Narcissistic abuse
and when it's a parent...
I have grappled with suicide and narcissistic abuse - clearly.
But I do try to hold some space for and critically imagine what those experiences must have been like with a person with whom I had a different relationship with -
If it were my spouse or partner who died by suicide.
If it were my child.
Likewise, when I consider narc abuse -
What if it had been a parent?
I can’t imagine that deep-ceded healing that would have to take place.
My four year relationship with a narc left deep ones -
But if it they were my parent - the one who birthed me - who raised me -
Who formed my nervous system state and played such a large role in shaping my sense of identity and self worth.
My dearest friend has this situation - one parent who is a narc, the other significantly emotionally immature.
And the healing that you need to emerge from - it’s intense.
But while I listen to her on this journey, there were a few things that struck me, that I wanted to share -
One of the biggest is this -
“Narcissistic parents don’t want you to expand.”
I would also venture to say that some petty, negative, toxic, and limited - perhaps certain emotionally immature parents also do not want you to expand.
And - just a moment - I sat with how incredibly sad that is.
And what a piss poor job of parenting.
Normal parents, altruistic ones - want the best for their kids. And they want even better for them then they had in their own lives.
Even when it’s hard.
Even when it breaks their hearts and the kids move away and they miss them terribly.
I consider my own dearest beloved mother - who would say to me -
Fly baby fly - like a little bird venturing solo away from the nest.
Even though I know it absolutely broke her heart that I did so. Because I was her world - her kids were - and she went into an absolute identity crises and existential dread of what is my life now? What do I do know - because she didn’t know how to live for herself.
Still, she didn’t want to hold me back.
Even when I moved to the other side of the world - truly -
“Could you get any farther away from home,” she asked, when I moved to Central Java, Indonesia, and spent five years there.
But—she wanted me to go.
She knew I needed to grow and develop and expand.
One of her favorite songs, that she listened to on repeat, at the end of her life - and I continue to listen to, when I’m missing her or want to feel her presence again, is Carole King’s “Child Of Mine.”
And one of the lines in that song is - “I don’t want to hold you back, I just want to watch you grow.”
I am so thankful to have had a parent like that.
More than ever.
Because I realize now - that there are many people who become parents who don’t.
They don’t have that capacity.
Their damaged selves - their wounded inner child - their fragile ego - their trauma -
It has all manifested into this really ill inner person who seeks only to protect and elevate themselves, and raise themselves up, even at the expense of keeping others down, and keeping others small -
Even stunting their own child’s growth.
My dearest friend is 48 - two years from 50. A half a century year old.
And she has only within the last two years learned that her parent is a narcissist—and all that that means for her, how she was raised and formed, their relationship that could never be altruistic or unconditional normal love, and the healing work that she needs to do on herself.
There are three areas that I want to focus on - that I wish more people knew about narcissism -
1-They are not always assholes. They couldn’t keep their hold on you to operate that way. So they can get sappy and sweet and lovable - it’s part of the manipulation to keep you tethered to them.
2-They can be unbelievably cruel. The things that they say to her that make me gape. Even though they’ve never engaged in extensive physical abuse - to hear these stories, it’s hard to stomach - implying her husband is in hell—when she believes in religion and she is a new widow; saying she didn’t get interesting [to the mother] as a kid until she was older and past a baby/toddler stage; questioning why she had her while she was birthing her; implying that she have caused the mother’s current state of cancer and tremendous emotional disturbance; sending her to her grandmother, this mother’s own mother who was abusive - also a narcissist - to act as buffer, and the list goes on and on.
But the child of a narc often will not share - they are taught to depend parents and not to share family business. So they don’t. They think this bullshit is normal.
3-Lastly, probably, most cruelly, you exist in the in between state - will it be praise or provocation with them - so you walk on eggshells. Your nervous system and ability to relax gets wrapped up entirely in trying to gauge their moods and what they’re going to dish out today.
This is intentional.
It’s a form of manipulation because they can gain control over you.
And the result is the same for them -
Many people don’t want to be in conflict -
Not narcs.
They get the same thrill when they probe and provoke you.
Because you still supply them with attention and power over you -
And they get off on that.
Sick and twisted? Disturbing as fuck?
I agree - but it still happens.
It’s terrible enough when it’s a partner - but ooph -
To have a parent playing these levels of mindgames and mindfuckery -
It’s a hell of a ride and healing journey -
In summary - again, just please remember that because people with this psychological condition and behavioral disorder exist -
Do keep that in mind, before you project your own platitudes and trite bullshit onto someone when you honestly don’t know the intricacies of their relationship -
Don’t tell them that their parents mean well, they love them, they want the best for them.
Because you might not really know that. Most people who are narcs - especially covert narcs - you will never have any idea - until you live with them, they are your family members, and then you get to see this evil, dark shadow side.
The absolute worst thing that we can do for those trying to heal from narcissistic abuse, is to further shame and gaslight them -
This is essentially - at the core - what they are trying to heal from -
And for the kids of narcs -
Essentially a lifetime of being invalidated, gaslight, taught to never trust their own sense of reality or perception, always deferring to the narc.
Allow them their experiences - to be the expert on their own lived, embodied experiences.
You were not there.
And when they get to the point -after the big bang, where they realize that the parent is a narc - they have a hell of a journey ahead of them to learn how to be their own person and to expand -
They’ve been hurt enough - enough to have brain damage and a rewired nervous system. They need to be taught to relax and to trust themselves.
You can help them along that path.
Do less harm.
