# Growing up with a Narcissistic Parent and how it impacts MBTI, relationships and life



## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

This thread was created after reading a post by @_Bear987_ in the You thread. Shows up that we have some similar experiences growing up with a narcissist parent and that it, obviously, impacted us greatly as persons.

Bear987 and I did discuss which forum would be the appropriate one to post this thread in and decided on S&R, because growing up in a dysfunctional family tends to have a large impact on all your future relationships.
We were specifically interested in hearing from people growing up under similar circumstances and how you think that your parent’s narcissism impacted who you are today. 
For example:
- When did you first understand that your parent is/was a narcissist?
- Do you believe that the experience impacted the type you became (MBTI, enneagram, etc).
- How did it impact your relationships as an adult?
- Did you resolve your personal issues that stemmed from growing up with a narcissist parent and is you feel you have, how?
*Edited to add:*
- What were/are your personal coping mechanisms?
- What are the positive things that have come from the way you grew up?

This thread is intended as a sort of support group for children of narcissist parents AND any other type of emotionally absent parent scenario, where we can share thoughts, experiences and tips about how to move forward. If it seems to be needed, I can ask the mods to make it sticky later on.

There have been a couple of similar threads posted in the past, but they have not been discussing the issue on a broader scale. 
Former threads are
The Narcissistic Parent and romantic relationship by @_Myoho Traveller_
Narcissistic Mother, Enabling Father by @_superbundle_
Does being raised by narcissistic parent affect behavior? by @_Babieca_

Did I forget anything @_Bear987_? 

I can call on people I know have been affected, but this topic may be a little bit personal and sensitive to many of us.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

@_Swede_ -- You'll probably also find comparable material in other Cluster B homes as well as alcoholic homes; apparently growing up in an alcoholic home made being with a narcissistic man seem "familiar" to me, according to my psychiatrist. So, I guess all I'm saying is that narcissistic parent will be important, but you'll find comparisons in homes with sociopathic or borderline parents, as well as in those with alcoholic/substance-abusing parents. These types of homes will bring up FOG (fear, obligation & guilt.)

Not trying to hijack; just letting you know that you'll find valid comparisons there.


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

koalaroo said:


> @_Swede_ -- You'll probably also find comparable material in other Cluster B homes as well as alcoholic homes; apparently growing up in an alcoholic home made being with a narcissistic man seem "familiar" to me, according to my psychiatrist. So, I guess all I'm saying is that narcissistic parent will be important, but you'll find comparisons in homes with sociopathic or borderline parents, as well as in those with alcoholic/substance-abusing parents. These types of homes will bring up FOG (fear, obligation & guilt.)
> 
> Not trying to hijack; just letting you know that you'll find valid comparisons there.


Yes, you are absolutely right - it was probably not real well-thought out to limit the thread to a very narrow subject matter! I wish we could change the headings... :-(
Please feel free to share your experience, if you are comfortable. I'd be very interested in learning more and hear how you have dealt with your situation. 
(And I may be out of line saying this, but IMO, when a parent/partner chooses drugs over family, he/she is not far off from being a narcissist.)


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## loving2011 (Nov 6, 2012)

Edit


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## John Coltrane (May 11, 2013)

Swede said:


> Please feel free to share your experience, if you are comfortable. I'd be very interested in learning more and hear how you have dealt with your situation.
> (And I may be out of line saying this, but IMO, when a parent/partner chooses drugs over family, he/she is not far off from being a narcissist.)


I'm not sure if I'd call my father a narcissist, though the input he's had with the family he left behind years ago is minimal at best. It really is practically non-existent at this stage, I put in the majority of the effort to visit him. 

When I was very young it was his career (worked internationally in IT - I don't know everything because of NDA's which is frustrating but understandable) and now its his other family (I have a half-brother). For me its quite complicated as I believe him to be a quite a brilliant man who made innovations in his field while not being particularly focused on my development or his role as a father. I could probably pin my being typed as INTJ on all of this but I also find that he and I are quite similar and share similar interests in all spheres of life, so its obviously more than a reflection of his choices within our familial unit.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

Swede said:


> Yes, you are absolutely right - it was probably not real well-thought out to limit the thread to a very narrow subject matter! I wish we could change the headings... :-(
> Please feel free to share your experience, if you are comfortable. I'd be very interested in learning more and hear how you have dealt with your situation.
> (And I may be out of line saying this, but IMO, when a parent/partner chooses drugs over family, he/she is not far off from being a narcissist.)


