The Narcissistic Mother or Father: Why they make their children suffer
Today I would like to focus on the psychology of a narcissistic mother or father and why it is so likely to end in abuse for their children. Life can feel confusing for a child born into a family headed by a narcissistic mother or father. Particularly if that child was the family scapegoat, it can seem like everything they do is wrong and everything the narcissistic parent does is right. In recovering from a childhood of narcissistic abuse, it can be very important to understand the psychology of the narcissistic mother or father. Doing so, can allow survivors to finally know the truth of who they actually are in relation to their abusive parent.
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The Narcissist’s Core Sense of Worthlessness
Narcissistic mothers and fathers suffer an unbearable sense of low and fragile self-esteem. They believe they are worthless. Worse, they are so convinced of their wretchedness that they cannot acknowledge it. Doing so feels like it would end in their – psychological – destruction.
Antidotes to the worthlessness
Grandiosity: Artificially inflated view of themselves
A narcissist tries to solve their feelings of worthlessness by keeping them out of awareness. The first tact in this solution is to adopt a conscious belief of their own superiority and specialness. In psychology, we call this ‘grandiosity’. Put simply, the narcissist believes their feelings, capabilities, thoughts and needs are more important than others’. Most importantly, all of these positive views of themselves are antidotal to their sense of worthlessness. Their grandiosity is achieved through denial and force of thought. They have to constantly renew this antidotal self-conceit or risk the breakthrough pain of their inner wretchedness. So, the equilibrium they achieve is always fragile and vulnerable to disruption.
Entitlement: Expectation that others will comply with their inflated view of themselves
The next step involves their expectation that others will comply with their grandiosity. They unconsciously expect and demand that others reflect back to them how special and full of worth they are. In other words, they feel entitled to others’ constant admiration and prioritization. Children and passive relationship partners are common targets of this function.
Disruptions of antidotes lead to ‘breakthrough’ worthlessness
These two antidotes are temporarily effective in alleviating the narcissist’s immediate sense of worthlessness. As in all band-aid approaches, however, they must be in constant operation to achieve the protective effect. The narcissist must avoid disruptions of his grandiosity and entitlement otherwise his sense of worthlessness could ‘breakthrough’ to his awareness. Such disruptions often come in the form of other people’s needs, differences of opinion, or just failure to notice how ‘special’ the narcissist is.
Disruptions of the narcissist’s grandiosity
When someone else expresses a need the narcissist does not see it as an opportunity to attune to that person and strengthen the bond between them. Instead she sees the other’s need to mean that hers are not as important. As such, the narcissist may avoid people with enough self-worth to feel deserving of having their needs met. If the narcissist cannot avoid someone else with a need – such as their own child – then she will employ other devices to coerce that person to stifle himself. Common tactics used to punish another with needs include: shaming him for being ‘needy’ or ‘selfish’, outright neglect, dismissing his needs as illegitimate, and/or accusing him of seeking attention. The goal for the narcissist is to make the person feel worse after expressing a need to her than if he kept it to himself. Once he refrains from expressing his needs, he no longer challenges the narcissist’s belief that her – grandiose – needs are all that should matter in this world.
Disruptions of the narcissist’s entitlement
The other component to the narcissist’s antidotal self-conceit is their expectation that others comply with her grandiosity. She requires that others be willing to abandon their own interests, pursuit of happiness, even their sense of themselves to prioritize hers. Any indication that someone else is not willing to do this can be met with indignation, retaliation, and rage.
In this clip, from ‘This Boy’s Life’ Robert DeNiro plays a narcissistic father named ‘Dwight’. This scene illustrates what a narcissist will often do when his sense of entitlement is interrupted:
Dwight is enjoying the record and experiences the voices of other family members as disruptive. I suspect that he believes his desire to listen to the music should be everyone else’s priority too. Their obvious involvement in and enjoyment of activities unrelated to him, do not comply with his entitled belief. Dwight meets this noncompliance with indignant rage meant to punish them.
Hiding the narcissist’s selfishness
Grandiosity and entitlement require ongoing self-absorption and self-inflation. Two attributes that are unflatteringly selfish. Nobody is going to announce that they deem themselves better than everyone else and expect consensus on that point. Doing so, would risk rebuke from others. Such a reaction would compromise how the narcissist has to see herself and be seen by others.
The narcissist is in a dilemma. His only way to remedy feeling worthless risks him feeling even more worthless if his remedy becomes widely known. He now must hide his grandiosity and entitlement from himself and others.
