Narcissist Parents – Page 3 – Narcissism and how to survive it

Parental Alienation

There are varying degrees of parental alienation when separating from a narcissist. The most extreme cases are absolutely ruthless in trying to eliminate their ex from their child’s life. When things get a bit rocky they will start a smear campaign that could go on for years. They will depict themselves as the victim of abuse, neglect and cruelty and will do everything that they can to keep their child away from their ex. The child will know very well that they are expected to take sides and will be told a whole lot of age inappropriate things (real or imaginary) about the ex.

Here are some of the faces of narcissism you can expect to see if you are fighting for custody (joint or otherwise).

They will bring up perceived wrong doings that happened years and years ago, as if it were yesterday.
They will be determined to get revenge for fighting them for the kids and not letting them have their own way (as is their entitlement!)
They are selfish to a jaw dropping degree. They do not listen to you, to figures of authority and will completely disregard the well-being of their child to make their point.
They see their child as their possession to do with what they like, however inappropriate.
They will fight to win, even if it means financial ruin for both parties

The goal of the narcissistic parent is to destroy the love that their child has for their other parent using their favourite tools of lies and manipulation. There is absolutely no doubt, that this is emotional and mental abuse as the narcissistic parent will be determined to change the child’s perception of their other parent in a highly toxic and negative way. This is an extremely sick and selfish parent who could inflict such damage on their own off spring.

A mature parent will set their anger and upset aside to protect their child from an argument that is not theirs and that they are not old enough to fully understand. Not so with a narcissist parent, they will grab their child and throw them into the conflict, use them as a human shield and a comforter at the same time. The ex will have grave difficulty trying to remove the child out of the conflict because once a narcissist is angry they do not care what they say or who they hurt – the game is on and they are there to win, even if it means destroying everything around them in the process. There is absolutely no point in trying to talk reason to these parents because they will just up the bar. They do not take responsibility for their own actions, so if the child is exhibiting signs of high anxiety it will not be the narcissist’s fault, it will be the ex’s.

The only way that you can parent at this stage is by being a normal parent who listens to your children’s fear, anxieties and insecurities. If your child talks at you in the same mode as their narcissistic parent it is important to correct their behaviour immediately. This can be difficult especially if you have limited time with your child and want it to be as pleasurable as possible.

A parent divorcing a narcissistic partner can be sure to expect:

Emotional and psychological immaturity, it will be like arguing with a four-year-old.
The issues that they say they have a problem with are rarely the real issues. It is their personalities that are the cause of most of the problems, something that they will absolutely refuse to even consider (it is never their fault).
They will absolutely refuse to take responsibility for any of their behaviour/actions or things that they said, it will still always be someone else’s fault (they made them do it etc.)
They will not be solution oriented as that is not the way their brain works and they enjoy the drama of a court case too much to bring it to a swift resolution. They absolutely refuse to compromise because they are “entitled” to get exactly what they want.
Limited or no self-awareness
Will very often play the role of the poor victim when in fact they are the aggressor/abuser
They will be unpredictable and inconsistent in their argument and will resort to total incoherence if they think it would serve them better

Parentification

Parentification is where one or both parents depend on their child(ren) to provide them with emotional and mental support. It is a complete reversal of roles and very damaging for the child because not only does the child not receive any parenting themselves, they are also expected to parent their parents too. The child never gets the nurturing, comforting and space they need for their own emotional development since they are constantly putting the needs and demands of one or both parents before their own. The parent may think on a conscious or an unconscious level that they have finally have someone to love them unconditionally and uses the child to fill the feeling of emptiness from not having had loving parents in their own childhood. Children cannot get away from their parents, so the parent might feel that it is safe for them to depend on their child for “love” possibly for the first time in their life so they will work very hard to keep the child in the role that they have allocated to them, in effect the parent makes the child responsible for their happiness and well-being. They expect the child to be an unwavering secure source of emotional support, the type of love and support that a narcissist who is parentifying their child expects is not one that two adults would expect from one another because it is too enmeshed, adults do not need unconditional love in partnerships or friendships, so it is completely inappropriate for an adult to expect that level of support from a small child who has not had a healthy or supportive environment to get their own needs met.

