“Why me?” you may be asking
Recently (or maybe not so recently) you discovered you have a narcissistic parent. It’s scary to acknowledge this reality. But don’t worry. Because I will give you tips and tricks on how to live with a narcissist and cope with life, nonetheless.
You might be freaking out, you might be asking yourself “why me?” and thinking about all the other people who you know that don’t have these issues with their family.
Yeah. We all go through that. It’s as if you somehow got the cursed ticket to an insane family, while all your friends have seemingly “normal” families.
Or maybe, for most of your life, you considered your family as a strong and steady force of nature. Maybe you looked at other people and saw all the flaws they had and all the struggles they’ve faced, and felt sorry for them, thinking that you had a “normal” family and they didn’t. Maybe you used to look at others and think only they had problems when in reality, you’ve had the same problems all along, you just didn’t realize them before – simply because when you are born and introduced to an environment and live in that way long enough, you get used to everything, you begin to accept it, you don’t see it as a strange thing (and if you add to the equation the fact that you are still developing as a human being, and that your brain and body are still growing and maturing, you get to understand that life isn’t exactly the way you think it is through your child/teen/young adult eyes).
Yes, life tricks us all every once in a while.
But don’t ever think you are alone. Because the best example that I can give you to prove that this world has more dysfunctional families than it should is if you take a look at all the movies. Especially those around Christmas time, with lots of sarcastic teenagers and authoritarian parents.
You are not alone; you are not cursed or unfortunate.
The most important part here is to accept that a new understanding of life has come to you, and you can now be released from old chains and start a new life.
Before you start, this post is part of a series of posts about the Narcissistic Parents topic:
- How to know if you were raised by Narcissistic Parents? (Evaluation of your family situation): here I help you analyze your life up until this point with concrete examples for you to introspect on your family issues.
- Signs, Traits, and Behavior of Narcissistic Parents (Evaluation of the signs of Narcissism): here I give specific information about narcissistic signs and the behavior they use on their children, with a list at the end.
- How Narcissistic Parents Affect their Child (Evaluation of Self): here I explain the issues that come after growing up with narcissistic parents, showing common traits and behavior children adopt because of the constant narcissistic abuse from their narcissistic parent.
- How to Live with a Narcissist and Cope with Life? (Evaluation of what to do): How can you cope with life after you discover your parent is a narcissist. Current post.
Disclaimer: This is not professional medical advice and this information doesn’t substitute therapy and consultation with a professional. You should always consult a medical specialist in the field for professional advice.
New Phase of Life: Realization Process Activating Now!
@ pexels images
Hold my drink, I’m going to start a journey of asserting myself to the world!
Once you realize one of your parents (or maybe both of them) is a narcissist, you have to enter a new journey in your life. Everything that you knew up until this point MUST be put into question. It has to be. There is no way back.
You need to put yourself through a self-realization process where you look into your past, into all your accomplishments, your decisions, your important moments until this day, your past friendships, your past romantic interests and relationships and analyze what really happened back then.
Why?
You grew up with your parents. Your parents shaped you. They made many decisions for you. They helped you make your “own” decisions with their help. So this means, your life view was molded through their eyes. And this is important to understand.
And because of that, you really have to go through the struggle of analyzing your life up until now, to really know who you are. To understand what decisions were really yours and what decisions weren’t. What you did do by yourself and what you couldn’t do because they didn’t let you do it.
The perceptions of your reality have been shaped by your NParent
Your reality has been shaped by them. They gas-lighted your reality. And you need to take your life, your perception of yourself and your reality BACK to where it belongs! And you need to understand how to live with a narcissist parent from now on.
As before you realized they were narcissists, you thought that your decisions were your decisions. But now, I want you to really consider if you actually decided on anything that you really wanted to.
Because maybe (most certainly), you have been persuaded and convinced to do what they wanted you to do all this time.
This way, you will discover the things that you wanted to do but couldn’t, because of them. (And maybe start doing them now)
Know that You have been enlightened…
But first, understand that what you are going through is a BIG DEAL! This is not something you understand and quickly forget the next day and go on with your life the same as it has been all this time. This is a moment in time where you reached a realization point in your life, where you came to understand that something wasn’t right, although you spent your whole life in that environment. And you must understand how to live your life with a narcissist parent, because they will not change (most probably).
So use this time to change your life around. Every child of narcissistic parents has to face real struggles of separation from their parent, as narcissists have this tight grip over your life.
But that needs to end after you reach maturity.
You absolutely must change your attitude towards your parents and your decision making, and the way you look at other parents and other families. You will need to re-evaluate your life and what you know now, to see things more clearly.
1st step: Look at your life so far
This is a self-reflecting journey of introspection of your present and your past.
You need to spend time to move back to your childhood, to your memories. Realize that you need to see things clearly now, and it is only possible if you look back into your past and find the gaps and the red flags. Read that post again, anytime you wish to try to recall things from your past, as there are already tons of questions that I have written to help you think of and analyse.
So go back and remember what issues you had, what friends in school you had, how were you behaving in school, how did your friends treat you, remember past loves and breakups and why you think they happened, why you stopped talking with that friend, or why did you give up playing an instrument, or studying X, or going to W.
An easy way to start is to make a list of accomplishments in your life from birth until now. Just like filling up a CV. Write down everything you’ve ever done.
Remember all the tough moments you’ve had in your past, because those are probably the things that you have come to forget the most, or tried to erase from your memory as fast as possible, but you didn’t really introspect on them very much because of the bad feelings that they gave you – and also because, your narcissistic parent never really let you express your emotions, so you learned to gas-light your own emotions in result.
But since time heals all, you can now have the guts to travel back in time and understand yourself (and after that, you’ll understand why you are where you are now, in the present moment and why you’ve made your life the way it is now and check if you are happy or not with it and change it if you will yourself to it).
2nd step: Deeply analyze how they have shaped your reality
Once you see that your family has changed your perceptions of life and your own decisions, your values, and so on, you can get your own life back.
When you accept that you have become this other person because of them, once you see that they have been treating you badly all along and that was absolutely not acceptable! you can start growing into the person you really should have been.
They are your family, yes. But your family doesn’t have a right to push your limits, to shape your reality, and to always make you feel guilty for everything you do for yourself without them or their approval.