The process of hiding their antidotal strategy involves ‘finding’ the self-absorption and self-inflation in another person instead of herself. This all happens unconsciously. Since the narcissist cannot bear to acknowledge how worthless she feels nor how self-absorbed she is, she must convince herself that these attributes are in others – not her.
Victims of narcissistic abuse are no strangers to being called ‘selfish’. This is because a narcissist is quick to identify and distort others’ healthy senses of entitlement as ‘selfish’ or evidence that they think they deserve special treatment. In essence, a narcissist accuses others of being exactly who he is.
In this clip, we see how Dwight relocates his own sense of grandiosity and entitlement in his stepson ‘Toby’ (played by Leo Dicaprio):
Dwight distorts Toby’s healthy & reasonable sense of entitlement to eat a few candies into being a ‘selfish hog’. Dwight’s goal is to get Toby to think of himself as worthless so that Dwight doesn’t have to think of himself that way. Toby catches onto this and confonts Dwight that he despises him for existing. Dwight artlessly doubles down that it’s only because Toby’s a ‘hog’. Dwight demonstrates the rigidity, lack of empathy, and remorselessness of the narcissist.
2 deficits needed to be a narcissist: Lack of empathy and remorse
Narcissist’s are unwilling to care how their coercive actions impact others. Research has shown that they consistently lack in empathy for the feelings of others. They may be able to read and use others’ feelings for their own purposes. However, they will not unconditionally care about the emotional well-being of someone else – particularly if it interferes with securing their own emotional needs.
Second and relatedly a narcissist is remorseless in whatever they do to prop up their antidotal self-conceit. Many of my clients with narcissistic parents have had the experience of getting blamed all over again when they’ve tried to confront that parent about their abusive treatment. The narcissist would rather claim that their child deserved the abuse than take accountability for how they hurt him or her. We saw this in the clip above when Toby confronts Dwight about just hating him for existing. Dwight then insists he’s only acting that way because Toby is such a ‘selfish hog’. This scene reflects how a narcissist will commonly meet the protests of people who see what he is really all about.
What happens when a narcissist becomes a parent?
The child of a narcissist is almost doomed to interrupt their narcissistic parent’s antidotal self-conceit. A young baby is a bundle of needs – by design. They are entirely dependent on their caregiver and can only offer their continued existence as thanks. For most caregivers this is more than enough. It is, in fact, why they had a child: to experience the gratification of meeting the needs of someone they love.
For a narcissistic parent, the child may be welcome so long as he reflects back the parent’s self-importance. The kid has to orbit the parent. This is unnatural, since children have appropriate developmental needs to experience themselves as the center of the universe and their parents as their satellites. If a child shows that he expects the narcissistic parent to orbit him, the narcissist will take this as a blow to her inflated self-esteem. This kind of parent expects her child to keep her at the forefront of his mind, so when he attends to himself he is violating her pathological sense of entitlement that her self-importance should always be mirrored back to her. As discussed above, such violations can evoke the sense of worthlessness the narcissist is always working to deny. These violations are inevitable so long as the kid tries to hold onto his own perspective and needs. The attributes of the narcissistic parent described above will coerce the kid to relinquish his connection to himself and find a way to orbit the narcissistic parent. And here is how that process often unfolds*:
1) The child interrupts the narcissistic parent’s sense of superiority and entitlement that others reflect it. This may happen by the child being proud of himself, focusing on himself, failing to show ‘enough appreciation’ to the parent, etc.
2) The parent must restore their antidotal self-conceit but must do so while hiding the selfishness of this motive.
3) The narcissistic parent unconsciously re-locates her own selfishness in the child. She may distort a benign act on the part of the child to ‘prove’ how inordinately selfish that child is. Just like Dwight distorted Toby’s act of eating a few of his sister’s candies into proving he was the selfish one.
4) The narcissistic parent then works to control the child so that he accepts her claim of being the selfish one. In a parent-child relationship the parent holds all the real power. If the parent reacts to the child as though he is selfish, the child can fairly easily buy into this. The child’s need for her to be willing to care for him dooms him.
Once the narcissistic parent has successfully relocated her inherent selfishness in the child, she can then work to put her own worthlessness in him too. If the child is branded as selfish, it is not a far leap to treat him as though he is worthless too. The narcissistic parent can convince herself and the other family members that the child deserves such maltreatment given how selfish he is. Just like Dwight argues to Toby that it’s not that he hates the fact that Toby exists, it’s just that Toby is a ‘hog’ and must be taught to be better. Such claims of selfishness almost always undergird the narcissistic parent’s attempts to make the child feel worthless. In the ultimate act of ‘better than you than me’ the narcissistic parent finds some relief from their own worthlessness if she sees her child as the worthless one. If this attitude persists, the child may adopt it as his own and find various ways to comply with the narcissist’s insistence that he is worthless.
