Are you in relationship with a narcissist?
Adult children of narcissistic parents commonly grow up with this nagging feeling that they flunked childhood and it’s all their fault. They internalize the message they are not good enough no matter how hard they try. While everyone has times they don’t feel up to par in some area of life, this “not good enough” feeling that emerges in childhood and results from narcissistic families is different. It seems to permeate the total being of the person and causes damaging emotional effects and life-long patterns in adult life.
Where does this feeling come from and how do we understand it? From twenty-five years of research, which culminated in the writing of, Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers, I found several significant factors seen in adult children raised by narcissistic parents. When raised by a narcissist, there are some common psychological dynamics that ensue for the child.
In the narcissistic family usually the parental hierarchy is reversed so the child is taking care of the parent instead of the other way around. When a child is put in the position of parental care taking, they are being asked to do a job they cannot do based on their maturity and development. In this impossible role of “parentified child,” the child learns that he or she is not capable of changing or fixing their parents which results in an internalized message of “I’m not good enough.” This same message is internalized in adult children of alcoholic families. This, of course, is not usually understood until adulthood.
A narcissist cannot give empathy and unconditional love to their children. This causes a child to keep trying to find ways to win this approval and attention to no avail. As time passes, the child assumes it is about him or her and feels unlovable. If my own mother or father can’t love me, who will?
Narcissists are not in touch with their own feelings and don’t embrace and heal those feelings. This causes them to project feelings onto others. If angry, sad or lonely, for instance, the narcissist will project the emotion onto their children or other people leaving the poor unsuspecting “other” wondering what hit them. For example, a narcissist may experience anger and instead of own the anger, they ask, “why are you upset with me?” If you are a young child and experiencing this, it not only causes emotional confusion but also creates a sense of shame without knowing why...
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