This is a cycle. If you don’t fully accept that they are not emotionally stable and that what they say or do to you is not supposed to happen, then you will just continue on living the same life you’ve had, being tied up to a very tight chain over your neck for the rest of your life.
3rd step: Learn the main tactics they use on you
So how do you live life and come to terms with your parent being a narcissist? The way to see them in a less angered and infuriating way after you realize all the techniques they pull at you, is to understand that what they have been doing to you is unconscious at many levels.
You will feel betrayed and used and misunderstood if this is the first time you thought about all this. But one of the ways to cope with the anger towards them is to see them as psychologically ill people.
If you realize that this is a problem that they have and don’t know, you will be able to ignore the comments facing your way and be kind of neutral when they impose things on you, because you will no longer listen so close to what they are saying, as you know it’s just their need for approval that is just constant and unconscious, so they are just fighting for that constant love forever and ever, without realizing that they use those same old techniques on you. It is like they are in a constant war. Like cats, constantly reacting to every sound, even though there is no real threat.
Their tactics for getting what they want are ALWAYS the same.
So once you start realizing what those techniques are, it becomes more of “oh, I see what you are trying to do. Nope. That attempt to make me feel guilty is not gonna happen. I know what you’re doing. Sorry” inside your head.
This way, you can ridicule whatever they are saying, as you now know that the base of your disagreements is generally their basic need to be loved, accepted, have all the attention, be always right. This way, you can ignore what they say, finally, and go make your plans instead, because you understand their behavior.
4th step: Find tangible, real things from your past
Our brains can’t remember everything just by wanting to. But we have solutions to this problem. Triggers that help us reach that shelf in the back of the brain long forgotten.
Therefore, the best way to recall your past is to reach out for any real, tangible record of your life back then. Find your old diaries, notebooks, scrapbooks, or drawing books, go to your old computer and check for your messages with your old friends on social media.
As you read your own writing, you will remember past events that you forgot. Check for your old comments on Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, and so on.
Because there you have your past emotions written all over, and it’s the real way of seeing yourself through new eyes and a wiser perspective. The Internet is a huge storage of our lives, use it!
You will eventually realize that your perceptions of how things were are now very different. You will recall issues and situations that you forgot and will see them very differently than before. And you will be able to understand yourself better after this journey.
Use these helpful triggers whenever you forget about your reality or fall into the traps of your narcissistic parent again.
5th step: Stop the vicious cycle
It might be hard to understand the point of view of the narcissistic parent, but they’ve also had their struggles in childhood, which made them narcissists. And that is why they have adopted this type of behavior. There was a trigger that triggered them to be the way they are now.
This is all pretty much a cycle. That can go on for generations to come.
Basically, their parents didn’t provide the proper love and the proper care for them, so they ended up compensating that with their narcissistic attitude, as they believed that was the way to cope with life. Then they had you, and because they didn’t get to see how to properly raise a child and experience that proper love, they didn’t really know how to do that themselves with you. So they continued their life from childhood to adulthood having this narcissistic behavior towards everyone, and so, you were no exception. They raised you the way they thought was right with their damaged childhood perception of life.
In result, they couldn’t give you what you needed as a kid, so you lack that normal support every child craves. They “stole your childhood”, to quote Dr. Ramani Durvasula from her videos on YouTube.
6th step: Don’t let this go on for another generation
If you just read this and you go on with your regular life the same way it has been, you can be sentencing your own children to a bad childhood. (just so you know)
Because everyone who has suffered narcissistic abuse has to first acknowledge that they have been the victims of real abuse.
Narcissism is not a personality thing that you can say “oh, it’s just how he/she is. You can’t do anything about it.”
No! You MUST do everything in your power to fight their control over you!
Children of narcissistic parents build emotional wounds due to the abuse from their narcissistic parents. This constant abuse over years and years leads to psychological and emotional issues that need to be acknowledged and treated.
Why? Because if you have a wound, say on your leg, you are debilitated in that place where the wound is. You need support from others on your everyday shores, as you have a wound on your leg. You will drag others along with you so they can help you with your life because you have this wound and it is affecting you. So if you don’t treat that wound, it will get worse and you will face more severe consequences from not treating it, and if you completely ignore it, well, you’ll just have to amputate your leg.
So imagine the childhood emotional wounds of narcissistic parenting. It is the same. If you don’t treat them, you’ll be letting the emotional wounds get deeper and stronger and that will bring you consequences after consequences, not only to you but to everyone around you. And your whole life will be conditioned due to that.
Your friends, your dog, your cat, your parrot, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your daughter, your son, your co-workers, your boss. Everyone around you will be touched by your wound. It will be visible. It will be debilitating your relationships with others because they are emotional wounds. And you need to be open to others to communicate. If you have emotional wounds, a lot of issues are then present that will create a barrier between you and other people. Thus, conditioning your relationships with others.
7th step: Don’t just ignore this, it won’t get better by itself
This will damage you your whole life if you don’t come to terms with the reality of your family and really study this matter. I can assure you that. Because those that knew that something was wrong, that their parents were bad but didn’t understand the whole situation and the exact behavior and traits, even if they later in life said that “they would never be like their parents” they ended up just like them.
And because they kept saying that they “wouldn’t be like their parents”, it has only been an excuse to cover their own behavior and be blind over it, since they only see that their parents were the bad ones, although they themselves have become that same person, as the sense of being the victim is very strong, and they feel like they need all the love and care, so they can’t possibly believe that they are the bad ones.
Study more, educate yourself. Introspect on your life so far. Begin a changing process.
Just by thinking about this, things won’t change.
8th step: Don’t make excuses for their behavior
Narcissism is a real thing. And you can’t pretend that it is normal. You can’t make excuses for their behavior. And you can’t let them gas-light your reality to fit their needs.
Narcissists are in a constant war for survival. They see threats everywhere. They are like cats, only minding their needs. That is their main priority in every choice they make. They need to have some kind of gain, every time.
But you are not their support team. They should have supported you, not the other way around.
So you either don’t do anything and let your narcissistic parent take over your life or, you begin a new life journey. A journey of self-love and self-acceptance (of the good and, most importantly, the bad things about yourself).