Therapy to recover from the narcissistic parent’s re-located selfishness and worthlessness
A child who survives these kinds of systematic abusive tactics and finds themselves functioning in the world has already beat the odds. They have managed to defy – in their continued existence – their narcissistic parent’s re-located claim that they are selfish and good for nothing. I’ve mentioned this before, but therapy involves helping clients dislocate all of the falsehoods their narcissistic parent worked to convince them of and putting them at the parent’s doorstep where they have always belonged. I will write more specifically about the process of therapy in coming months.
*This process is also known as ‘projective identification’.
Jay Reid is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC). If you are considering therapy to recover from narcissistic abuse please contact me for a free 15-minute phone consultation.
This is my mother exactly. I was/am the youngest of 4 and the scapegoat. My oldest sister is a clone of my mother. She is abusive to her children. When I stand up for my nieces, my mother defends my sister and denies any wrong doing. My sister does no wrong ever in her eyes but in reality my sister is a terrible person. Then, she tells everyone I am crazy. Her favorite thing to do is tell anyone and everyone that I belong in a mental hospital. Does she defend my sister, because if she were to admit to abuse, she would be admitting she is also abusive? Is it possible that my mother enjoys abusing or seeing others being abused? She would smile anytime I was being tortured by her and my father.
Luckily, I helped both of my nieces on their 18th birthdays, leave in the middle of the night and move into their own apartments. They no longer have to be around the abuse., and I am no contact with my mother , however, she and my father, non stop stalk and harass me. If I am so crazy and so bad like they have always told me, why are they so obsessed with me!!?
Sorry, I have so many questions
I hear you. They are obsessed with you, because they see something good in you that they want and that they don’t have and they believe they cannot have. From what I have read about narc abuse and emotional manipulation in general (although narc abuse is so much more severe than mere emotional manipulation (yikes)), they perpetrator sees something good that they are envious of in the victim and instead of trying to emulate that quality or become a better person, the perpetrator seeks to destroy that in the victim and won’t stop until they do (ie why they are obsessed with you), the way to stop them from destroying the goodness or what it is they are envious of in you is to stop giving them narc supply (aka any emotions towards them) and to continue to “grey rock” them or give them short, emotionless responses if any at all. I was low contact with my own narc parents for 1 year or so and am now moving toward no contact…and as most survivors (if not all who have gone no contact will say)…no contact is the BEST when you are ready for it. Its so nice to be happy..there is a new, good life waiting for you. Life is good and I did not know that until I started to see the abuse of my parents for what it reallly was….very very very evil and scary.
What about the children of the scapegoat? The narcissistic mothers’s grandchild. Before I went no contact, my mother made my first born her “golden” grandchild . I know a attempt to turn my child against me. She would call herself my daughter’s mother. She even made false allegations to CPS to try and get her taken away from me. Was this a way for her to continue abusing me, through the one thing I love the most? I know my mother hates me, she wouldn’t have done the things to me if she hadn’t, bc she didn’t do it to my siblings. Why do you think she hates me so much? I am a very kind and loving person , I don’t understand
Amanda, I understand.
From my outside perspective, it’s clear as day: your kindness & empathy shine a BRIGHT light into this world. People throw rocks at things that shine.
Narcs attempt to annihilate anyone that “dares” to outshine them, anyone they perceive to be a threat. They MUST destroy us due to their pathological thirst for power/ control. Narcs observe how people organically gravitate towards people like us. In general, healthy human beings are drawn to our empathy, warmth, humor, & capacity for joy. Narcs are painfully aware they are devoid of these capabilities.
Not to worry: your utter indifference to their existence & casual refusal to dim your light = the most powerful weapons in your arsenal.
Shine bright 🙂 xoxox
– Nicole
Amanda, I can empathize with you to a degree even though I don’t have siblings. I was the only child and scapegoat. My mom treated my own daughter as the golden child and almost from the beginning worked to undermine our relationship. She also lied about me to CPS. When that failed, she sued me directly for custody. Just of my firstborn, she didn’t care about her other grandchildren and left them with me. I couldn’t afford to fight, especially when I knew they were in it together and would back each other up. I deeply regret not cutting off my mom before the damage became deeply rooted. I hope you still have a good relationship with your child.