You don't need to apologize for the specific headline, and you're not out of line suggesting that substance abuse is in some ways narcissistic. You'll find that people who abuse substances have exaggerated narcissistic or sociopathic traits that they might not otherwise have. Putting up with my alcoholic father's rages (it's very similar to narcissistic rage) primed me for thinking that a male partner who was constantly raging at little things was somehow normal. It's taken months of therapy for me to understand that an adult man throwing a tantrum like a two-year-old is completely abnormal and something that I should've never put up with. The general atmosphere of gaslighting that I lived in as a child also primed me to easily allow others to subvert my reality. I'm twenty eight now; I didn't know that gaslighting was a thing that actually happened, and I was surprised to learn that that's what I'd put up with my entire life until this point.


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## Bear987 (May 13, 2012)

@_Swede_ Excellent thread start, I reckon. Don't worry about the headings, I reckon people will find their way here. You know, similar to @_koalaroo_ thanks for adding how there's more causes (type of parents) that lead to similar problems.

For today I would like to share in what ways it's hard to even take an honest look at yourself - to try and identify the ways in which my childhood, trying to stay safe from my narcissist dad, has affected me.

Firstly, there's the denial. It's no fun looking in the mirror and scrutinize and introspect for possible damage. Who'd look forward to uncovering trauma? Most days, I'd rather just go through the motions and not check in with my self to see how I am doing, since I am afraid of my own answer. As an NF it is easy to focus on someone else, or some cause, to get through the day. But, I'll be honest, at 34 now, I feel like I have had enough. Of living life this way.

Secondly, as a child, it was very clear to me that objecting to my dad's narcissistic behavior was not allowed, actively discouraged by my dad through ridicule or aggression, and ultimately utterly ineffective. As a consequence, rather than speaking up against being bullied, shamed, verbally attacked or physically abused (slaps in the face, spankings and so on), I learned to just take the abuse at the cost of my self-respect, my self-worth and my self-esteem. To cope with the daily, unrelenting pressure and stress having to face a narcissist parent, I learned to deny myself and pretend I didn't have feelings or thoughts. Not noticing myself, not taking into account my thoughts and feelings has become a second nature.

Thirdly, I have lots of siblings. All these siblings have dealt with our narcissist dad in different ways - common denominator being to shell ourselves from the influence of my dad as much as possible. All my siblings, and my mom, have a story to tell. All these stories are like pitfalls. Focusing on the stories and lives of my mom and siblings keeps me from looking at myself. Just today I started telling my younger sister something about myself and within minutes I noticed we trailed off and we talked about my mom instead.

I reckon in this thread, it will be a good thing for people to be extremely selfish (that's how it will probably feel) and talk about themselves, instead of focusing on other people's stories. Biggest hidden hazard, and a very telling one mind you, will be the urge to 'help others' by playing down the things they share. I really think that trivializing other people's grievances or complaints signals how bad you're still in denial yourself.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

As a note, my narcissistic ex has a mother who is probably both histrionic and narcissistic. He was raised as the golden child and ended up narcissistic himself, probably as a defense against his mother's less-than-stellar parenting habits. In some ways, I feel very bad for him. The perfectionism and constant sense of doom must be crippling.


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## Bear987 (May 13, 2012)

I think I had some sort of a break through today. It made me think of the ways in which I have more or less successfully kept myself from honestly looking at myself - my previous post.

When looking for a new wallpaper for my PC, I stumbled upon the following picture. I have looked at it for quite a while today and it made me think...










Source: Wallpaper child, stylish, sunglasses, cute, boy HD

When I look at this kid, I see how he's enjoying himself. He seems contend, satisfied. Why shouldn't he be? The sun feels warm on his skin and he's looking at someone (I imagine) who loves him and (quite literally) sees him, notices him. There's no danger on the horizon for this boy.

Now, on the one hand, I wish I could raise a child who'd be this happy when it looked at me. It would mean that I am a good parent, the kind of parent I wish I would be: a loving one who goes to great lengths to ensure the happiness of his kids. I wish I were like the sun and be nothing but love and light to a person this age.

On the other hand, I wish I could be this kid. I wish I could turn back the clock and be that young again. I wish for a do-over. With a different dad, of course. I wish I could just be young and this satisfied and not scared at all. I wish I could have a chance of actually growing up, of developing my full potential.

