How Adult Children of Narcissists Can Begin to Heal

“The typical adult from a narcissistic family is filled with unacknowledged anger, feels like a hollow person, feels inadequate and defective, suffers from periodic anxiety and depression, and has no clue about how he or she got that way.” ~Pressman and Pressman, The Narcissistic Family

Are you the adult child of a narcissistic mother or father?

As you may already know, living with a narcissist can be difficult for anyone, but growing up in the care of one can affect your life in very significant ways. In other words, being the child of a narcissist is life-altering – and not usually in good ways.

For example, most narcissists use a horribly painful sort of manipulation called gaslighting – it’s the worst kind because it messes with your mind in ways you’d never expect. This is especially true for the children of narcissists, who can’t get away from it and have no concept of what “normal” actually looks like from the inside.

Many children of narcissists spend their whole lives thinking “I wasn’t good enough,” and wondering if their mothers/fathers/other caregivers could and would always be better than they.

The faces of parental narcissism

“Narcissists have two faces — the one they wear in public, and the one they wear at home,” according to LightHouse.org. “Only those close to the narcissist have any idea there is more than one face. And the narcissist’s children know best of all because children – those who have the least power – are the ones the narcissist allows him or herself to be the least guarded around.”

So, kids of narcissistic parents are forced to pretend in public that all is well–all the while knowing that when they get home, things will be different. In some cases, they dread going home because the difference is so significant.

“Narcissistic parents lack the ability to emotionally tune in to their kids,” writes Karyl McBride, Ph.D. “They cannot feel and show empathy or unconditional love. They are typically critical and judgmental.”

Many kids of narcissists express the same kind of frustration: everyone thinks their narcissistic parent is a saint–the best person ever, McBride says, noting that “while at home their children suffer in silence with their parent’s tantrums, disinterest and put-downs — this is clearly NOT the most wonderful person if you truly know them — not even close.”

Narcissistic Parents Make You Feel the Need to Prove Yourself

“Because of its insidious nature, gaslighting is one form of emotional abuse that is hard to recognize and even more challenging to break free from. Part of that is because the narcissist exploits one of our greatest fears – the fear of being alone.” ~ From my book on overcoming gaslighting and narcissism, Take Back Your Life

When you’re raised by a narcissist, you might spend your life trying to prove something–maybe that you have value. Whether you choose to become “perfect” or you go to the other extreme, your narcissist will likely actively discredit everything you do, say or feel. You might start to think you don’t matter–and that you’re not even all that “real.”

I remember believing that nothing I felt or wanted was as real as whatever my narcissist felt or wanted. Even during a recent interaction, I expected a third party to instantly assume I was wrong because that’s what I was brought up to believe. Your thoughts, feelings, and opinions are rarely if ever, validated by a narcissistic parent–and when they are, it’s only when you happen to feel the same way your narcissist does. This continues into adulthood for most children of narcissists.

Once you realize that, you might even start to tell yourself that your opinion is, in fact, always consistent with the narcissist’s opinion. It causes so much less trouble, and you’re treated to the illusion of approval if you comply. But the fact we must remember is that narcissists can’t feel empathy–so they aren’t really capable of changing their opinions. They believe they can’t be wrong.

You get to write your own story

“…all narcissistic parents fail to treat their children as authentic individuals who have their own unique characteristics and needs,” says LightHouse.org. “Narcissists treat their children as mere blank screens for projecting their own internal ‘movies’ onto.”

You see, by always acting like my thoughts, feelings and opinions had no value (like she was “better” than me), my narcissist inadvertently made me feel worthless, not good enough, not important. While I’ve since gone no contact with her, back then I was often made to feel that anything I would say to my parent that was contrary to her opinion would be met with an eye-roll and a wave of dismissal. But this is nothing new, and in some ways, it’s not this person’s fault. Growing up, every idea I had was, according to what I saw and heard, eye-roll-worthy, and very little of what I said or did was treated as valuable. Still, today, she doesn’t respect me or my opinions, but now, I understand that she doesn’t need to–I don’t need to have her approval to be good enough. This is a fairly textbook kind of narcissistic manipulation, according to my research over the years.

“Adult children of narcissists typically describe their parents as mean, phony, self-absorbed, judgmental, dishonest, immature, and manipulative,” reports LightHouse.org.

The Healing Process for an Adult Child of a Narcissist

The healing process for an adult child of a narcissistic parent is a long and sometimes difficult one – but it’s worth the effort. Whether you walk away completely or you choose to limit your relationship to only necessary interactions, you would be wise to give yourself space you’ll need to evolve and grow into the individual you’re meant to be.