I wish people saw behind my mom’s mask, because she is not what she portrays herself to be. If only they knew. But nobody was interested in hearing my side, either as an abused child or adult. Her supporters follow her blindly.
Wow, my mom and step dad trying to steal the hearts of my adult children and succeeding. Scapegoated by the whole family now and they allied with my Narc ex too. Very sad. I’m devastated over learning all this. I am in search to find others in this situation to talk to.
Great article. Watching those clips from that movie sent chills down my spine. I grew up in a family of very sneaky covert “victim-playing” narcs – I always knew something was really wrong with my family but it took me 45 years to learn I was the scapegoated child. My abusive narcissistic mother and sister routinely baited me with cruel remarks about everything from my parenting to my weight and appearance and I ever got justifiably angry, it was evidence as to my “anger” and instability. They were geniuses at making me oook like the bad one, even if they had said or done something extremely cruel. They were working to undermine my relationship with my children and husband and spreading lies to other family members about me. It is truly devastating to have a narcissist in your family and to be the hated scapegoat child. I am fortunate to have realized this toxic dynamic when my children were still relatively young and we all moved abroad and left them in our past. No contact was the only solution to my path of freedom d healing,
Thank you so much for sharing and so so so sorry this all happened to you. I have narc parents too and am wondering why you moved abroad? Did they try to do something to follow you, was it necessary to do so?
Wow. I have never seen this so clearly spelled out anywhere, despite having read so much on the topic to try to better understand what happened in my childhood. What you describe is so true to my experience. Among my mother’s favorite things to say to me were “You think the world revolves around you” and ” you don’t think about anyone but yourself”. She also loved to tell me that while I was nice to people outside my family, it was only the people who knew me well – my family – that saw the real me and knew my true rottenness. She also said “no one but your family will tell you the truth about yourself”. What a psychological mine field. I bought it hook, line and sinker. Amazing how narcissists construct their false worlds and even seal the child’s mind against the influence of outside input. Now I understand why I was always so uncomfortable when an adult tried to show me affection, tell me he/she believed in me, or give me anything. Reading this really helps me to see that she was definitely the sick one, not me.
Oh my gosh. This sounds like I could have written it. I am so sorry we both went through this. My mother consistently told me when I was growing up that only she cared enough to tell me the truth. She would rain down constant criticism about my appearance and tell me that only your mother knows you the best. And I would get upset or angry and then she would tell me I was too emotional and bad at controlling myself. I spent my whole adolescence feeling ugly, unlovable, and worthless and in my late 30’s am only finally realizing how messed up all of this was.
mother was never a part of my childrens lives. it wasn’t until I was in my 40’s and had a daughter that my new husband had contacted them behind my back ( I found out he is also a narcissit until this happened I was unaware of the family personality disorder I knew what abuse was but did not know it was attached to a personality disorder , how I got to marry one is that I was unaware of the reflags and used to blame myself and think I must have done something wrong,
no its all the narcissit its not you believe me you are a good caring awesome person it is always the narc.
my parents both were narcs with psychopathic tendencies. they used to torment me on purpose and laugh and enjoy the tormenting, my older sibling brother was not allowed to be nice to me and they coached him how to beat me up call me names accuse me of things I never did and basically torment me as much as he could .all the while parents say ” we couldn’t stop him what could we do ”
they poured so much hate of themselves on me and I knew I didnt do anything to deserve it . I was very angry at how I was treated. of course going no contact gave me peace . but then out of nowhere my soon to be ex and parents team up spread a smear campaign of everything but the kitchen sink maybe including the kitchen sink. just like others tell mine involved child protective services too but mine also involved getting the police to protect my husband, she used to call them from five states away after not being around me for literally decades and act like she just saw me that night and was telling them I had been drunk all day and they must come arrest me. she made the whole thing up. for years this went on and I thought it was all my husbands doing. until I found police reports that she was speaking to them telling them about disorders that I do not have and never had. she was actually telling them on the phone to lock me up in a mental hospital that is how much she projects who she is . shes the dangerous one that needs to be locked up and arrested for a life time of child abuse. she inflicted a whole ton of physical abuse if I said something nice about a teacher as a child that meant for months she would beat me over the head before school and this went on and on . she should have been arrested for violence and kept from being around me for life back then, both parents are narcs with psychopathic traits. namely they also hate females and they plan out their abuses on females not just me but anyone that would not give up their life to be mothers best friend she would feel rejected and want revenge. me she saw as her competition and never her child. she always was envious. and thought I was envious of her when she never crossed my mind ever . that she ticks all the boxes as a narcissit and not one single therapist was able to find out until I reached the one that knew about this with personal experience. the legal system the family judges they are often caught up in being controlled by the narcissistic family the scapegoat is neve allowed to be free and have your own happiness they want to destroy you how ever they can, the sad part about it is they can convince so many people to help aid in the devaluation and discard but the sad part is the child has to lose a healther parent one more adjusted for life and giving the child unconditional love with grandparents around that hate females and believe committing crimes such as false police reports its a matter of time if not immediately that she would take my place if they succeeded in ending my life which they did try to do . of course she tried to paint it out as a suicide until she bragged about it and admitted she did this to a doctor . the fact he wouldn’t report it is beyond me but he will face the consequences for not doing the legal thing he was obligated to do .