9th step: Narcissists can’t change
If you’re still wishing to know: Can narcissists change?:
People with NPD have learned to ignore, suppress, deny, project, and disavow their vulnerabilities (or at least try) in their attempts to shape and reshape “who they are” in their interactions. Change—allowing the vulnerability back in— means opening up to the very feelings they’ve learned to avoid at all costs. It’s not that people with NPD can’t change; it’s that it often threatens their sense of personhood to try. And their failed relationships often confirm, in their minds, that narcissism is the safest way to live. (…) Their terror is frequently out of awareness, and nearly always managed with bravado and blame, but it’s profound and palpable. Sadly, their anger at having their mistakes and missteps exposed ultimately alienates their loved ones, and the demise of yet another relationship prompts them to redouble their efforts to avoid vulnerability—in short, it pushes them towards more narcissism. The sad irony of the narcissistic condition is that, in an effort to protect themselves, narcissists inevitably invite the very rejection and abandonment they fear in the first place. The key, then, to interacting with someone you suspect is narcissistic is to break the vicious circle—to gently thwart their frantic efforts to control, distance, defend or blame in the relationship by sending the message that you’re more than willing to connect with them, but not on these terms; to invite them into a version of intimacy where they can be loved and admired, warts and all—if they only allow the experience to happen. [that is the big question, and hardest part to achieve] By Psychology Today
10th step: Acceptance (not “improvement”)
In this journey of self-discovery, it’s important to stick to the idea that acceptance of who you are & acceptance of your past is the only way to live life with a narcissist parent.
The Road of “self-improvement”
Making yourself believe that you need to try to improve things, try to always be better, and improving yourself is a dangerous journey. As you can pass the limit, and be too harsh on yourself, and believe you need to be perfect, and guilt and shame will arise in you – and that never leads to good things because you have already been damaged and taken to believe that you need to feel guilty all the time for everyone else’s problems.
The Road of Rage, Anger, Denial
And, denial and anger won’t do you good either. Because you can’t change your narcissistic parent. So there is no point in being angry forever. You can be angry in the beginning, but you shouldn’t keep that anger accumulated forever – it will lead to health problems and instability in your life.
The only road possible
Just self-acceptance. Accept yourself first. Cry. Listen to heavy metal. Play the drums. Go to boxing classes. Use that anger into something that will not harm anyone nor harm yourself. Don’t let the anger stay and consume you.
Anger is an emotion like any other. You need to feel it. So don’t ignore your anger.
Accept that things are the way they are. Your past is yours, and you lived it. And you are stronger than others because of it. And you can still shape your present and your future, regardless of your past. And you can still feel angry at your parents from time to time, and at the same time love them for the better days that you had. It’s weird. But it’s life.
11th step: Create a concrete plan for your life
After you know all the techniques, expressions, tactics, sayings they use to gas-light you, invalidate you, manipulate you – after you know them well, then you can create a concrete plan and personal strategy on how to establish your control and boundaries over your life.
Create a plan of action for the further months to come (and further years too) and decide on what actions do you need to take to shape your life the way you wanted it to be without them.
Boundaries need to be created for a normal life, and you need to create a concrete plan of action to gain full control over your decisions.
12th step: Find someone to share your emotions
But what if you are still not completely able to accept this? You need to face your emotions: externalize your thoughts and emotions. Share your story with someone, anyone.
If you happen to just come across this discovery, then it is absolutely CRUCIAL to find a person with whom you can share your findings. You can’t be facing this by yourself. You absolutely need someone else to talk to about this.
So if you haven’t talked with anyone and shared your situations, try to find someone to share this information with. As said before, the result of narcissistic parenting is the child not having healthy ways of expressing their emotions and feelings. So it is very important to find a way to do so. You need to share this, get it off your chest, externalize your thoughts and feelings.
You can first try and exercise on a paper diary, or on your cell phone notebook, and then find a friend, sibling, or maybe a community on Reddit (if you never did it, know that people are very very supportive over there, and you can share everything you want and people will comment and try to help you out in an empathetic and non-judgmental way). Or try talking with a close friend that you trust. Try talking to your aunt or uncle. Or with a grandparent.
This is a huge step to understand what is real and what is not, and if you are battling with this all by yourself, you may not really believe all that is written here and begin to doubt your thoughts. So if you are down to solve your problems, just do yourself a favor and talk to someone through any means. It’s extremely important to do so, because others will show what common sense is and what it’s not, and you will see things from another perspective. And it won’t just be things inside your head. You will realize that it is all real.
13th step: Don’t fall in love with another narcissist!
Because of that “stolen childhood”, once you hit your mature years, once you begin dating and going into the world on your own, there will be mainly two directions in romance to choose from.
Either you try to find a decent normal person, who will give you what you lacked, what you didn’t have. Someone who will be supportive of you. Someone who’s going to complete your need for emotional support, care, understanding. In this direction, you will attract people into your life that are complete opposites of your parents. And that will mean that you have realized their faults and your insecurities and started to understand yourself better by choosing better people to be with because you opened your eyes! This way, you will try to find a dear person to you who is not going to be the way your parents were to you.
Or, the opposite can happen, if you don’t really accept your insecurities and don’t understand yourself and your own needs. Children of narcissists have a huge possibility to find themselves in abusive relationships, because of years of getting used to that since childhood. If you choose this direction, you will be looking for people that are familiar to you, similar to your narcissistic mother or father. You will attract people that are just like they were to you, and it will all feel somehow familiar, something that you know well enough. It will have a strong pulling feeling. It can even feel like it was meant to be. However, this will be a big trap. As this strong attraction and “pulling” feelings are misleading. It’s that hype of the beginning of a relationship. And once it has passed, you will only be left with the same kinds of attitudes you had faced all your life with your narcissistic parent.
This second direction is absolutely a terrible one. Narcissists can’t love anyone but themselves. So a child of narcissistic parents needs to RUN AWAY from other narcissists as soon as they see them coming and try to enter their lives. Otherwise, the abuse will continue, and life will be dark again, and no real change is going to happen.
14th step: Know that there will be people that don’t understand your situation
It is hard to accept a reality where you need to distance yourself from your parents in order to have a normal life and be emotionally stable. Not everyone is going to be supportive or understanding of the situation, as many people will just say “Oh, everyone has their difficulties and struggles in childhood” (bull***!).
