Help! I was raised by a narcissist

Have you ever asked yourself any of these questions: Why is my mother not attentive and loving towards me like my friend's mother? Why am I always being criticised or ridiculed? Why am I screamed at when I try to call out my mother's bad behaviour towards me?

Or found yourself thinking or saying, "My mother doesn't really like me" or "I cannot believe the mother who brought me into this world and is supposed to care for me is treating me so badly. I could never treat my child like that." You may have been raised by a narcissist.

As a therapeutic counsellor and someone who was raised by a mother with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), I too have asked myself these questions and many others while scratching my head in disbelief. I have also secretly experienced a lot of me too moments with clients.

Being able to process the trauma of my past with my counsellor through many difficult sessions now enables me to bring my best self with deeper empathy to my client's difficult stories and how similar those experiences had been to mine. Could I understand what they were really trying to say? Yes!

No one wants to speak negatively about a parent who raised them. This often carries feelings of betrayal or disloyalty. You may be wondering, "Can I really tell the therapist how my mother spoke to me and the names I was called?" People blaming me and saying comments such as, "Stop upsetting your mother?" This can often be the case with a client with a parent with NPD.

Your parent may have taught you to fear the world and your very existence. And you now may see everyone as a red flag. Feeling cautious and unsafe or filled with anxiety may now be your reality. You will now need support on a deeper level, and someone who has a lived experience of what you face can have a deeper understanding. 

Clients with NPD parents need lots of empathy and understanding. I received this in therapy and had a therapist also with a lived experience of narcissism. That caring empathetic ear over time in counselling now enables me to pay it forward to the client.

Narcissistic abuse takes a new level of understanding in therapy as it gives a space in confidence to call out the abusive parent like never before. Thoughts of how the trauma your parent caused you now may now affect every area of your adult life, including friendships, romantic relationships, and management at work. The whole world may seem a threat and you may feel riddled with anxiety, experience very low self-esteem, feel insecure, find yourself constantly comparing yourself to others, and be overthinking situations.

It's now safe to expose the very troubled parent and process the "Why couldn't you love me the way I needed to be loved?" and "What did I do that was so wrong to make you so angry with me?" questions.

Therapy can give you the opportunity to ask these questions with a deeper understanding of your parent, to let go of blaming yourself, and to grieve the mother you never had. If you would like to know more, feel free to visit my profile.