there were so many times If I had been told she was sending out an active character murder of me that If I got help she would have a life long restraining order on her.
another thing is yes I cant wait to move and out of the country I am going to a country they were both born in
the narcopathic parents will want complete control and wont want to allow some extended family members to get in the way of their abuse.
overall what they have meant for my evil. God has turned it around and educated to me about the disorders they have they are crazy and still they should be locked up . I am never giving up until I see them dressed out in orange and being in shock . they are dangerous people that attack their own children and grand children,
they are a total nite mare I want out of my life forever
Hope you are alright and no contact..they sound like reckless and cruel people
I grew up in a house with a narcissistic mother. She unfortunately was the scapegoat with her own mother, and did not learn anything from it.
In my case I was the scapegoat and was described as the thief and liar in the family, until she passed away. I’ve had to sever all contact with sibling1 & sib2. Their phone numbers & email’s have been blocked.
Unbeknownst to me, I married a narcissistic wife. I became painfully aware of the problem. I survived three major and many lesser attacks from this selfish woman. The attacks include a stabbing in my sleep, and hospitalization on two occasions. I encouraged her to GTFO, she subsequently married someone else before my divorce to her was complete. She obviously found a new supply. I have since found out he died and was cremated immediately. It could have been me.
I determined I would never have a child with this woman and unbeknownst to her, I had a vasectomy. I could not imagine a child to have a mother, an aunt(sib2) and a grandmother who were narcissistic.
I think the hardest part of being the scapegoat in an abusive-narcissitic and enabling family dynamic is that it is rarely seen by the outside world. I tried to talk to an ex-girlfriend about it few times, and she’d always tell me she didn’t see it and I should be grateful to my family. Never mind the fact that I was never once ungrateful, just trying to open up to someone that I trusted, but she was literally in the house during a fist fight between myself and my drunk father that started over her being in my room. I was 19! So not only did I feel as though I had to hide the abuse for fear of “shaming the family,” but finally opening up led to me being told I was wrong by someone I deeply respected. This still hurts me 14 years later, and makes me question the validity of my own experiences but also afraid of opening up to anyone. I am now 33, unemployed, having to care for my abuser because his own unhealthy choices led to poor health, living with my parents, unable to have a healthy relationship with another person, and unwilling to get into another narcissitic-abusive relationship as my last relationship was of this type and led to my current situation. I don’t know what to do, I want to get away but afraid of leaving my parents having to pay someone to care for them, they can’t afford it. I’m also afraid that getting away and not having any decent relationships will lead me to contemplating suicide. Or I will just wind up coming right back, unable to live with feeling like I’m not good enough and unworthy of a decent life. It’s a shitty situation, so if you’re reading this and can relate, please just leave and don’t go back. Going back will only leave you stuck between knowing you were abused and questioning if you might have deserved it.
Hi Dan, I am so sorry to hear of your struggle. If you have even a glimmer of hope for yourself, hang onto that . Don’t let anyone stand in the way of it. Your life is priceless. No other person has a right to ruin your life. Least of all a “parent”. You were supposed to have been taken care of. But they wronged you and you have every right as an adult to choose your own path. You don’t owe anyone. Genuine caring for another person does not include obligation and payment. I went no-contact with my mother seven months ago. I am mid-fifties and she mid-eighties. I am concerned daily that she is OK, but will not go back. Parents like ours instill a one-way idea that we are obligated to them , and anything else is treason. This is simply not true. It feels true. But it is not true. My non-negotiable for continuing a relationship with her was that we go to therapy together to help us have a healthy relationship. She said no, and that I am the problem. I have lived the majority of my life trying to get affirmation that I am good, or acceptable, because she gave me a sense that I was always on thin ice. I could get a great and even loving response from her, but at the same time waiting for the axe to fall. It invariably did and the last time I decided I would not, could not take it anymore. It hurts to leave, and guilt is the part I struggle with most. But I also realize guilt is the reaction I was trained to have if I did anything purely for myself and not her. It is a learned behavior, not rooted in truth. It was a relationship based on fear, not love. You can survive and even thrive if you give yourself the chance. Those closest to me have noticed a change for the better. They say I am more relaxed and calmer since I don’t engage with my mother anymore. I don’t notice it to the extent they do, but I do feel it in my innermost parts. From what I have read, it can take years to purge old programming with new programming.
