First published in Psychology Today April 30, 2020
Children of narcissists endure profound ongoing neglect and abuse that result in disrupted attachment, insecure identity formation, unstable self-esteem, and complex traumatic stress. Adding to the trauma, such children are usually told in myriad ways by their parents and perhaps others in and beyond the family that their parents are above reproach and the children are to blame for the treatment they receive. This form of gaslighting is often magnified for kids whose narcissistic parents present a high-achieving, charismatic, pious, or do-gooder persona to outsiders.
Tragically, children from narcissistic families often experience further invalidation as adults when they reach out for support from people who fail to understand the reality of narcissistic abuse and resulting complex-PTSD. Even well-intentioned people may make matters worse by denying or dismissing survivors’ experience and/or giving them ill-conceived advice.
5 Things Children of Narcissists Wish Everyone Would Stop Saying
1. All parents love their children.
Because our core beliefs about family and society rest on ideals of unconditional parental love, in particular motherly love, acknowledging the truth that not all parents love their children or support their best interests is threatening to our fundamental sense of order and safety in the world. Yet it is this impulse to deny reality that enables abuse and further harms victims.
2. Just tell your parents how you feel.
Confiding our feelings with people we care about can be a powerful way to build understanding and intimacy, but it is not safe with a narcissistic parent. Because of their profound self-involvement, lack of empathy, exaggerated entitlement, and need to prop themselves up at others’ expense, narcissistic parents typically regard their children’s feelings as selfish, unreasonable, and threatening, even in infancy. Often such parents use their children’s feelings against them to manipulate, exploit, or humiliate them.
3. Kids always blame their parents.
The reality of human psychology is that kids deny flaws in their parents and blame themselves for their parents’ shortcomings in order to preserve whatever caregiving they can get and optimize their chances of survival. The compulsion to deny and self-blame is in fact so great that survivors typically struggle long into adulthood to acknowledge their parents’ inability to love them, adding to their suffering and making recovery more difficult.
4. But your parents are so great.
Narcissists’ defense mechanism is built around presenting an idealized “perfect” public image to win favor and insulate them from potential criticism or rejection. It is common for outsiders, even therapists, to fail to recognize the angry, controlling, and deluded narcissistic personality below the surface of the appealing or ingratiating persona.
5. Try to see it from your parents’ perspective.
A defining feature of pathological narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder is ruthless self-interest and a refusal to validate the perspectives of others, particularly family members. For children of narcissists, every day is an exercise in seeing things from their parents’ perspective with little to no validation of their own needs or feelings.
To help spare narcissistically abused children and the adults they grow into further trauma and isolation, we can begin by stepping back from our own facile assumptions and forms of denial to acknowledge the more complex realities that exist in families and relationships. When we have the courage to face unpleasant truths, we become more open, compassionate, and attuned to the experience and needs of those around us.
Read Julie’s acclaimed new book The Narcissist in Your Life: Recognizing the Patterns and Learning to Break Free from Hachette Books.
Need support? Julie offers specialized narcissistic abuse recovery coaching to clients around the world.
Related Articles by Julie L. Hall
- 12 Unspoken Rules of Engagement in the Narcissistic Family
- Your Narcissistic Mother Hates Your Body, and Here’s Why
- Are You Being Bullied by Narcissistic Monologuing?
- Decoding the True Narcissist: 7 Definitive Traits Explained
- Big Sissies: How and Why Narcissists Get Worse with Age
- Narcissist Parents Are Hurt Machines to Their Children
- What the Narcissist Fears Most
- Understanding Narcissistic Rage and Why It Is Not Your Fault
- The Dos and Don’ts of CoParenting with a Narcissist Ex
- 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
- Enabling the Narcissist: How and Why It Happens
- 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
- The Burden 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
- Raised by Narcissists? Why You Can’t Afford the Wrong Therapist
- It’s You and Me Baby: Narcissistic Head Games
- Identifying the Covert Narcissist in Your Life: A Checklist
- The Strength of the Narcissistic Family Scapegoat
- How to Protect Your Children from Your Narcissist Spouse
- 9 Best of the Worst Narcissist Mothers on Screen
- 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
Image courtesy of Qfamily.
12 Comments
Thank you very much dear Julie for your outstanding and deep article… God bless you and waiting for more articles. All the best
I can’t agree more to all of this.
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As a kid and a grown up adult still subject to a narcissistic dad, thanks for acknowledging and writing on our plight
I am all alone in life. My toxic Mother is still in control of my 5 siblings. They do her bidding. I embrace being an outcast. I had to love myself 1st. to heal. Thank you.
So true, and don’t forget “you couldn’t have been abused as a child, abused people grow up bitter and act out, and you’re so nice and loving.” They don’t realize a narcissistic mother usually produces a golden child likely to become a narcissist themselves and a scapegoat child likely to become an empathetic and loving person despite living through the worst abuse possible.
Normal, good advice hits victims hard at any age. But how can well-meaning people know? True, they probably need to dig deeper. But is a dismissal any better?
Another thing that people say is that there is a reason that your mother may be acting this way. Maybe she behaves this way because she had a rough upbringing herself. it is giving the narcissist a reason why she is acting this way and that it is ok for them to do it.
You forgot the most common and insidious and damaging remark most will say to you, “All families are dysfunctional.” Or even better, ” Hey, how do you know it is not partially your fault, you know it takes two to tango?!”
Thank you so much for these articles. For the first time in my 63 years, I am understanding my toxic mother. I have been reading these to my husband & daughter. We are all amazed at how accurately she is described. I feel I can finally start healing from years of kphysical and emotional abuse.
Thank you Julie I started my process of leaving my husband 2 years ago without knowing anything about narcissists but going on instinct. until the golden child revealed she had been sexually abused for 6 years. And things fell in the focus. 1 year later I really find the need for support as the ex code pendent mother. Firstly against guilt but also how to e strong enough when I myself is still u derstanding and healing to handle everyone’s emotions and how it is directed at me. I have no other family and I find it overwhelming. Your article https://narcissistfamilyfiles.com/2017/03/14/how-to-protect-your-children-from-your-narcissist-spouse/ has been helpful. I consider the silver lining of our situation that we do not need to maintain even minimum contact. Even so I find it worrying and upsetting when I see narcissistic behaviour in my other children. The guilt piles on even more leading to defensiveness.
Thank you for your work.
As early as 8 yrs old I began to experience psychosis – visual and audible hallucinations — and was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was 37. I have berated myself for not communicating with my parents about this when I was young, assuming they would have reached out to the medical community and found help for me. And maybe I would have a better, brighter future and not suffered so much, alone. But now I think my instincts may have been correct — it wasn’t safe to ever reveal these things to my family. Even when I was 37 and responsible for my own care, my family mostly responded with denial and toxic positivity and a collective sigh of shame.