Narcissistic parent…
If you had a narcissistic parent during your childhood, you may have experienced the following:
Public versus private personas: Your parent may have presented themselves as one person in public but acted differently towards you in private. They may have bragged about you to others but been highly critical or dismissive of you at home.
Competitiveness: Your parent may have been jealous of your accomplishments or independence, and regularly put you down or belittled your achievements. They may have pitted you against your sibling, praising their achievements while putting you down or unfairly comparing you to each other.
Victim mentality: Your parent may have painted themselves as the victim in conflicts, even if they were the ones causing the problems. This often led to them gaining sympathy and attention from others.
Explosive emotions: Your parent may have had unpredictable mood swings or outbursts, causing you to feel like you were constantly walking on eggshells around them.
Shaming: Your parent may have used guilt or shame to control your behavior, making you feel like you were never good enough and that your worth was based on meeting their expectations.
Enabling: Your parent may have allowed another parent or family member to be abusive towards you, or even engaged in the abuse themselves, while dismissing your concerns and blaming you for the mistreatment.
Critic: Your parent may have been highly critical and disapproving of you. You grew up believing if you made less mistakes, your parent would love you. You tried not to anger your parent so they wouldn’t further withdraw their love. Sadly, no matter what you did it never seemed to please them for long.
Consumer: Your parent shaped you so that your role was to feed them. You never knew when they were coming for their next emotional meal so you grew up in either a highly alert state, waiting and watching, or a numb, insular, protective state. You lost sight of your own emotional needs as all focus was on the parent.
Be kind to survivors. Many are learning how to do healthy relationships at a later stage in life, because their previous life only had room for survival. They've spent much time honing the skills to get by. They're working hard to learn how to let go of the survival instinct and to show up for themselves, and you, without any past examples of what that means. So as they work, sacrifice and learn, all to ensure you and any children don’t experience the hurt they did, let’s cheer them on… they are breaking a generational cycle and they deserve to be loved well.
Did you experience any of these behaviors growing up with a narcissistic parent and, if so, how have their distorted beliefs impacted you in your life and relationships today?
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