Now for the scary part - well it scared me a bit. When I look at this kid, the way he is in the picture all happy and just feeling good - and imagine from this point in time on he'd have my narcissist dad as _his_ dad - I immediately thought to myself: "You wouldn't last very long, kid." and "Your smile will be gone but soon, kid." and "I feel so awful for you, kid." and "He will destroy you, kid."

When I let these thoughts, and others similar to those, sink in a bit, I suddenly realized that I just said those things to my younger self - not just to the kid in the picture. I suddenly realized that I really (must) have been through hell when I was young. I also realized that somehow, I have been protecting myself from this realization for so long. I realized that apparently I am still just surviving, still in protective, combat mode - as though my narcissist dad is still around, even though I have broken off all contact with him.

I am pretty sure I am really really sad inside - but I can't quite reach it (yet). Thinking of my youth and comparing my younger self to the kid in the picture, I feel some rage, some sadness - but I end up feeling just numb.


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## Bear987 (May 13, 2012)

John Coltrane said:


> I'm not sure if I'd call my father a narcissist, though the input he's had with the family he left behind years ago is minimal at best. It really is practically non-existent at this stage, I put in the majority of the effort to visit him.
> 
> When I was very young it was his career (worked internationally in IT - I don't know everything because of NDA's which is frustrating but understandable) and now its his other family (I have a half-brother). For me its quite complicated as I believe him to be a quite a brilliant man who made innovations in his field while not being particularly focused on my development or his role as a father. I could probably pin my being typed as INTJ on all of this but I also find that he and I are quite similar and share similar interests in all spheres of life, so its obviously more than a reflection of his choices within our familial unit.


From what I read, narcissists are very controlling. Focusing their attention and limiting their world (in every sense of the phrase), makes it easier for them to control their lives and especially the people close to them. It is no surprise this focus may well lead to success in the workplace. Therefore, it doesn't surprise me that you describe your dad as brilliant in his field. Does your dad succeed in working at the same company or with the same people for long?

I am asking, because my dad has been successful in the workplace too, because of his focus, but he failed to establish good relationships with the people he worked with. Therefore, he was moved around a lot, from one department to the next. He ended up supervising million-dollar (well, euros) projects.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

Bear987 said:


> I am asking, because my dad has been successful in the workplace too, because of his focus, but he failed to establish good relationships with the people he worked with. Therefore, he was moved around a lot, from one department to the next. He ended up supervising million-dollar (well, euros) projects.


The reason they do this is because everything they do is couched in competition. Everything for them is "me versus the world." My ex has no concept of compromise, and he usually leaves a job after 18-24 months because no one "appreciates" his supposed hard work. All of his bosses are referred to as being controlling or having Napoleon complexes, and in the relationship itself, any time I had a need, I was called "controlling".


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## Bear987 (May 13, 2012)

koalaroo said:


> As a note, my narcissistic ex has a mother who is probably both histrionic and narcissistic. He was raised as the golden child and ended up narcissistic himself, probably as a defense against his mother's less-than-stellar parenting habits. In some ways, I feel very bad for him. The perfectionism and constant sense of doom must be crippling.


My dad is gradually ending up being all alone, deserted by just about everyone who was once close to him. From what I read, narcissist tendencies cannot be healed, a narcissist just has to find a way to deal with it.

Still, I have decided I am not the one to feel bad for my dad's demise. Others may feel bad for him and reach out to him, but he's been my tormentor, it is not up to me to care for him anymore. I am glad there's distance between me and him now and I think this distance will remain in place indefinitely.


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## Bear987 (May 13, 2012)

koalaroo said:


> The reason they do this is because everything they do is couched in competition. Everything for them is "me versus the world." My ex has no concept of compromise, and he usually leaves a job after 18-24 months because no one "appreciates" his supposed hard work. All of his bosses are referred to as being controlling or having Napoleon complexes, and in the relationship itself, any time I had a need,* I was called "controlling"*.


I recognize the switcharoo that a narcissist pulls. My dad would always turn things around and blame my mom or one of us kids, for the things that were really his problems. This would confuse us, especially my mom, to no end.

I now think it is just part of the limited view a narcissist has of the world. More importantly however, it might just be a very efficient technique to control others, to confuse and manipulate others. For outsiders, the way a narcissist deflects and turns things around is very easy to detect - but still very hard to call BS on, since the narcissist will just leave and not be open to criticism or a regular conversation.