Wow, every comment here, like yours Linda, is so helpful. My head is spinning from all the wisdom.
Dan, I agree – you don’t owe your father. You owe yourself a life. I hope you find it – as I hope that for all of us. I did caretaking of my mother for two years (at great financial, physical and emotional cost to myself) and for that: she painted me as the worst person on earth to the rest of my now ex-family. Don’t stay if you are in pain.
Dan the only thing you need is to give yourself a chance. Nothing is worse than what you have now. You got nothing to lose. Your ex girlfriend was a narc too – they always side with each other. Learn the red flag of narcs and chose a women by yourself- do not let to be chosen. You owe yourself a chance. Even if you live one more year on this planet you deserve to feel good about yourself. Leave them in the bad past and take yourself to your good future. Save money and move away with no contact.
Pls go no contact..agreed, everyone wont be able to understand…but u have people who have also gone through similiar who will understand…u need to go no contact….and leave people to their own devices…guess what
…theyll manaage very well…they know how to take care of themselves…if you like…stay away and observe after a few months…they are alwzys trying to get u to leave ur business and see to them…meanwhile they willl ensure i never get into any good relationship..
Hi,
I did everything for them, went back and cared at great cost to me personally. All they cared about was how to destroy me and my life.
Hi Dan, sorry to hear about your situation. One of my narcissistic parents is also in poor health, and I only realized about all the abuse and mindfuckery *after* I moved back in with them recently. So I’m also trying to process some of the same issues. I’ve been so used to gaslighting and doubting myself all my life.
A lot of people (including therapists) say that we need healthy relationships / supportive community to undo our early narcissistic conditioning. They are right of course. But the problem is that I have not been able to form long-lasting healthy relationships to any helpful extent. My past relationship partners tended to be codependent, and I forced myself into the role of “taking care” of them because that’s what my family taught me relationships are supposed to be like. So to say that we need healthy support when our whole upbringing keeps us stuck in unhealthy dynamics, seems like a catch-22.
So I think for now at least, building up self-validation is extremely important. I can’t afford therapy right now and building up a supportive network takes time and skills. But before I have those things, I can at least acknowledge to myself that the abuse was real. I can at least stop gaslighting myself and trying to make excuses for parents who hurt me. Just because I don’t have other people to validate me for now, doesn’t mean that I need my parents’ validation (which they won’t give me anyway).
I don’t know if this is helpful to you. But I feel that my intuition has always been very strong since I was a kid. I didn’t listen to it for many years because of my parents’ coercion and me forcing myself to ignore/suppress it. But now that I actually listened to myself, I realize that I can trust myself after all, that I’m not any of the horrible things that my parents said I was.
From the book “Trapped in the Mirror” by Elan Golomb: “The negative introject (i.e. our internalized self-hatred) always feels like a foreign, attacking entity. Its cruelty comes from the unmitigated hostility of the parent as well as the anger of the child at his frustrations.” The feelings that we are unworthy and need to run back to our parents is a feeling that they planted in us. It’s not us, we need to learn to dis-identify from it, and nurture the side of us that care and cherish ourselves – that’s the natural and innate side of us that our parents tried to destroy.
We didn’t deserve any of their shit, we deserve to be happy like everyone else. Lots of support to you in your healing journey.
Wow, such a helpful post, Eva. Thank you – though it was meant for someone else! I never realized the most fabulous thing you point out – we can’t get that community we need because of our fears and our inability to trust. I need to read your post over and over to try to adopt your methods….