As the adult child of a narcissist, you’re bound to have picked up a few (or more) thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that aren’t really your own. So, once you get your space, start there: figure out exactly what you believe, and what you don’t. You might be surprised to find out which beliefs or thoughts you’ve been carrying around for all these years for no reason.

The next step is to begin to embrace the fact that you’re an individual who has value. Your thoughts, feelings, and experiences are legitimate and worth hearing about–and you are just as good as anyone else.

Help with Healing for Adult Children of Narcissists

Sometimes, our wounds are too deep to heal on our own. While some of us might kill ourselves trying to live up to that impossible standard our narcissistic parents set and others choose to go the opposite direction, all of us can benefit from learning to do better for ourselves.

McBride points out that effective therapy for adult children of narcissists has three primary steps.

Understand the background, history, and diagnosis
Deal with the feelings related to the history
Begin to re-frame and view life through a different lens.

“The Wild West philosophy of ‘get over it already’ does not work with this recovery program, nor do simple affirmations or initial cognitive-behavioral work,” McBride says. “This specialized recovery involves cleaning up trauma first and accepting that your parent is not going to change. The change will be within you.”

Free Adult Children of Narcissists Support Group

Join SPANily Support for Adult Children of Narcissistic Parents (ACON) Now and Get the Support You Need! If you’re in need of emotional support as the adult child of a narcissistic parent, you might want to check out our free narcissistic abuse recovery support group for adult children of narcissists. Growing up with a narcissistic mother or father shapes your entire life, and this requires a special kind of support. This group is facilitated by fellow adult children of narcissistic parents. Each facilitator is also a survivor and thriver. This group is led by certified life coaches Angie Atkinson and Colleen Brosnan, along with our experienced admin team.

Click to read my book on narcissism on Kindle right now: Your Love is My Drug: How to Shut Down a Narcissist, Detoxify Your Relationships & Live the Awesome Life You Really Deserve, Starting Right Now [Kindle Edition]

Get help with narcissistic abuse recovery, right now.

The QueenBeeing SPANily, Official – We consider this to be the best narcissistic abuse recovery support group on the web. Offers several subgroups and features a vigilant, compassionate admin team full of trained coaches and survivors, supporting more than 12k members. SPAN is an acronym created by Angie Atkinson that stands for Support for People Affected by Narcissistic abuse in toxic relationships.
Other Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Support Groups – We also have separate groups for each stage in your narcissistic abuse recovery, as well as some for those who have moved past recovery and are evolving into the next stage of their own life. Survivors have unique and individual needs, even when they’ve moved on – so we’re still here for you.
One-on-One Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Coaching – If you prefer to get more personalized support in your recovery, you might like to schedule a session with one of our coaches to plan and execute your own narcissistic abuse recovery plan.
Find a Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Therapist – If you’re looking for a therapist for narcissistic abuse recovery, either because you cannot afford coaching and want to use your health insurance or because you have additional issues you need to address that do not fall within the realm of coaching, you will want to find the right therapist for you – and as far as we’re concerned, that therapist must understand what you’ve been through. This page offers assistance to help you do exactly that.
Where Are You in Recovery? You might not be sure exactly where you fit in and what level of recovery you’ve achieved. If that’s the case, you’ll want to check out this self-assessment to help you determine exactly where you fall in the stages of recovery from narcissistic abuse. Once you finish and submit the assessment, you will be given resources for your own situation, along with recommendations of which groups to join.
Which Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program is Right for You? If you aren’t sure which program you want to utilize to facilitate your recovery from narcissistic abuse, this self-assessment will help you decide.

Kanye West: Introvert or Narcissist?

by Angela Atkinson

“I am Warhol. I am the No. 1 most impactful artist of our generation. I am Shakespeare in the flesh.” ~Kanye West

So awhile back, I read this article that claimed that self-proclaimed music god Kanye West was secretly an introvert.

Yeah, you read that right. Poor, shy Kanye West.

But seriously, let’s start here. Kanye is quite obviously NOT an introvert. In fact, I’d say he’s pretty clearly a narcissist – not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Let me just pull you aside for a moment and note one thing: I personally enjoy a lot of the man’s music and while I don’t consider him much of a singer, I do consider him a very talented artist.

And I also realize that in order to be as successful as Kanye West, one must have a firm belief in one’s abilities, which he clearly does.

With all of that being said, only a narcissist would think that his opinion is more important than however many others chose Taylor Swift over Beyoncé at that now – infamous awards show.

Only a narcissist would interrupt a live television event and cause such a scene, literally stealing the spotlight from a young artist who, to be fair, is pretty talented in her own right.

Tell me an introvert would be so bold.