So if you have been talking to people that don’t actually understand your family situation, then find someone else who will help you in these though times. Just don’t listen to them. Don’t pretend that there is no problem and that you can deal you’re your parents being like that. It is a trap.
In this case, if you don’t have someone close to you to talk about this, then there is another great option, that is the least scary of them all, which is talking with people who face the same problems. Yes. There are tons of people that suffer from this, and they are all on Reddit opening their hearts and sharing their stories. And everyone is very supportive and helpful. I myself am there from time to time to bring some light and help someone. There are hundreds of groups (subreddits) dedicated especially for the topics of narcissistic parents abuse – “raised by narcissists“, “offmychest“, “narcissisticabuse“, just to name a few.
Isolation is a bad idea
Don’t let yourself be alone too much. Being isolated from other people will enable narcissistic abuse to penetrate more deeply, because you will feel lonely, away from everyone.
You absolutely need to be around other people. Not only to be less in the house and in your head, but to also see other ways of living life, dealing with new and different situations, behaving and communicating with others. The more you are with others, the more you learn how to properly behave in this world and the faster you can heal those emotional wounds, as you learn how to respond to people in a more natural way and see how they respond to you – as your narcissistic parents’ responses are never adequate or normal. So it’s important to have other people as role models of normality and proper way of living and behaving (contrasting with your parents’ abnormal behaviour and reactions), in order for you to have better mental health and to develop in a healthier way as a human being, which will ultimately benefit not only yourself, but all the people around you that you will encounter in your life, as well as, most importantly, your children – because again, we need to stop the cycle of building emotionally unstable children who then become adults and then have their own children. This hell cycle must be stopped!
And the best part of being more with other people outside your family, is that you can then clearly see that your narcissistic parent is really not normal, because you will be able to compare them with other people, as you will have many examples of other people that will be real, and tangible, and not just thoughts in your head while you think about how things are bad, in your room, isolated from reality.
15th step: Find ways to self-express
Another important step is to give some of yourself to the world. Just self-expression of any kind will help you deal with your emotions. Art, music, painting, singing, playing an instrument, any type of sport, a hobby, a sub-reddit, a blog, a YouTube channel, a fulfilling job, a solidarity organization that will help other people.
Finding ways of expressing your feelings through something that you will do and put it out to the physical world will be a blessing and a breath of fresh air – as most certainly you never felt like you could express yourself freely in their house anyway.
16th step: As soon as you can, get out of their house
The first step into a healthy life is to just get away from your narcissistic parent’s house. You just can’t keep on living there. As soon as you are old enough and able to get out from their house, do it.
If you are old enough and are still there, get a job, go live anywhere, just far away from them. Stop being dependable. Your freedom in this situation is more important than anything else. Because what’s at stake here is your emotional well-being, your decision-making abilities, your happiness and your life in general. If you don’t really want to compromise with working in a crappy place or living in a less comfortable house, you need to re-evaluate your needs.
You need to be independent
Alone by yourself. To find your own peace. To learn to live.
The antidote to narcissistic parents is independence. They don’t have boundaries or limits to their control. So you make them have them.
Go be your own self. Independent. To reflect on life. To make your own decisions.
You can’t keep having someone else trying to control every step you make, every decision in life, every person you bring home. You are an independent individual, you are not your parent’s property, and they cannot force you to stay or to keep you with them. As again, you are not their property.
You are a child of the world. If they think they can control your life and made you think that way also, think again. It’s their perception that you are their projection. Because they gave birth to you. And they keep on telling how hard it was, and how much they did for you. But it is all the same tactics. The manipulation, the guilt, the shame.
But what if you can’t get out yet?
Then, first of all, don’t panic. Don’t drop out of school. As then your future will be compromised, as at least the obligatory years of school must be done to get a decent job anywhere and have prospects for a future, as it won’t be easy to go back to school when you’re older.
So if you can’t get out the house yet, the solution is for you to stop being there as much as possible. Find a hobby – sports (any kind); music classes; art classes; yoga classes; gym classes; karate classes; jiu-jitsu classes; krav maga classes; literature club; going to the library to read stuff or be on your computer as you would at home; find friends that will be with you more often; stay the night at your best friend’s house more often; invite your friends over more times (as they can’t bug you when someone else is around). Find any kind of activities that will take all your free time after school. Just have a more social life, be more with other people, as it will help you to get another perspective on life outside from your narcissistic parents.
If they don’t allow you to just be with friends more often, the perfect excuse is a hobby. And at the same time, that hobby will bring more friends and more time spent with other people outside your family, which will make you feel happier, more secure in life, and able to deal with different people in the world, as we all learn so much every time we spend time with others.
Also, consider finding a part-time job somewhere to earn extra money. Go volunteer for a community. Build your skills for the future, because eventually, you’ll be away from your school and your parents.
17th step: Understand that no matter what, for them, you are a baby, forever
Always remember, they will never accept that you will be independent. NEVER. As they want their accomplishment to be very close to them, like a small baby. But you’re not their baby to order around anymore. You are not a baby anymore (as you certainly can at least read this). So as soon as you are of age, go to university, go work, save money, go to your sibling’s house, go to your friend’s house. Do whatever, just get out of that place.
So, remember
The more you bend and allow their opinions to overcome your own, the more damaged you become.
However, if you fight back it will only lead to a losing war to your side.
So the only outcome to this story is to turn around and go on separate ways.
Keep your distance from them. Choose the time you spend with them. Absolutely don’t stay in the same house (obviously) as it will only lead to more damage.
“First things first: get a very good therapist, one who accepts the idea that your mother is a narcissist and will help you through the results. Secondly, reassess your boundaries with your mother. Normal parenting does not require the majority of the child’s energy be devoted to soothing or attending to the parent; you are allowed to have your own life and needs, something a narcissistic mother will not understand.”
Take a look at Doctor Ramani’s YouTube Channel, a clinical psychologist that has a lot of videos to help you cope with this.
Wish you all the best and lots of inner strength!
Stay healthy and curious!
PS. Share your thoughts and struggles! I’ll be happy to hear more from my readers!
Disclaimer: This is not professional medical advice and this information doesn’t substitute therapy and consultation with a professional. You should always consult a medical specialist in the field for professional advice.