Thanks so much for this article. I’m the scapegoat and my (slightly) disabled sister and her disabled daughter are the golden children, along with my son, the narcissist’s first grandchild. My problem is that my mother, who is now 81, has melanoma. I’m fighting with myself. I want her to die, then I don’t want her to die, then I hate myself for wanting her to die. I’ve spent my whole life trying to please this woman and never achieved it. I’ve become a high achiever myself and after a failed first marriage to another narcissist, am happily married to a good man. My children have both suffered from their father’s abuse – my son was scapegoated by him and my daughter was the golden child. As a result of the mixed messages from his father and grandmother, my son suffered dreadfully during his teenage years. He’s in his 30s now, married to a lovely girl. My daughter is a little more stable than her brother but was a victim of bullying as a child. I’ve always wondered if that’s because of the narcissm in my family. I was bullied at school myself. Now, as my parents are in extreme old age, they’ve bought my sister a house. I’m supposed to look after her. But I was taught that my sister was my enemy. She has been given everything all her life and has never been required to take responsibility – even for parenting her own daughter. Every terrible thing my sister has done – gambling her own home away, completely neglecting her own daughter, trying to get my teenage son to obtain drugs for her – has been excused or just plain gaslighted by my parents, both of them. My father is an enabler. I know he loves me but he isn’t allowed to show it. There’s nothing to be done at this late stage – my parents are too old for me to end the relationship and I’ve been taught my whole life that I owe them something (I’m not sure exactly what). It’s nice to get it down on paper. Thanks for reading.
Just because u learned that u gotta taks care doesnt mean u cant unlearn it….pls dont take others responsibilities….let them get their shit together…its none of ur business…
I’m still obsessed with my sons father after he is married to someone else & expecting another baby
I am going on 69 years of age. Did not realize what being the scapegoat for my whole life until I was in my mid 60’s. I knew I was the “black sheep” of the family, but when I learned what a scapegoat is, a narcissist, and flying monkies are it hit me like a ton of bricks SPOT ON. All the abuse and denial on their part became so very crystal clear to me.
I, to this day still suffer with clinical depression and horrible self worth and now it is because of abusive dysfunctional upbringing. I have become a loner and have rejected all of my friends because of realizing I did nothing but attract narcissistic types who only cared about everything being their way and on their time, or nothing else. Trusting anyone to not take advantage of me is difficult, so I keep to myself.
Jesus Christ. You just gave my life’s experience meaning. I’m 63 and like Gi above didn’t realize I was the scapegoat for the family until about age 55 (if only we’d had the internet back then, Gi – I share your experience exactly!). It’s exhausting spending every waking minute (and almost nightly nightmares of the abuse) fighting to feel worth living. Self harm, substance abuse, staying in abusive relationships. And though I’m learning, my mother at 93 has gotten even worse in targeting me as evil. I had to go almost no contact (unfortunately as I’m the single childless one – what else since she criticized everyone I dated and monopolized my holidays and time), but I’m the trustee on her trust so I have to occasionally do trust business with her. I’d give up that position to one of my siblings (her darlings) but though extremely wealthy (I’m not) they are all thieves who would drain the money with my mother’s willful blindness to it. It’s too late for me to marry or have children or restore my ruined career. I’m just trying to keep my wits about me before I probably inevitably will lose the fight. Younger people – run and never look back or your life will be destroyed as mine is.
Just like my dad “eating some candy & watching TV” makes you a bad child. When you really break it down leaping from eating to rendering of character judgment is just plain idiotic. Might want to save the making of judgment for a more consequential issue of moral weight?
I can tell you as a dad it never occurred to me to check the tv or be mad about pieces of candy. If it’s so important put the candy up somewhere.
You know what this movie & others like it are also about? Mothers who fail to protect their children from abuse. Moms who at some point choose the abuser. The kids didn’t pick. Mom did. Then she didn’t protect her kids. She help preserve the environment for his abuse to continue.
Once children are present that’s it. Excuses don’t exist.
“Why didn’t you protect your kids from being abused” oh boy did my mom squirm from this legitimate question, my mom had a handful of self centered reasons.
Funny how asking this simple question gets push back from only one kind of mom. The mom who failed to protect her kids from being abused by her partner. The rest of the moms either protected their children or see no relevancy to their life & state such.
Don’t torture yourself in thinking that way — making a narcissist see fault in themselves will never happen. They don’t take accountability, and if they do, its because its part of a hidden agenda or further manipulation or to flip the ‘victim’ script. Focus on being grateful you are insightful enough, no matter what age, to finally be alert to it and make your own choices. Allowing them to continually impact you is gifting them the power. Don’t gift them the power. Much peace to you
So is it echoism that makes a victim of a narcisstic parent end up surrounded by MORE narcissists such as spouses, bosses, friends, etc.? It seems like you either accept that personality around you because its familiar or because they know YOU are a TARGET. Is it all of the above? You are so ‘dead on target’ with the descriptions and examples. I’m sorry for those who don’t realize until later in life that it isn’t their fault by expecting their own parent to nurture them…and instead they project onto them, torture them, break them down and all in an effort of self-elevation and superiority/grandiosity. But curious as to your feedback on my questions above. Thank you !