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## Bear987 (May 13, 2012)

Just a quick shout-out to @Killbain This thread may be of interest to you!


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## Bear987 (May 13, 2012)

I visit the following website from time to time, it has a list of authors "_who have written in an empathetic and understanding way about how people are seriously damaged during their childhood, birth and their prenatal life in the womb._"

Breaking Down the Walls of Silence

This link directs to this list of authors. The main page has links to different categories of abuse, child abuse being one of them. There are some interesting videos too, but beware, there's also home videos which feature child abuse that will make your skin crawl.

Personally, I recommend the works of Alice Miller, Susan Forward and Konrad Stettbacher. But that's mainly b/c I haven't read any of the others yet!


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## John Coltrane (May 11, 2013)

Bear987 said:


> From what I read, narcissists are very controlling. Focusing their attention and limiting their world (in every sense of the phrase), makes it easier for them to control their lives and especially the people close to them. It is no surprise this focus may well lead to success in the workplace. Therefore, it doesn't surprise me that you describe your dad as brilliant in his field. Does your dad succeed in working at the same company or with the same people for long?
> 
> I am asking, because my dad has been successful in the workplace too, because of his focus, but he failed to establish good relationships with the people he worked with. Therefore, he was moved around a lot, from one department to the next. He ended up supervising million-dollar (well, euros) projects.


My father's career during the 80's and 90's (working with one corporation) involved contributing to the advent of desktop publishing, various initial versions of software and also working in business analysis, he seemed to change a lot in that sense. The latter part involved heavy travel across Eastern Europe, Russia and the Middle-East. I literally only found this out over the last 2 years mind, as a child I had no idea that he was negotiating contracts between internationally-based companies and the corporation he worked for, during the time I saw him the least. I'm unsure of whether his inability to maintain a relationship with myself reflected in the rest of his work life, as our familial problems seemed to arise with the tumultuous ending of his career.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

I'll explain what my experience was like when I'm done with video games.


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## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

I don't know whether I'd categorize my dad as a narcissist by the criteria of the official disorder. However, he was capable of some narcissistic behavior, mostly in the realm of (1) dismissing other people's opinions and talking over them, he was a terrible listener, (2) bullying people who didn't agree with him or who impeded him from doing what he wanted, (3) making unilateral decisions for everyone (basically saying his needs and wants were more important than anyone else's), and (4) always having to be right (his opinions were better than everyone else's).

He was also a lifelong addict, and his addiction finally killed him after years of eroding his health and tearing apart the family.

I'm not sure it's what you were looking for here or if you would count it. I'll just describe the impact of behavior that was narcissistic. EDIT: I read more of the thread in detail and saw Koalaroo's posts; yes, my father was an alcoholic, like his parents and his brothers, from about the age of 20 until his death at 71. That's my point of intersection here, with those dynamics in play. Everything centered around him, and he had no issues, it was all everyone else who was wrong.



> *When did you first understand that your parent is/was a narcissist?*


I don't remember the age, but I was very quick to put things together and realize that my dad's main priority was my dad. It actually jars me nowadays when I remember the occasional rare event where he did something that was actually sacrificial for someone other than himself with the family; he actually could give to those outside the family (because he got strokes for it), but we were all targets of his self-absorption.

I don't think my dad was the classic narcissist that looks in mirrors all the time and preens on himself, but definitely he was always self-interested and focused on what he wanted, what he might lose, what he couldn't live without, etc. And it came out in so many ways, sometimes dumb ones.

For example, he would always take the cheese out of the fridge and leave it on the counter because "it tastes better that way." Everyone in the family hated warm cheese, and he didn't even buy the cheese -- it was the family cheese, bought during her weekly grocery shopping. He wouldn't even compromise and leave a portion out for himself, he would ruin all the cheese by leaving it on the counter. it sounds stupid, I know, but it's just one example among many (and I have to say that one of my best pleasures today is having my own fridge, where I keep my cheese cold, and eat it cold. I get a thrill from it, it's like a forbidden pleasure). That was the problem ... EVERYTHING was subject to his whims. he was the kind of guy who would walk into a room and simply change the TV channel while you were watching it because he wanted to watch something else.