“Why me?” you may be asking
Recently (or maybe not so recently) you discovered you have a narcissistic parent. It’s scary to acknowledge this reality. But don’t worry. Because I will give you tips and tricks on how to live with a narcissist and cope with life, nonetheless.
You might be freaking out, you might be asking yourself “why me?” and thinking about all the other people who you know that don’t have these issues with their family.
Yeah. We all go through that. It’s as if you somehow got the cursed ticket to an insane family, while all your friends have seemingly “normal” families.
Or maybe, for most of your life, you considered your family as a strong and steady force of nature. Maybe you looked at other people and saw all the flaws they had and all the struggles they’ve faced, and felt sorry for them, thinking that you had a “normal” family and they didn’t. Maybe you used to look at others and think only they had problems when in reality, you’ve had the same problems all along, you just didn’t realize them before – simply because when you are born and introduced to an environment and live in that way long enough, you get used to everything, you begin to accept it, you don’t see it as a strange thing (and if you add to the equation the fact that you are still developing as a human being, and that your brain and body are still growing and maturing, you get to understand that life isn’t exactly the way you think it is through your child/teen/young adult eyes).
Yes, life tricks us all every once in a while.
But don’t ever think you are alone. Because the best example that I can give you to prove that this world has more dysfunctional families than it should is if you take a look at all the movies. Especially those around Christmas time, with lots of sarcastic teenagers and authoritarian parents.
You are not alone; you are not cursed or unfortunate.
The most important part here is to accept that a new understanding of life has come to you, and you can now be released from old chains and start a new life.
Before you start, this post is part of a series of posts about the Narcissistic Parents topic:
- How to know if you were raised by Narcissistic Parents? (Evaluation of your family situation): here I help you analyze your life up until this point with concrete examples for you to introspect on your family issues.
- Signs, Traits, and Behavior of Narcissistic Parents (Evaluation of the signs of Narcissism): here I give specific information about narcissistic signs and the behavior they use on their children, with a list at the end.
- How Narcissistic Parents Affect their Child (Evaluation of Self): here I explain the issues that come after growing up with narcissistic parents, showing common traits and behavior children adopt because of the constant narcissistic abuse from their narcissistic parent.
- How to Live with a Narcissist and Cope with Life? (Evaluation of what to do): How can you cope with life after you discover your parent is a narcissist. Current post.
Disclaimer: This is not professional medical advice and this information doesn’t substitute therapy and consultation with a professional. You should always consult a medical specialist in the field for professional advice.
New Phase of Life: Realization Process Activating Now!
@ pexels images
Hold my drink, I’m going to start a journey of asserting myself to the world!
Once you realize one of your parents (or maybe both of them) is a narcissist, you have to enter a new journey in your life. Everything that you knew up until this point MUST be put into question. It has to be. There is no way back.
You need to put yourself through a self-realization process where you look into your past, into all your accomplishments, your decisions, your important moments until this day, your past friendships, your past romantic interests and relationships and analyze what really happened back then.
Why?
You grew up with your parents. Your parents shaped you. They made many decisions for you. They helped you make your “own” decisions with their help. So this means, your life view was molded through their eyes. And this is important to understand.
And because of that, you really have to go through the struggle of analyzing your life up until now, to really know who you are. To understand what decisions were really yours and what decisions weren’t. What you did do by yourself and what you couldn’t do because they didn’t let you do it.
The perceptions of your reality have been shaped by your NParent
Your reality has been shaped by them. They gas-lighted your reality. And you need to take your life, your perception of yourself and your reality BACK to where it belongs! And you need to understand how to live with a narcissist parent from now on.
As before you realized they were narcissists, you thought that your decisions were your decisions. But now, I want you to really consider if you actually decided on anything that you really wanted to.
Because maybe (most certainly), you have been persuaded and convinced to do what they wanted you to do all this time.
This way, you will discover the things that you wanted to do but couldn’t, because of them. (And maybe start doing them now)
Know that You have been enlightened…
But first, understand that what you are going through is a BIG DEAL! This is not something you understand and quickly forget the next day and go on with your life the same as it has been all this time. This is a moment in time where you reached a realization point in your life, where you came to understand that something wasn’t right, although you spent your whole life in that environment. And you must understand how to live your life with a narcissist parent, because they will not change (most probably).
So use this time to change your life around. Every child of narcissistic parents has to face real struggles of separation from their parent, as narcissists have this tight grip over your life.
But that needs to end after you reach maturity.
You absolutely must change your attitude towards your parents and your decision making, and the way you look at other parents and other families. You will need to re-evaluate your life and what you know now, to see things more clearly.
1st step: Look at your life so far
This is a self-reflecting journey of introspection of your present and your past.
You need to spend time to move back to your childhood, to your memories. Realize that you need to see things clearly now, and it is only possible if you look back into your past and find the gaps and the red flags. Read that post again, anytime you wish to try to recall things from your past, as there are already tons of questions that I have written to help you think of and analyse.
So go back and remember what issues you had, what friends in school you had, how were you behaving in school, how did your friends treat you, remember past loves and breakups and why you think they happened, why you stopped talking with that friend, or why did you give up playing an instrument, or studying X, or going to W.
An easy way to start is to make a list of accomplishments in your life from birth until now. Just like filling up a CV. Write down everything you’ve ever done.
Remember all the tough moments you’ve had in your past, because those are probably the things that you have come to forget the most, or tried to erase from your memory as fast as possible, but you didn’t really introspect on them very much because of the bad feelings that they gave you – and also because, your narcissistic parent never really let you express your emotions, so you learned to gas-light your own emotions in result.
But since time heals all, you can now have the guts to travel back in time and understand yourself (and after that, you’ll understand why you are where you are now, in the present moment and why you’ve made your life the way it is now and check if you are happy or not with it and change it if you will yourself to it).
2nd step: Deeply analyze how they have shaped your reality
Once you see that your family has changed your perceptions of life and your own decisions, your values, and so on, you can get your own life back.
When you accept that you have become this other person because of them, once you see that they have been treating you badly all along and that was absolutely not acceptable! you can start growing into the person you really should have been.
They are your family, yes. But your family doesn’t have a right to push your limits, to shape your reality, and to always make you feel guilty for everything you do for yourself without them or their approval.