Catherine,
Your input highlighted from the rest since your question had been in my head for the last few days. My mother was a malignant narcissist. She enjoyed the feeling of control over people. She died recently and the question pop out recurrently in my head. Regardless of each one’s beliefs, I believe that there’s a thing called familiar spirits. While she was alive I faced numerous amount of job situations that put me laid off of my jobs. And is not a matter of not taking personal accountability, but I’ve seen the face of satisfaction that I used to see on mom’s face just with different face and name every time I faced that situation. On my adulthood years I detached myself emotionally from mom while she was alive and I get to the conclusion that somehow back in those days she find a way to keep fuc*ing my personal interests. I feel powerless when it comes to spiritual realm situation.
Best, Hanna
Don’t torture yourself in thinking that way — making a narcissist see fault in themselves will never happen. They don’t take accountability, and if they do, its because its part of a hidden agenda or further manipulation or to flip the ‘victim’ script. Focus on being grateful you are insightful enough, no matter what age, to finally be alert to it and make your own choices. Allowing them to continually impact you is gifting them the power. Don’t gift them the power. Much peace to you
Best book with great descriptions and insight — The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist by Debbie Mirza. It will feel like you are reading a book about your own experiences. Worth the read !
You know, I kinda always thought there was a secret camera recording my childhood, but I didn’t realize the tapes had been made available. Go figure! This nailed both my NPD parents all the way up to when I went No Contact for the last time.
Very helpful!
You know, I kinda always thought there was a secret camera recording my childhood, but I didn’t realize the tapes had been made available. Go figure!
Glad to be No Contact now.
I thought I would agree with narcissists that they are worthless, but I actually think they are worse than that. Not only do they contribute nothing, but they destroy and cause misery for so many people.
God bless all of you and I hope you have a new Christmas much better than the old fake ones I always suffered .Christmas was always hell.
Man, I can relate to this! The movie “This Boy’s Life” was one that hit home with me. I think it’s based on real events and Dwight was actually his stepfather…not his biological father.
Although I’m female, the Toby character was one I can identify with. I remember asking my stepfather “why do you hate me? What have I done to you?” And he couldn’t answer or explain in a rational way, because there was nothing rational about it.
I was hated and punished no matter what. You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
In “This Boy’s Life” I think it wasn’t so much about Toby eating the candy. It was more Dwight’s way of telling him that he is (in Dwight’s eyes) unworthy of happiness or anything good in life.
I had the same experiences growing up, even when it came to basic needs like taking a shower or simple joys that normal kids have without fear.
Narcissists deprive others of needs and wants to keep them in their “place”. So with Dwight, it’s a way of making Toby feel inferior, undeserving of things that make him happy, and that doing even the most normal things (eating a piece of candy) is wrong.
I can identify with Toby because the idea growing up was “this is MY house…you’re not wanted here”. Narcissists don’t create a safe, healthy environment for anyone. And when children are involved? Unless one is the golden child/favorite, their home life with a narcissistic parent will be miserable. The narcissistic parent will make it clear that your needs don’t matter. Your voice will be unheard, your needs unmet…or met only to a point that the narcissist deems fit.
Also, the “hog” label Dwight puts on Toby is a way to dehumanize him further. By doing so, a narcissist can plant seeds of self-hate in the victim.
They can try to convince the victim of his or her internal filth (a projection) and greed (another projection).
I was often accused of being a greedy, spoiled, selfish pig of a child. This was a complete lie but this was planted in my self-image.
By doing so, the narcissist trains the victim (in this case, a child) to believe that they are not human. That they don’t have feelings or needs and to expect nothing good from life. It’s truly abusive.
I believe I am the scapegoat of my abusive, narcissistic, passive/aggressive husband. Somehow he has convinced my son “Mom is the problem”. I am a complete caregiver. My energy and resources ‘fuel’ the entire family and if I ask for anything of call Him on it my son attacks me “YOU are always like this” “YOU ruin everything” “Dad is a good guy. YOU are needy” etc etc. Anyone comment or experience this kind of projection and displacement of blame?