First published on Psychology Today November 10, 2019 As a narcissistic abuse recovery coach, I offer several fundamental insights to clients that anyone working to recover from long-term narcissistic abuse needs to know.
1. A larger pattern is at work.
If you have a history of narcissistic relationships, either with romantic partners or friends or both, it may be that you have come from a dysfunctional family system dominated by narcissistic parents or parents with other forms of mental illness and/or addiction. We all encounter narcissists in our lives, but those of us who stick around for abuse have typically been conditioned to such relationships in childhood. Connecting the past with the present is crucial to understanding yourself, changing patterns, and working on recovery.
2. Denial is your frenemy.
Denial is the child’s first and only defense. When we are helpless and dependent it is safer to deny deficiencies in our parents/caregivers than to admit them to ourselves. It is also safer to blame ourselves for a problem than to question the people we depend on for our survival. The child’s impulse to deny the abuse and blame her- or himself for causing problems are facts of human psychology, not conscious choices. But although denial helps us survive as children, it becomes self-destructive in adulthood. As long as we are in denial, we repeat unhealthy patterns and fail to protect ourselves and those we love from further abuse. Breaking denial about a parent, spouse, or other important relationship is the first and often most difficult step in the recovery process.
3. Here’s the bottom line about narcissism.
For those of us with emotional empathy for the feelings and perspectives of others, the narcissist’s lack of empathy is incomprehensible. Emotional connectedness and empathy are childhood developmental milestones that the narcissistic personality misses. No matter how capable the narcissist may be in other areas, those developmental deficits are profound impairments. It’s not a matter of finding the right way to explain your point of view, getting the narcissist to trust you, or finally somehow proving your worth. Narcissists don’t care about your explanations, you can’t win their trust, and your “worth” ebbs and flows with the level of service and/or status they feel you offer them. The pathological narcissist does not and will never care about your feelings or needs unless they happen to align in some way with what he or she needs. If you are the narcissist’s child or spouse, that includes you.
4. There is no way around grief.
Processing the reality of a relationship with a narcissistic parent or partner involves loss and grief. As an adult child, you grieve the loss of the loving parent you never had, the healthy family and childhood you missed, and, most fundamentally, the person you might have been with more support. As a partner, you grieve the person you fell in love with and thought you knew, the love you didn’t get, and the time you spent hoping for something that never came—the trust and intimacy that could never be. Mourning those losses is deeply painful, and takes time. Often we do anything to avoid the pain, distracting and numbing ourselves with compulsions and addictions. Many of us spend years running from grief only to find it staring us in the face in our 40s, 50s, or 60s, or even later. Sitting with our grief, acknowledging it, and moving through its full spectrum of emotion is necessary for healing.
5. You have been through complex trauma.
Long-term narcissistic abuse, particularly of a child, is a profound form of trauma. Children in a narcissistic home experience repeated, ongoing assaults to their sense of identity and wholeness that leave lasting emotional and physical scars. Such children or partners often manifest complex trauma, including hypervigilance, anxiety, depression, and chronic pain and illness. Recognizing the effects of complex trauma and treating the symptoms are essential steps on the healing path.
6. You can heal.
Along with our capacity for suffering is a commensurate capacity to heal. Healing happens when we recognize the larger patterns at work in our lives, overcome denial, understand the reality of narcissism, and move through our grief and trauma on the road toward a healthier and happier state of being.
Listen to Julie being interviewed on The Addicted Mind Podcast and Narcissist Apocalypse Podcast.
Julie L. Hall is the author of The Narcissist in Your Life: Recognizing the Patterns and Learning to Break Free from Hachette Books.
Need support? Julie is a narcissistic abuse recovery coach for clients around the world.