The tools that the parent uses to keep their child in the parentified role are fear of abandonment, fear of punishment, fear that if they do not take care of the emotional needs of their parent they, the parent will break-down or fall apart. The parent will repeatedly tell the child that it is their duty to take care of the parent, that is what children do, so the child responds to this situation by being extremely reactive to their parent’s needs and expectations, frequently trying to anticipate them before the parent does.

The parentified child respond to this dysfunctional system by:

Extreme obedience out of fear and obligation.
Never showing any needs or vulnerability to the extent that they will never feel comfortable seeking parental support of they are sick, sad or distressed.
Giving their parents everything that they want so that they don’t abuse the child. What the parent wants is always more than the child wants to give, taking more from the child than they want to give is a “win” for the narcissistic parent.
Keeping a very low profile to not to be a nuisance or take any attention away from the parent.

The parentifying model will not exist outside the home, the parent will seem like they are assuming to parental role and will get annoyed with their child if they parent them in public. Parentified children are not allowed to have a childhood and the parent can get angry with their off spring if they play and act like a child. The child will not get any validation from their parent because the parent thinks that it is the child’s role to provide them with affirmations, so they will say things like

“Do you love me?” and rarely say “I love you” and never with sincerity, possibly only after the child has done the parent a favour.
“We are best friends”
If a parentified child asks the parent for guidance the parent will reply “Do what you want” or “I don’t care what you do”
Alternatively a child can be expected to fulfil the unachieved ambitions of a parent or go into the same line of work that their parent chose
If the child wants to do something without the parent such as singing lessons, sport or getting a job the parent will say “Oh no, you don’t want to do that you’d hate it”, “We can’t afford that” even when they can, “I don’t have time for that” even when they do

They will hold their child back whenever and where ever they can (without exposure), so that they child stays focused on the parent(s). The message that the child gets is that their needs are always too much. They might put a roof over the child’s head and food on the table, but any more than that is excessive and to show gratitude for the basics that they have been given means that they must dedicate all of their energy to tend to the endless emotional needs of the parent.

Any expression of their needs can be met with abuse, ridicule (for having needs) or outright rejection “just go away!”.

As they grow up they are petrified of doing something that might annihilate their parent, because their parent presents themselves as being extremely fragile and weak. So that even pointing out the abusive behaviour of the parent will feel like they are being excessively aggressive or unreasonable so they hide their own feelings to protect the parent.

The parent plays the victim causing their child to see themselves as being mean and nasty if they express their own independence. The parent will also resent the fact that their child wants independence from them and will convey the message that the child has to stay small and quiet in order to survive, not to act like an individual and to always think of the needs of the parent before taking any action.

When the child is ready to separate from the parent, the parent might see this as a replication of their own childhood wounds and act out in anger/rage, name calling and various other methods in an attempt to eviscerate the child into feeling so bad about themselves that they find it very hard to make a clean break. The parent will continue to look for emotional support from the child even when they do move a way and if anything upsets the parent they will expect their child to drop everything and run to their aid. This reassurance that they look for can be as a result something real or just a test to see if they can still wield power over their child.

The parentified child must learn that they have been cast in a highly inappropriate role by their parents and to heal from these wounds they have to acknowledge the pain, the lack of parental love and realise that they do not need to sabotage themselves and their ability to thrive to satisfy their parent’s needs. A child will never be able to satisfy the needs of their parents as a child cannot take the pain away from their parents by bearing it themselves. The parent has an insatiable appetite for validation, love and approval and unless they do the work for themselves any comfort they receive from their child will be very short lived and they will almost immediately start to look for more. Parentified children must learn to hand back their parent’s pain as it is not theirs to deal with.