But it wasn't just dumb stuff, it was larger things where other people's voices were eradicated. our family black lab dog died when I was in ninth grade, I think, and we talked of getting another one, but a year or two passed and we had no dog, and I badly wanted a dog. Well, a friend of mine down the street had a beagle mutt and she had puppies, and she said I could have one. So I told mom and picked one out and even came up with a name for it (Belit), and was very excited about this puppy... and my mom told dad, and suddenly my dad came home with a new dog -- another black lab (because he loved black labs). So I didn't get my dog. And I just couldn't even stand to be around the new lab, I never did much with her. My father never talked to me about it, or explained why he did what he did, he just imposed himself yet again. There was no conversation, I simply did not exist. 




> *Do you believe that the experience impacted the type you became (MBTI, enneagram, etc).*


No, I do not believe that experiences change inborn temperament preferences. however, I think that experiences do temper who we are, force us to learn new skills and coping strategies we might not have learned otherwise, etc.

Looking back, I've always wondered why I've been pretty compliant as an INTP type -- I have a decent Agreeableness score. I think it comes from being primarily raised by my ISFJ mom and by having to deal with a dad who you simply could NOT win with ... the only survival route I had was to be agreeable and avoid making waves, and otherwise get away from him. TBH, while I do not like conflict in general, that could partly be because conflict was a "100% loss" for me regardless if my dad was involved, you couldn't win; and even as an adult, I find myself acting agreeably (or did for a long time) even when I totally disagree or am very upset inside. I try to let myself get into arguments nowadays at times, just to liberate myself from that lousy pattern.

I also became great at negotiating between contrary frameworks and seeing things from various perspectives, to understand things better. I became a great risk manager. I learned to think through everything. I learned to control as many facets of the unfolding situation as I could. But I also became very indecisive, unable to speak up, carried a lot of internal shame, etc.

Interestingly, it made my normal inclinations even more extreme in some ways as well. I discarded all my emotions as "dangerous." I became hyper-intellectual until my mid 20's. I became even more withdrawn and closed off, even if on the surface I was "nice." I was pretty judgmental under the surface as well, when I felt like people were being hypocrites. My dad's hypocrisy left me hypersensitive to other hypocrisy, including my own... and I'm still self-critical.




> *How did it impact your relationships as an adult?*


it messed me up badly, but I did not realize it at first. SOme of the things that happened:

- Commitments and promises left me feeling very smothered and tied down, because they might be exploited and I'd be trapped. Even decision-making was hard, because I never felt as if I could change my mind later.

- I would hide information from others, to control my own life (since my dad would dominate me if he ever knew anything about my life). Again, i wasn't used to relationships where we could negotiate, I was just dominated by my dad... so I would not engage.

- I would put on a fake agreeable face, just to keep the peace, even if I disagreed, and then try to just go off and do my own thing.

- I would emotionally detach, which was less painful than caring about anything. Because if I cared, the other person would break my heart anyway since they wouldn't look out for me or want to see me happy. It was better not to care, and if the relationship didn't work, then not much was lost. I could only depend on me for my needs (emotional, practical, etc).

- likewise I had no expectations for people in relationships, so that they couldn't let me down. No one knew what I really wanted from them in a relationship, so I never got the things I needed. I wasn't even sure myself what I wanted.

- I would isolate myself alot, just out of routine. I would feel smothered just by being around people too long.




> *Did you resolve your personal issues that stemmed from growing up with a narcissist parent and if you feel you have, how?*


Well, I think I have reoriented myself in a lot of good ways, through the experience of my marriage and through some other relationships. Even being a parent helped me, it was like I was redeeming the painful years where my parent let me down and I felt victimized -- being a better parent for my own kids. 

But it took me years to get to where I am now. Nowadays I can actually recognize what I feel, what I want and don't want, and share it with a friend or partner. i can ask other people for things without taking a refusal as personal rejection. I can give to people and put limits on my giving when I recognize the need to do so. I communicate now, and I take responsibility for my own choices by being honest rather than trying to sidestep or sneak around to avoid conflict. Lots of good stuff, and the growth was scary and painful at times.

However, I still carry old wounds and I will probably always have those scars. I still find it easier to be alone, even when I'd like to be with someone, for example, and I still need my space. inside i can still feel very insecure and have bad self-esteem / fear that who i am and what i can offer is not worth much at all, even when my head is telling me otherwise. Those emotions still linger, and each day I have to commit to fighting them off so they don't derail my life. Sometimes I feel unlovable or wonder why anyone would like or love me. I can't help but trace some of that at least to my father's open disregard for me growing up. 

I guess the skill I developed in writing was partly to give myself a real voice that could be heard, so that I knew I was real and mattered.