This is a cycle. If you don’t fully accept that they are not emotionally stable and that what they say or do to you is not supposed to happen, then you will just continue on living the same life you’ve had, being tied up to a very tight chain over your neck for the rest of your life.
3rd step: Learn the main tactics they use on you
So how do you live life and come to terms with your parent being a narcissist? The way to see them in a less angered and infuriating way after you realize all the techniques they pull at you, is to understand that what they have been doing to you is unconscious at many levels.
You will feel betrayed and used and misunderstood if this is the first time you thought about all this. But one of the ways to cope with the anger towards them is to see them as psychologically ill people.
If you realize that this is a problem that they have and don’t know, you will be able to ignore the comments facing your way and be kind of neutral when they impose things on you, because you will no longer listen so close to what they are saying, as you know it’s just their need for approval that is just constant and unconscious, so they are just fighting for that constant love forever and ever, without realizing that they use those same old techniques on you. It is like they are in a constant war. Like cats, constantly reacting to every sound, even though there is no real threat.
Their tactics for getting what they want are ALWAYS the same.
So once you start realizing what those techniques are, it becomes more of “oh, I see what you are trying to do. Nope. That attempt to make me feel guilty is not gonna happen. I know what you’re doing. Sorry” inside your head.
This way, you can ridicule whatever they are saying, as you now know that the base of your disagreements is generally their basic need to be loved, accepted, have all the attention, be always right. This way, you can ignore what they say, finally, and go make your plans instead, because you understand their behavior.
4th step: Find tangible, real things from your past
Our brains can’t remember everything just by wanting to. But we have solutions to this problem. Triggers that help us reach that shelf in the back of the brain long forgotten.
Therefore, the best way to recall your past is to reach out for any real, tangible record of your life back then. Find your old diaries, notebooks, scrapbooks, or drawing books, go to your old computer and check for your messages with your old friends on social media.
As you read your own writing, you will remember past events that you forgot. Check for your old comments on Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, and so on.
Because there you have your past emotions written all over, and it’s the real way of seeing yourself through new eyes and a wiser perspective. The Internet is a huge storage of our lives, use it!
You will eventually realize that your perceptions of how things were are now very different. You will recall issues and situations that you forgot and will see them very differently than before. And you will be able to understand yourself better after this journey.
Use these helpful triggers whenever you forget about your reality or fall into the traps of your narcissistic parent again.
5th step: Stop the vicious cycle
It might be hard to understand the point of view of the narcissistic parent, but they’ve also had their struggles in childhood, which made them narcissists. And that is why they have adopted this type of behavior. There was a trigger that triggered them to be the way they are now.
This is all pretty much a cycle. That can go on for generations to come.
Basically, their parents didn’t provide the proper love and the proper care for them, so they ended up compensating that with their narcissistic attitude, as they believed that was the way to cope with life. Then they had you, and because they didn’t get to see how to properly raise a child and experience that proper love, they didn’t really know how to do that themselves with you. So they continued their life from childhood to adulthood having this narcissistic behavior towards everyone, and so, you were no exception. They raised you the way they thought was right with their damaged childhood perception of life.
In result, they couldn’t give you what you needed as a kid, so you lack that normal support every child craves. They “stole your childhood”, to quote Dr. Ramani Durvasula from her videos on YouTube.
6th step: Don’t let this go on for another generation
If you just read this and you go on with your regular life the same way it has been, you can be sentencing your own children to a bad childhood. (just so you know)
Because everyone who has suffered narcissistic abuse has to first acknowledge that they have been the victims of real abuse.
Narcissism is not a personality thing that you can say “oh, it’s just how he/she is. You can’t do anything about it.”
No! You MUST do everything in your power to fight their control over you!
Children of narcissistic parents build emotional wounds due to the abuse from their narcissistic parents. This constant abuse over years and years leads to psychological and emotional issues that need to be acknowledged and treated.
Why? Because if you have a wound, say on your leg, you are debilitated in that place where the wound is. You need support from others on your everyday shores, as you have a wound on your leg. You will drag others along with you so they can help you with your life because you have this wound and it is affecting you. So if you don’t treat that wound, it will get worse and you will face more severe consequences from not treating it, and if you completely ignore it, well, you’ll just have to amputate your leg.
So imagine the childhood emotional wounds of narcissistic parenting. It is the same. If you don’t treat them, you’ll be letting the emotional wounds get deeper and stronger and that will bring you consequences after consequences, not only to you but to everyone around you. And your whole life will be conditioned due to that.
Your friends, your dog, your cat, your parrot, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your daughter, your son, your co-workers, your boss. Everyone around you will be touched by your wound. It will be visible. It will be debilitating your relationships with others because they are emotional wounds. And you need to be open to others to communicate. If you have emotional wounds, a lot of issues are then present that will create a barrier between you and other people. Thus, conditioning your relationships with others.
7th step: Don’t just ignore this, it won’t get better by itself
This will damage you your whole life if you don’t come to terms with the reality of your family and really study this matter. I can assure you that. Because those that knew that something was wrong, that their parents were bad but didn’t understand the whole situation and the exact behavior and traits, even if they later in life said that “they would never be like their parents” they ended up just like them.
And because they kept saying that they “wouldn’t be like their parents”, it has only been an excuse to cover their own behavior and be blind over it, since they only see that their parents were the bad ones, although they themselves have become that same person, as the sense of being the victim is very strong, and they feel like they need all the love and care, so they can’t possibly believe that they are the bad ones.
Study more, educate yourself. Introspect on your life so far. Begin a changing process.
Just by thinking about this, things won’t change.
8th step: Don’t make excuses for their behavior
Narcissism is a real thing. And you can’t pretend that it is normal. You can’t make excuses for their behavior. And you can’t let them gas-light your reality to fit their needs.
Narcissists are in a constant war for survival. They see threats everywhere. They are like cats, only minding their needs. That is their main priority in every choice they make. They need to have some kind of gain, every time.
But you are not their support team. They should have supported you, not the other way around.
So you either don’t do anything and let your narcissistic parent take over your life or, you begin a new life journey. A journey of self-love and self-acceptance (of the good and, most importantly, the bad things about yourself).