Core Beliefs

Your core beliefs are what you think about yourself and the world around you. They are the hard drive that shapes all other information that you process. If these beliefs have been tampered with in childhood, it can have very serious consequences later on in life. These beliefs will have been implanted at a very early age and are not necessarily true at all because you will have been told by primary carers who they want you to be and they will not have listened to who you are or wanted to be. This causes a lot of confusion for a child because you look to your parents for validation and to feel safe, if they constantly give you negative feed-back and are critical all of the time it can ruin confidence and self-esteem. The reason that they do this is because narcissists have to put everyone around them down to inflate their own sense of superiority. So if it means verbally, emotionally or physically attacking infants that is what they will do, it doesn’t cost them a thought. Everything is a competition with narcissists and they simply have to “win” all of the time.

These attacks can happen because

You asked too many questions
You were being a child and displaying age appropriate behaviour
You were popular
Someone paid you a compliment
You were funny
You got a prize at school

The list is endless and difficult to understand how someone being a good child and just doing your own thing could be a threat to an adult narcissist, but it is. Narcissists are incapable of nurturing and taking care of their young because it is too much trouble, it is boring for them and there isn’t enough in it for them. The child and the narcissist are also in the same emotional space and is therefore automatically a threat.

What a child learns from a narcissistic care giver is that they are not good enough and that they are defective. Behaviour and performing well on tasks will be constantly judged and monitored and will be attacked. If you under-perform you “are an embarrassment” if you over achieve you “are a threat”, although they will never say it directly they will say something like “stop showing off” or “well you would wouldn’t you”, using really negative intonation or just shrug it off like it didn’t happen.

Some core beliefs are.

I’m not good enough
I’m stupid
I’m not worth anything
I’m a bad person
I’m a horrible child
I don’t deserve nice things
I am unlovable
I’m always left out
I’m not wanted
I’m alone
I’m boring

These negative core beliefs create fear in the child and therefore makes them easier to control. A narcissistic parent for example will constantly threaten to abandon their child which is like a death threat and creates beliefs such as

If I don’t do exactly as I am told I will be left on the side of the road
What I want is not important
If I am happy I upset my parent(s)
I’m not as good as others
If I express myself, an opinion, doing something creative or have fun, I will be punished

The aim of the narcissist is to control, so what they will do is give their child age inappropriate sense of responsibility for always putting the needs of their parents first, but taking away all power. This also contributes to low self-esteem and a sense that you are not entitled to stand up for yourself. This in turn makes you susceptible to being bullied in the future.

If you come from a narcissistic family of origin you might be a people pleaser, people pleaser’s core beliefs could be:

I cannot ask others for help (it is too risky as I will be refused/rejected)
I have to do everything myself
I must put the needs of everyone else before my own
My needs don’t count
I only feel good when I am serving other people
I always have to pretend to be happy
My genuine happiness and well-being is not important, so long as I put on a show of happiness.

So when you compare those core beliefs to narcissistic core beliefs, a narcissist will always have the upper hand unless you address the issue. A narcissists core belief like so many of your core beliefs has absolutely nothing to do with their capacity or competency in life. They have simply decided that this is who they are and any evidence to the contrary will just be rejected completely

I am superior to others
Nothing bad is ever my fault, everything good is to my credit
I am fascinating and deserve to be the centre of attention all of the time
I deserve special treatment where ever I go
I do not have to play by the rules, they are for other lesser people than me
I am perfect
People have absolutely no right to criticise me
If people upset me they deserve to be punished for it
If I upset other people, they are just being “over sensitive”

