Sure, it’s difficult and lonely to always put up a barrier up to protect yourself from others, but it’s better than being hurt over and over again.
- Not Knowing What You Value or Want – It’s pretty difficult to know what’s important to you when your entire life has been lived as a reflection of your parent’s wants and needs. And, don’t forget, you were told repeatedly that you were a poor reflection at that. It’s little wonder that even those children of narcissists who think they know what they want believe they’re probably wrong and don’t trust their feelings.
- Believing Oneself Unlovable – Children of narcissists grow up never being as good at anything as their parents. Any problems in the family were the child’s fault. As such, they learn that they’ll unlikely to ever amount to much, aren’t worthy of other people’s acceptance and love, and often let people walk all over them because they’re not in touch with what they need and they don’t know how to express it. Accordingly, children of narcissists tend to replicate the dysfunctional relationship they had with their parents by unconsciously seeking out romantic partners who are equally critical, withholding, and emotionally unavailable.
- Picking Up Narcissistic Traits of Your Own – If you’ve been denied the spotlight all of your life, you may desperately crave some (any!) attention, even if it’s negative attention, and many children of narcissists do just this. Of course, since children of narcissists rarely received the attention they crave and aren’t used to it, their first reaction to being in the spotlight is often to run as far from it possible. But, that doesn’t mean they won’t try to get back into it again. Whether that attention is uncomfortable or you feel you can’t possibly deserve it, if you’re the child of a narcissist, craving that attention is all you’ve ever known.
- People Pleasing and Codependency – When a child faces manipulation on a daily basis and spends most waking moments taking care of their parent’s emotional and physical needs, he or she learns to value themselves only in relation to how they make others feel. Such children take this learned need to please others into all of their other relationships as an adult and it takes a lot of work even to recognize and acknowledge these behaviors for what they are.
- Having to Accept that You’ll Never Have a Healthy Relationship with Your Narcissistic Parent – Just because you’re now an adult doesn’t mean you somehow magically learn to stop craving the approval you never received as a child. And, until they do some serious work on themselves, all adult children of narcissists hope beyond hope that one day their relationships with their parents will stop revolving around their parent’s possessiveness, blame, and need for validation.
Steps You Can Take
Most adult children of narcissists spend years, if not their whole lifetimes, going round and round on a merry-go-round of flawed relationships, both with themselves and others, that unconsciously repeat the initial flawed relationship they had with their parents.
But, it doesn’t have to be that way!
Here are some things you can do…
- Observe with Detachment – One of the first things you can do to begin the journey towards healing is to recognize that your parent is a narcissist and acknowledge that, whether or not they’ll ever admit it, they are suffering. Learn as much about narcissism as you can in order to be able to identify the dysfunctional messages you received while growing up. Doing this allows you to gain a degree of emotional detachment and see your parents not simply as your mother or father but as human beings. Learning about narcissism and gaining some detachment will also help you culture some empathy for your parents, which can lead to forgiveness of both your parents and yourself. That forgiveness is vital when it comes to your ability to move on with confidence and optimism.
- Be Conscious of Your Expectations – One of the reasons people stay in relationships with narcissists is because narcissists are very good at creating a false sense of hope that tomorrow will somehow be different. It’s an easy trap to fall into, but it’s a trap you (wittingly or unwittingly) set for yourself by having an expectation that a narcissist can or wants to change. Unfortunately, given that most narcissists see themselves as blameless, few if any have a desire to change. Accordingly, it’s your expectations that are narcissist can be something or do something that they can’t that keeps you in unfulfilling relationships with them. It’s up to you to recognize your expectations and evaluate them based on the reality of your relationships and not how you wish them to be.
- Learn to Set Boundaries – Narcissists don’t care about anyone’s personal boundaries other than their own and most children of narcissists have difficulty setting boundaries and suffer from low self-esteem. Therefore, in order to improve your own sense of self-worth as well as keep any relationships with narcissists you wish to maintain, you must learn to create strict boundaries and stick to them, including knowing when to just walk away.
4,Break the Cycle – By taking each of the steps above – especially seeking professional counseling and therapy to work through your childhood wounds and forgive yourself – you’ll be taking the steps necessary to break the cycle of narcissistic abuse in your family.
While it’s not easy, there is healing and hope for adult children of narcissistic parents. The best place to start is to be kind to yourself, recognize that what you were forced to endure as a child was in now way your fault, and seek the professional help you need to forgive yourself and your parents and start creating the life you know is possible!