9th step: Narcissists can’t change
If you’re still wishing to know: Can narcissists change?:
People with NPD have learned to ignore, suppress, deny, project, and disavow their vulnerabilities (or at least try) in their attempts to shape and reshape “who they are” in their interactions. Change—allowing the vulnerability back in— means opening up to the very feelings they’ve learned to avoid at all costs. It’s not that people with NPD can’t change; it’s that it often threatens their sense of personhood to try. And their failed relationships often confirm, in their minds, that narcissism is the safest way to live. (…) Their terror is frequently out of awareness, and nearly always managed with bravado and blame, but it’s profound and palpable. Sadly, their anger at having their mistakes and missteps exposed ultimately alienates their loved ones, and the demise of yet another relationship prompts them to redouble their efforts to avoid vulnerability—in short, it pushes them towards more narcissism. The sad irony of the narcissistic condition is that, in an effort to protect themselves, narcissists inevitably invite the very rejection and abandonment they fear in the first place. The key, then, to interacting with someone you suspect is narcissistic is to break the vicious circle—to gently thwart their frantic efforts to control, distance, defend or blame in the relationship by sending the message that you’re more than willing to connect with them, but not on these terms; to invite them into a version of intimacy where they can be loved and admired, warts and all—if they only allow the experience to happen. [that is the big question, and hardest part to achieve] By Psychology Today
10th step: Acceptance (not “improvement”)
In this journey of self-discovery, it’s important to stick to the idea that acceptance of who you are & acceptance of your past is the only way to live life with a narcissist parent.
The Road of “self-improvement”
Making yourself believe that you need to try to improve things, try to always be better, and improving yourself is a dangerous journey. As you can pass the limit, and be too harsh on yourself, and believe you need to be perfect, and guilt and shame will arise in you – and that never leads to good things because you have already been damaged and taken to believe that you need to feel guilty all the time for everyone else’s problems.
The Road of Rage, Anger, Denial
And, denial and anger won’t do you good either. Because you can’t change your narcissistic parent. So there is no point in being angry forever. You can be angry in the beginning, but you shouldn’t keep that anger accumulated forever – it will lead to health problems and instability in your life.
The only road possible
Just self-acceptance. Accept yourself first. Cry. Listen to heavy metal. Play the drums. Go to boxing classes. Use that anger into something that will not harm anyone nor harm yourself. Don’t let the anger stay and consume you.
Anger is an emotion like any other. You need to feel it. So don’t ignore your anger.
Accept that things are the way they are. Your past is yours, and you lived it. And you are stronger than others because of it. And you can still shape your present and your future, regardless of your past. And you can still feel angry at your parents from time to time, and at the same time love them for the better days that you had. It’s weird. But it’s life.
11th step: Create a concrete plan for your life
After you know all the techniques, expressions, tactics, sayings they use to gas-light you, invalidate you, manipulate you – after you know them well, then you can create a concrete plan and personal strategy on how to establish your control and boundaries over your life.
Create a plan of action for the further months to come (and further years too) and decide on what actions do you need to take to shape your life the way you wanted it to be without them.
Boundaries need to be created for a normal life, and you need to create a concrete plan of action to gain full control over your decisions.
12th step: Find someone to share your emotions
But what if you are still not completely able to accept this? You need to face your emotions: externalize your thoughts and emotions. Share your story with someone, anyone.
If you happen to just come across this discovery, then it is absolutely CRUCIAL to find a person with whom you can share your findings. You can’t be facing this by yourself. You absolutely need someone else to talk to about this.
So if you haven’t talked with anyone and shared your situations, try to find someone to share this information with. As said before, the result of narcissistic parenting is the child not having healthy ways of expressing their emotions and feelings. So it is very important to find a way to do so. You need to share this, get it off your chest, externalize your thoughts and feelings.
You can first try and exercise on a paper diary, or on your cell phone notebook, and then find a friend, sibling, or maybe a community on Reddit (if you never did it, know that people are very very supportive over there, and you can share everything you want and people will comment and try to help you out in an empathetic and non-judgmental way). Or try talking with a close friend that you trust. Try talking to your aunt or uncle. Or with a grandparent.
This is a huge step to understand what is real and what is not, and if you are battling with this all by yourself, you may not really believe all that is written here and begin to doubt your thoughts. So if you are down to solve your problems, just do yourself a favor and talk to someone through any means. It’s extremely important to do so, because others will show what common sense is and what it’s not, and you will see things from another perspective. And it won’t just be things inside your head. You will realize that it is all real.
13th step: Don’t fall in love with another narcissist!
Because of that “stolen childhood”, once you hit your mature years, once you begin dating and going into the world on your own, there will be mainly two directions in romance to choose from.
Either you try to find a decent normal person, who will give you what you lacked, what you didn’t have. Someone who will be supportive of you. Someone who’s going to complete your need for emotional support, care, understanding. In this direction, you will attract people into your life that are complete opposites of your parents. And that will mean that you have realized their faults and your insecurities and started to understand yourself better by choosing better people to be with because you opened your eyes! This way, you will try to find a dear person to you who is not going to be the way your parents were to you.
Or, the opposite can happen, if you don’t really accept your insecurities and don’t understand yourself and your own needs. Children of narcissists have a huge possibility to find themselves in abusive relationships, because of years of getting used to that since childhood. If you choose this direction, you will be looking for people that are familiar to you, similar to your narcissistic mother or father. You will attract people that are just like they were to you, and it will all feel somehow familiar, something that you know well enough. It will have a strong pulling feeling. It can even feel like it was meant to be. However, this will be a big trap. As this strong attraction and “pulling” feelings are misleading. It’s that hype of the beginning of a relationship. And once it has passed, you will only be left with the same kinds of attitudes you had faced all your life with your narcissistic parent.
This second direction is absolutely a terrible one. Narcissists can’t love anyone but themselves. So a child of narcissistic parents needs to RUN AWAY from other narcissists as soon as they see them coming and try to enter their lives. Otherwise, the abuse will continue, and life will be dark again, and no real change is going to happen.
14th step: Know that there will be people that don’t understand your situation
It is hard to accept a reality where you need to distance yourself from your parents in order to have a normal life and be emotionally stable. Not everyone is going to be supportive or understanding of the situation, as many people will just say “Oh, everyone has their difficulties and struggles in childhood” (bull***!).