The damaging effects of shame in narcissistic parenting

Shame damages the emotional well-being of the child and the child’s perception of themselves. Shame tells the child “you are a bad person” whereas guilt tells them “that was a bad behaviour –we can work on improving that”. In the second instance the child has clarity on what behaviour was not acceptable and can learn not to repeat it. A shamed child feels that their entire existence is flawed and does not know what to do to make it better.
Shaming has a very negative influence on a child’s self-esteem, when a child’s emotions are invalidated, ignored or as typical narcissist would say, “you shouldn’t feel like that, because…” this lack of empathy for the child’s feelings leaves the child feeling unworthy of support and attention, but also that the pain and confusion that is created between what they know they actually feel in a specific situation and what they are told that they are “allowed to feel”, in other words what they feel is incorrect.
If a parent does not listen to or validate the small stuff that a child is trying to tell them, over time the child will not tell their parent(s) anything because it doesn’t feel safe. So if the child comes across a major problem that they need to resolve, they will have no adult to turn to and will have to deal with the situation alone. This is emotional abuse and very traumatising for the child. That which is trivial to an adult can be extremely important and challenging to a small child, narcissistic parents tend to attribute adult emotions to even their very small children (albeit narcissistically stunted emotions)
Narcissistic parents will often jeer and ridicule their child for actually having emotions as most narcissists despise their own humanity. They see it as a sign of weakness in themselves, but also in others. This causes massive insecurity because the message is “everything that you feel is wrong”. This doesn’t only apply to negative emotions such as fear, despair, being scared, lonely, sad, inferior or empty but also to positive ones such as accepted, happy, joy, interested, optimistic, calm, loving and playful. The narcissistic parent gets upset by emotions at both ends of the spectrum and would much rather that their children behaved like they were constantly on anti-depressants and constantly adhering to the needs of their parents.
When a child’s emotions are constantly rejected they cease to have the courage to express them since they are never validated. They learn to express themselves within very limited parameters for fear of being chastised, ridiculed or punished. Shaming a child kills off their spontaneity, their freedom of expression and their confidence in exploring the world.
When a child has been subjected to narcissistic shaming there are two extremes, they become either over reactive so that they try to anticipate another person’s desires before that person even knows it themselves (people pleasers), or they shut down and become more or less immune to the needs and desires of others, in other words they become narcissistic themselves.
The effects of shame based parenting can last well into adulthood and may often be repeated – as it was the role model that was presented to them when they were very young before they knew what was happening.
The adult child of narcissists will there for have problems trusting his or her self as a result of being perpetually denied their feelings and emotions when they were growing up.

What are the effects of emotional incest on a child?

According to Wikipedia Emotional Incest is a style of parenting in which a parent looks to their child for the emotional support that would be normally provided by another adult. The effects of covert incest on a child when they become adults are thought to mimic actual incest.

That is the simplest form of emotional incest, it also includes being a parent’s most important source of support (even above that of their spouse) and children from a very young age are forced to put the needs of their parents before their own. Unlike the damage from physical or sexual abuse emotional incest is very difficult to identify. It can be couched in care and love but the real intention is to get control, admiration and attention. As a result of this children of emotionally incestuous families are rarely feel safe, or are given guidance or discipline. The parents will often maintain that they are being liberal when in fact they are being extremely abusive and neglectful of their off spring, who are exposed to responsibilities that are far too great for their actual age.

The selected child(ren) will often feel special because of the extra attention that they are receiving from their parent. Parental attention is a limited resource and if one child is given more of it than their siblings it will lead to them thinking that they are entitled to it. However, there is a cost to the child for this special attention:

It can cause resentment from their spouse that will be directed at the child. Since we get our self-esteem from our same sex parent, if they are exhibiting high levels of resentment, it can be devastating to the confidence of the “chosen” child.
It will almost certainly create jealousy and strong sibling rivalry.
The child can live in fear of being demoted as the narcissistic parent will use this threat as a means of control.