Related Articles by Julie L. Hall
- The Narcissistic Family: Cast of Characters and Glossary of Terms
- Understanding the Narcissist’s Disrespect, Envy, and Contempt
- Healing a Sense of Foreshortened Future in Adult Children of Narcissists
- The Narcissist’s Caretakers: Caught Hook, Line, and Sinker
- What the Narcissist Fears Most
- Narcissist Parents Are Hurt Machines to Their Children
- Identifying the Covert Narcissist in Your Life: A Checklist
- Understanding Narcissistic Rage and Why It’s Not Your Fault
- The Dos and Don’ts of CoParenting with a Narcissist Ex
- How to Protect Your Children from Your Narcissist Spouse
- Why Narcissists Will Never Love You and It’s Dangerous to Love Them
- Horrid and Shocking Things Narcissists Say and Do
- The Overt Versus Covert Narcissist: Both Suck
- Seven Things Narcissists Will Never Do
- The Hidden Trauma of Neglect in the Narcissistic Family
- Enabling the Narcissist: How and Why It Happens
- How Narcissists Torture Others and Believe They’re Right to Do It
- Seven Sure-Fire Ways to Spot a Narcissist
- Maddening and Bizarre Things Narcissists Do Explained
- Behind the Narcissist Mask: The Bully, Coward, Liar and Fraud
- Why You Should Not Feel Sorry for the Narcissist
- Adult Children of Narcissists Face Trauma-Induced Health Risks
- Raised by a Narcissist? 11 Healing Things to Do for Yourself Right Now
- What Raging Narcissists Break: A Real-Life Damage List
- The Dilemma of the Golden Child in the Narcissistic Family
- Narcissism 101: A Glossary of Terms for Understanding the Madness
- The Narcissism Disease Cluster in Families and How to End the Cycle
- A Daughter’s Story of One Hell of a Narcissistic Mother
- The Narcissist Parent’s Psychological Warfare: Parentifying, Idealizing, and Scapegoating
- Raised by Narcissists? Why You Can’t Afford the Wrong Therapist
- 4 Insidious Ways That Narcissistic Abuse Isolates the Victim
- It’s You and Me Baby: Narcissistic Head Games
- How and Why Narcissists Are Highly Skilled Abusers
- The Strength of the Scapegoat in the Narcissistic Family
- Life in the Fun House: Narcissistic Mirroring and Projection
- The Paradox of the Narcissist’s Unrequited Self-Love
Featured image courtesy of Ozzy Delaney, Creative Commons.
View Comments (4)
Thank you for your work, your truth, and the hope you share. At 51, the journey is finally making sense!
At 19, I processed my parents being adult children of alcoholics and our family system, dysfunctional. In my 20s, I dealt with memories of sexual abuse. In my 30s I mourned the lack of mothering and learned that setting adult boundaries or attempting to communicate/confront resulted in their doubling down on abuse patterns/trying to keep me their scapegoat-child. (As you say, "It's not a matter of finding the right way to express your point of view"!) In my 40s, I questioned whether the people in my life had ADD or high-functioning autism, recognised the repetitive issues in my marriage (and other relationships), and faced the cold reality of my brothers perpetuating the cycle. Now, with the information you've shared, I see it all clearly... the flying monkey, the golden child, the way my husband ignores our children and is not motivated by empathy, the chronic fatigue and feelings of a "foreshortened life"... the reasons why personal growth does not enhance these relationships (but is met with sabotage!), communication skills do not help, relational rules do not apply.
The intransigence has a Name. And now that I know that name, I can see what I must do: I must take the energy I have given these relationships and my recovery and put it into living life. MY life, which I am claiming back from all the forces that have tried to make it so much less than what it could be. And THAT is a very encouraging proposition!
Thank you Julie Hall for helping those of us who are searching for answers concerning family dysfunction and NPD. I am an HSP and have been and still am dealing with the trauma of being brought up by narcissistic parents. Your articles are clear and easy to understand. You validate the trauma of the non-disordered child and help us to understand.
The child’s impulse to deny the abuse and blame her- or himself for causing problems are facts of human psychology, not conscious choices.
This is so strange! Years ago a therapist asked me to draw how my mother made me feel. I couldn't explain why but what I drew was the core of an apple, just like in the picture above! I didn't know the significance of the picture until the the therapist said 'She's eaten you all up!' And that's how it felt, that she had not only taken over my life, but had my soul as well. All that was left was the core of me, nothing else.