So if you have been talking to people that don’t actually understand your family situation, then find someone else who will help you in these though times. Just don’t listen to them. Don’t pretend that there is no problem and that you can deal you’re your parents being like that. It is a trap.
In this case, if you don’t have someone close to you to talk about this, then there is another great option, that is the least scary of them all, which is talking with people who face the same problems. Yes. There are tons of people that suffer from this, and they are all on Reddit opening their hearts and sharing their stories. And everyone is very supportive and helpful. I myself am there from time to time to bring some light and help someone. There are hundreds of groups (subreddits) dedicated especially for the topics of narcissistic parents abuse – “raised by narcissists“, “offmychest“, “narcissisticabuse“, just to name a few.
Isolation is a bad idea
Don’t let yourself be alone too much. Being isolated from other people will enable narcissistic abuse to penetrate more deeply, because you will feel lonely, away from everyone.
You absolutely need to be around other people. Not only to be less in the house and in your head, but to also see other ways of living life, dealing with new and different situations, behaving and communicating with others. The more you are with others, the more you learn how to properly behave in this world and the faster you can heal those emotional wounds, as you learn how to respond to people in a more natural way and see how they respond to you – as your narcissistic parents’ responses are never adequate or normal. So it’s important to have other people as role models of normality and proper way of living and behaving (contrasting with your parents’ abnormal behaviour and reactions), in order for you to have better mental health and to develop in a healthier way as a human being, which will ultimately benefit not only yourself, but all the people around you that you will encounter in your life, as well as, most importantly, your children – because again, we need to stop the cycle of building emotionally unstable children who then become adults and then have their own children. This hell cycle must be stopped!
And the best part of being more with other people outside your family, is that you can then clearly see that your narcissistic parent is really not normal, because you will be able to compare them with other people, as you will have many examples of other people that will be real, and tangible, and not just thoughts in your head while you think about how things are bad, in your room, isolated from reality.
15th step: Find ways to self-express
Another important step is to give some of yourself to the world. Just self-expression of any kind will help you deal with your emotions. Art, music, painting, singing, playing an instrument, any type of sport, a hobby, a sub-reddit, a blog, a YouTube channel, a fulfilling job, a solidarity organization that will help other people.
Finding ways of expressing your feelings through something that you will do and put it out to the physical world will be a blessing and a breath of fresh air – as most certainly you never felt like you could express yourself freely in their house anyway.
16th step: As soon as you can, get out of their house
The first step into a healthy life is to just get away from your narcissistic parent’s house. You just can’t keep on living there. As soon as you are old enough and able to get out from their house, do it.
If you are old enough and are still there, get a job, go live anywhere, just far away from them. Stop being dependable. Your freedom in this situation is more important than anything else. Because what’s at stake here is your emotional well-being, your decision-making abilities, your happiness and your life in general. If you don’t really want to compromise with working in a crappy place or living in a less comfortable house, you need to re-evaluate your needs.
You need to be independent
Alone by yourself. To find your own peace. To learn to live.
The antidote to narcissistic parents is independence. They don’t have boundaries or limits to their control. So you make them have them.
Go be your own self. Independent. To reflect on life. To make your own decisions.
You can’t keep having someone else trying to control every step you make, every decision in life, every person you bring home. You are an independent individual, you are not your parent’s property, and they cannot force you to stay or to keep you with them. As again, you are not their property.
You are a child of the world. If they think they can control your life and made you think that way also, think again. It’s their perception that you are their projection. Because they gave birth to you. And they keep on telling how hard it was, and how much they did for you. But it is all the same tactics. The manipulation, the guilt, the shame.
But what if you can’t get out yet?
Then, first of all, don’t panic. Don’t drop out of school. As then your future will be compromised, as at least the obligatory years of school must be done to get a decent job anywhere and have prospects for a future, as it won’t be easy to go back to school when you’re older.
So if you can’t get out the house yet, the solution is for you to stop being there as much as possible. Find a hobby – sports (any kind); music classes; art classes; yoga classes; gym classes; karate classes; jiu-jitsu classes; krav maga classes; literature club; going to the library to read stuff or be on your computer as you would at home; find friends that will be with you more often; stay the night at your best friend’s house more often; invite your friends over more times (as they can’t bug you when someone else is around). Find any kind of activities that will take all your free time after school. Just have a more social life, be more with other people, as it will help you to get another perspective on life outside from your narcissistic parents.
If they don’t allow you to just be with friends more often, the perfect excuse is a hobby. And at the same time, that hobby will bring more friends and more time spent with other people outside your family, which will make you feel happier, more secure in life, and able to deal with different people in the world, as we all learn so much every time we spend time with others.
Also, consider finding a part-time job somewhere to earn extra money. Go volunteer for a community. Build your skills for the future, because eventually, you’ll be away from your school and your parents.
17th step: Understand that no matter what, for them, you are a baby, forever
Always remember, they will never accept that you will be independent. NEVER. As they want their accomplishment to be very close to them, like a small baby. But you’re not their baby to order around anymore. You are not a baby anymore (as you certainly can at least read this). So as soon as you are of age, go to university, go work, save money, go to your sibling’s house, go to your friend’s house. Do whatever, just get out of that place.
So, remember
The more you bend and allow their opinions to overcome your own, the more damaged you become.
However, if you fight back it will only lead to a losing war to your side.
So the only outcome to this story is to turn around and go on separate ways.
Keep your distance from them. Choose the time you spend with them. Absolutely don’t stay in the same house (obviously) as it will only lead to more damage.
“First things first: get a very good therapist, one who accepts the idea that your mother is a narcissist and will help you through the results. Secondly, reassess your boundaries with your mother. Normal parenting does not require the majority of the child’s energy be devoted to soothing or attending to the parent; you are allowed to have your own life and needs, something a narcissistic mother will not understand.”
Take a look at Doctor Ramani’s YouTube Channel, a clinical psychologist that has a lot of videos to help you cope with this.
Wish you all the best and lots of inner strength!
Stay healthy and curious!
PS. Share your thoughts and struggles! I’ll be happy to hear more from my readers!
Disclaimer: This is not professional medical advice and this information doesn’t substitute therapy and consultation with a professional. You should always consult a medical specialist in the field for professional advice.
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