Emotional incest from one or both parents, makes it impossible for that child(ren) to set healthy boundaries and to get their own needs met. It is highly probably that these children will go on to have adult relationships that might well be abusive in the same way, where the adult child always puts the needs of others before their own. Children can often feel guilty because they are unable to understand or meet the emotional needs of their parents and their parents will let them know that they are not “doing their job properly”, these feelings will remain with them into adulthood if they go unchecked, feeling that they are not very good at love or indeed life. Being okay is never “good enough”.

In adolescence and adulthood they are likely to be tormented by toxic shame and guilt coupled with resentment because they were delegated a “job” that was completely inappropriate and they were far too young for, as children they were never let set boundaries and say “no”. Even if they might not have to vocabulary to express their sense of injustice/abuse, they will know that there was something very wrong in the family dynamic.

They can feel guilty if they do anything for themselves from studying, health care and simply having fun because they have been instilled with an outrageous sense of obligation to their parent(s). Narcissistic parent(s) have a problem with their children having fun because they themselves do not know how to have fun, so they try to prevent it in their children as they cannot relate to it which threatens their assumption that their children are mere extensions of themselves.
They might have difficulty relating to their own sexual identity as the parent(s) will want their opposite sex child act as a mini husband/wife and will get aggressive/hurt/jealous if they see someone come along who might threaten this “relationship”.
The child might feel inadequate for or unworthy of a healthy loving relationship.
Compulsive behaviours such as drugs, food, sex, alcohol, work and gambling are related to emotional incest.
The inability to communicate openly and frankly with people including lovers, colleagues and family members because voicing their own needs as a child was not permitted, punished or just ignored.
Social anxiety
Since a child exposed to emotional incest was given responsibility but no power they can be confused about sharing status with other adults and can often be dominating or dominated.

The whole family unit is effected by emotional incest. The parent(s) become enmeshed in the lives of their children frequently using them in a game between themselves that their children cannot possibly understand. The Golden Child will be the favourite of the parent, the one who can do nothing wrong, is very cossetted and always over protected. Very often the mother will have one golden child and the father will have another (often opposite the sex). In this situation, the mother’s golden child with become the father’s scapegoat child and the father’s golden child will become the mother’s scapegoat. Sometimes a spouse is excluded from the family unit deliberately to have the child(ren) exclusively in orbit of one parent. The spouse that has been shut out might turn to workaholism, alcoholism, hobbies or affairs just to avoid an unhappy home life. It is more than likely that the excluded parent will be blamed for “never being there”, because as always with narcissists it is never their fault.

It can also happen that a child can be forced into a double role with their parent(s) for example they can be expected to play the role as the admiring/romantic/flirty “lover” and parent at the same time. This is very confusing to the child as they are never sure which role they are expected to play and it will hinge on the mood the narcissist is in and the company they are keeping at the time.

The narcissist parent will tell their golden child all types of secrets and intimacies that the other children will not be privy to. The child(ren) who have not been confided in will feel like there is something going on behind their back and this will just broaden the divide between siblings.

There is another type of emotional incest and that is between siblings, where one sibling parentises another, this is a much more intense relationship than “just looking out for the younger ones”, it happens when the parent(s) are emotionally unavailable and a younger sibling looks up to their older one for guidance and comfort. If the older sibling is narcissistic themselves they can “take care” of the younger one(s), but it comes at a price and that is that they are used as supply, and also enslaved using the model of the narcissistic parent(s). This dynamic will almost certainly continue into adulthood. The younger (although not necessarily) sibling will be expected to do exactly what their older sibling tells them to do, even as adults. This can also occur if one or both parents die prematurely.

Infantalisation

Infantalisation in narcissistic families happens deliberately and by default. It happens by default because the narcissistic parent(s) are emotionally very immature themselves, so they cannot provide a healthy emotional role model for their children to follow. They have little or no self-awareness or an awareness that their children are human beings rather than their possessions.

