How to deal with narcissistic parents

Growing up with a parent who has narcissistic personality disorder can be incredibly challenging, narcissist personality disorder refers to individuals with a particular set of traits, they tend to have an inflated sense of their own self-importance, a lack of empathy along with a constant need for admiration and validation. Individuals who grew up in this environment often come to therapy with conflicting emotions, I love them, but I can’t be around them.

Along with questions surrounding how to ‘handle’ them and how to protect themselves, their partners and of course their children from the emotional turmoil that usually comes hand in hand with having a narcissistic parent. This article is not meant to shame or blame any parents but to share information that will hopefully help you understand your parents, and their behaviour and identify how it impacted you and what you can do now to begin to heal.

As a child most of our early years are already decided for us, what language we will speak, where we live and most importantly who our parents are. We also don’t have a choice in the innate need to attach to our parents, according to many leading psychologists the need for attachment to a primary caregiver – typically a parent is inherent and essential for survival and emotional development.

This means growing up most of us idealise our parents we see them as superheroes who can do no wrong, we don't see them as normal human beings because in childhood they are quite literally the centre of our world we are completely dependent on them, and we spend most of our time with them. However, as we grow, we start to see that they are not perfect, and we begin to observe them in a more grounded and realistic light, this is often when children with narcissistic parents get the feeling that something is not quite right.

Fundamentally attachment remains central to human development in forming a sense of trust and security in our environment. Learning that love is conditional can have profound and long-lasting effects on an individual throughout their life. From the beginning, they are primed that connection and love need to be earned and have the idea that they must accept difficult people and their difficult behaviours even when they don't seem to care, or they don't seem to want or are not willing to change, this will then often show up in their closest relationships.

Signs that you might have been raised by a narcissistic parent:

• You might notice that you constantly feel guilty, you always feel like you're in trouble
• You might notice that you spend a lot of your time in your adult relationships making excuses for others’ bad behaviour.
• You might notice that within your relationships you're always enabling other people's issues or that you have a history of co-dependency.
• You might notice that you struggle to establish and maintain healthy boundaries, find it difficult to say no, have a fear of conflict or feel responsible for others’ emotions.
• You might notice that you have grown up feeling not good enough and tend to seek validation from others.
• You might notice that you have a deep-seated fear of abandonment or rejection.
• You might notice that you have difficulty accepting love, sabotage relationships or settle for unhealthy dynamics.
• You might notice that you push yourself to meet unrealistic high expectations, which can lead to burnout, frustration and the fear of failure 

Noticing is the first step in healing from these relationships, the second step is to start putting yourself and your own needs above the needs of your parent, I am going to share some helpful reminders for those of you raised by a narcissistic parent.

The first helpful and powerful reminder is your parent is developmentally immature you might see this when they are yelling, storming off or maybe making every situation and every conversation about themselves. With practice, you can even begin to see the small child in these moments because a lot of times their behaviour mirrors how children behave.

One of the best exercises that you can do at times like this is to visualise the small child stuck inside your parents’ adult body. You may feel the need to have deep conversations with them, you may want to bring up things from the past, you may want to try to change your dynamic with your parents, but the reality for most of you is that your parent is simply not emotionally mature enough and not capable of leading you on this journey because their emotional age doesn't match their chronological age.

This, of course, is not an excuse but this understanding can really help you because a lot of individuals try exhaustingly to change their parents, they try to get them to understand, they try to get them to meet their needs however they are trying to do this with people who are simply not capable or willing, so reminding yourself that your parent is developmentally immature can help.

The second reminder is your parent is not the authority of the truth. Having a narcissistic parent, you will have been exposed to continual gaslighting. This is when our reality is denied, repeatedly being told that didn't happen or it's not as bad as we think, or being outright lied to. Sensitive matters are brushed under the carpet, or they pretend that big things are small things or even just didn't happen.

Denial is a common trait amongst individuals with narcissistic personality disorder this denial can be confusing and painful for others in their lives which can lead to feelings of shame, unworthiness and invalidation. This in turn means you may have difficulty trusting yourself, but it is important to remember that your parent never was never and never will be an authority on your truth.

They can of course they can have their own perspective on a situation and at the same time you can have a completely different perspective but regardless of how different it is and how difficult your reality might be, your reality, and your truth is valid. So please remember you yourself are the final authority on what you did or did not experience and how you feel about it, even if your parent or other loved ones disagree or if they even refuse to acknowledge it.

The third helpful reminder on your journey is you are not responsible for your parents’ lives; narcissistic parents teach their children from a young age that they are responsible for their emotional welfare. Many children grow up feeling like they are their parents’ best friend or their therapists always responsible for their emotional well-being, and this creates adult children who continue to feel overly responsible for their parent’s lives. They feel like they must be the ones to rescue their parents to make their lives better even when they refuse to change or even acknowledge any of their questionable behaviour.  It is common for narcissistic parents to expect their children even as adults to always be on call for their latest crisis to hear about their issues whilst not being there emotionally for them.

Despite that, now as an adult as difficult as it may seem; it is extremely important that you begin to set and to have clear boundaries with your parent. But remember boundaries are not there to control their behaviour as no one can control another person’s behaviour. Boundaries are there to protect yourself, they are the key to maintaining healthy and respectful connections, by defining your limits, values and needs. To do this we must be clear and assertive, don’t expect others to read our minds and be mindful that we will need to back up our words with our actions.

Maybe we set boundaries around how available we are or when will be able to answer their texts or their calls, generally how and when we will be available to engage with them at all. It is important to remember as you first begin to set new boundaries especially if you have not done so before you will probably end up feeling guilty and selfish but the more you practice the more confident and empowered, you'll feel and the more space you'll have for yourself.

The fourth helpful reminder on your journey is regardless of how old you are right now reading this you can repair yourself, many people with narcissistic parents have spent their entire lives focusing on their parents or on everyone else around them and not attending to their own needs. You may not be able to recall many times when your parents were there for you emotionally, were interested in caring for you, or enquired about your internal world, your emotions, and your interests.

You weren't raised in an environment where you had the chance to develop a sense of self, to understand and be curious because no one modelled that for you. This is why it is so incredibly important to begin reparenting yourself reparenting is simply becoming the parent that you have never had it can be a small list of acts like learning how to be patient with yourself, speaking to yourself kindly or maybe making sure that you eat a nutritious meal.

Try taking a few moments to sit down to rest, relax and breathe, notice how you speak to yourself throughout the day and begin to practise talking to yourself like a patient adult would with a small child. You want to be the person that's comforting yourself, that's rooting for you, that is encouraging you to follow your own dreams and reminding you that you are safe. Understanding your value regardless of what anyone around you is saying or doing.

The fifth and final helpful reminder on your journey is you can grieve, and you need to grieve what you didn’t get. Many narcissistic parents are not willing or able to self-reflect, you would like them to just get it, to understand how their behaviour has and continues to impact you. You want them to begin to show up differently in a more supportive way within your relationship, but the harsh reality is for some of you that may never happen.

Whilst this is one of the most painful experiences that you can have, you must come to terms with the fact that you did not get the loving nurturing and supportive parent that you deserved, you didn't get a parent who was able to put their stuff aside and to show up for you. Within that reality, you must give yourself time and space to grieve that loss. You may feel angry some days and other moments or days you feel sad, and you probably feel guilty a lot and continue to wish that you could just get them to see or do things differently. 

There will be so many different emotions that come up along this journey and for a lot of you writing them out and journaling about them maybe even writing a letter to your inner child or talking to a trusted loved one can help. Ultimately grieving is how you process this loss and how you can begin to move forward with your life no longer stuck in the past, letting go so you can open yourself up to a new future.
 
I hope this was helpful for everyone out there who is dealing with a narcissistic parent