According to Wikipedia Infantalisation is

a term referring to the treatment of one who is not a biological child as though he or she is a child.^[1] When used in reference to teenagers or adolescents, the term typically suggests that teenagers and their potential are underestimated in modern society, and/or that adolescents are often regarded as though they are younger than their actual age.^[2]

People who are the subject of infantilisation by others are said to have been “infantilised.” Studies have shown that an individual, when infantilized, is overwhelmingly likely to feel disrespected. Such individuals may report a sense of transgression akin to dehumanisation.^[3]

Infantilisation may also refer to a process when a child is being treated in a manner appropriate only for younger children.^[4]

This is done to the children of narcissists to stop them from gaining independence and moving away from their parent(s). It is done exclusively to control the child and make them dependent on their parents and therefore an excellent and constant source of narcissistic supply. It is important to remember that children are hostages to their parents and they are forced to comply because narcissistic parents can get very aggressive and angry with their children if they feel like they are losing control. To the child, disobedience can feel life threatening.

It can come in the form of:

Telling their children who they may and may not be friends with
Faking fear for the safety of the child if they want to go off and do something on their own.
Cossetting the child and “helping” them do things that they a capable of doing themselves
Disallowing activities over which the parent(s) have no control, such as sporting activities or hobbies
Demanding absolute obedience from their children

They can do this in a number of ways.

They will interfere in all of their relationships, from friendships, boyfriends/girlfriends inter family relationships, teachers etc. They will tell them who they may or may not bring home, they will sneer at their friends that they don’t approve of and call in the flying monkeys in the family to support them. They can do this by creating false rumours or telling lies about what the child said or did to divide/split relationships.
They will interfere in the child’s career/study choices if they perceive it to be a higher achievement than they attained (they do not like to be out-shined by their children) or if they think that having a child that is a doctor is far better for their self-image than a cabinet maker or a musician.
Decisions that are made without their consent will be viciously attacked so that they force their way into the child’s decision making process and anything that is done will have to be run by them. They will also try to make the child believe, through constant negative feedback that they are incapable of making good decisions for and about themselves without their input.
They will criticise everything that is done to deliberately to rob self-esteem, confidence and independence in their child, in other words keep them orbiting around their narcissistic parents and prioritizing their needs over their own.
Ignoring or punishing every request the child makes to do something for themselves
Refusing to buy age appropriate clothes
Deny pocket money so that they control everything that the child possesses and can do without their permission

It is very important for to realise that an infantilised child has to set boundaries with their parents if they want to be a mature adult. Narcissistic parents will combat this at every level, but even a narcissist will have to step down if you do this in a firm but non aggressive way.

The first step is not to share everything that is happening in your life with them. The less they know, the less involved and critical they can be. Narcissists criticise for the sole purpose of controlling their children. They will say literally anything no matter how wild or stupid so long as it is in opposition to what you want/think/did/said.

There are a few phrases that you can use such as:

If your parent offers to pay for a holiday because s/he wants to later invite themselves a long, you can say “no thanks it is fine, I have already paid for it”
If they disagree with an opinion or value, you can say “that is an interesting point of view, but I do not see it that way”
If they criticise your clothes or hair and tell you that you look ridiculous, you can say “I think it/they are fun and I don’t mind looking ridiculous”, they might reply “well I mind, you are an embarrassment to me” you can reply “perhaps, but you are not me” – they cannot argue with that, even though they might disagree. The point is that when they tell you what to do or try to get over involved, bring the conversation and calmly as possible to bring it back to you. Take the power out of their comments.

The minute that you have stood up to them either change the subject or walk away. If they try to draw you back in (which they probably will do) just tell them “I am not discussing that with you any more”, “You have already stated your opinion”, “you have told me what you think”.

Don’t:

Justify your decisions
Look for reason or rational thinking
Harbour any of their negative criticism. It is not about you or what you do/think. It is about their wild desire to control you.
Feel like you have to comfort them if they get upset or angry
Try to justify yourself to any of their flying monkeys