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

@Dear Sigmund, would you mind making this a sticky thread , please?


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## stiletto (Oct 26, 2013)

Fascinating. Question for all the posters here.

What is the MBTI type of the narcissistic parent and what is your MBTI?
Any patterns?


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

I must say I recognize a lot of what has been discussed and shared so far. I have a list of things that I would like to write about, but I'll pace myself and write several shorter posts instead of a novel.

@_Bear987_, I can understand the concern about having our shared storied being trivialized, because I think that many of us are uncomfortable opening up since
a) people who have not lived it can not understand. When I try to explain to friends, most of them can't even begin to fathom. Heck, my own sisters can't even understand, because we did not have the same mother in practice, only in theory. How do you even begin to share with just words?
b) many of us are used to being met with skepticism, Part of this is because the narcissist parent can bully in a very refined way - manipulation is a lifestyle and turning stories to get the sympathy is second nature. When the other parent is an enabler, and your siblings are turned against you, you learn to believe that you are at fault. My mother had a range of different personalities; the tyrant at home alone with her children, the hard-working and self-sacrificing mother and wife in front of our dad, and the meek, quiet and submissive woman to the rest of the world.
c) as has already been mentioned in several previous posts, you are used to being shut down every time you try to share how you feel, because you are not important. Many times when I was seeking support from my parents, I was shut down with the "you always feel sorry for yourself". This is a very efficient way to shame someone into a continuous silence.
These reasons are why I have a hard time talking in depth about how I grew up - I don't want to risk being seen as a whiner, a liar, or a crazy person, because all of these are stamps that I got in the past from the people who I was supposed to feel safe with.

I agree with @_Jennywocky_ that it is not likely that my MBTI was impacted by my childhood - with the exception of me being an introvert (and that I seem to be pretty compassionate compared with many other INTJs). I was social, outgoing and happy as a young child. I had no problems walking up to other kids and make friends - I was probably a little bit too pushy and thrilled about meeting other kids, in all honesty.

As I grew older, it was obvious that I started to fall short in my mother's eyes - I'll talk more about that in a later post dedicated to the passive-aggressive narcissistic parent. My parents (mainly my very domineering mother) always claimed that there was nothing worse than 'spoiled children', which resulted in plenty of very negative and destructive feedback when they were not pleased, but no matter how hard my sisters and I tried to impress, good things were never recognized. In addition, I - the oldest - was picked out to be the scape-goat and used as a pawn in a sick power play between my mother and my grandmother, while my two younger sisters were the golden children. My mother watched me like a hawk, taunted, humiliated and ridiculed me at any chance she got. I could never do anything right, because I was not her or my sisters. 
A couple of examples:
I always dropped, spilled and broke things as soon as she showed up. Still after 10 years of not living in my parents' home anymore, I would still become hopelessly clumsy as soon as my mother critically observed me - she expected me to fail and I readily complied.
The first time I got positive feedbask for a job well done, at the ripe age of 18, I felt so humiliated that I started crying. I could not take kind words or compliments or credits because I had never learned how. My boss was totally freaked out at my reaction and you could tell that he was seriously concerned. Sadly, at that point I still had no idea that the way I grew up was seriously abnormal.

I was never really physically abused, but I do not really recall loving touch, but rather being yanked hard in my arms whenever I was not complying in a satisfactory manner or pushed/getting an elbow deliberately showed into my side if my mother and I happened to pass each other in a narrow space. Basically the message was that I was not allowed to take up physical space. Today, my top Love Language is touch and I love the hugs I get from my daughters, and I love when they come over to crawl up in my lap and that we can look at each other and smile! I don't recall my mother ever smiling at me and once I got really damaged, I stopped smiling at people, looking people in the eyes, facing people - in short, I stopped using the basic ways to communicate that most people take for granted. 

My mother was a stay-at home mom and my father traveled a lot with work in order for them to afford her to be home with us. In retrospect I understand that this was a way for her to really control her daughters. I was always scared when my dad was away - my mother was volatile and would blow up for no reason and he was not there to step in. I was hiding a lot, trying to avoid her, but it was impossible since she wrote the rules and she seemed to take pleasure in telling me how worthless I was on a daily bases. There is no doubt in my mind that I would have been a happier person, if I had been in daycare instead. 

Well, I know that this is a seemingly random collection of fractional memories, but what I am trying to get to is that I am sure that the reason why I am an introvert is because I chose to shut down as a survival strategy. I remember all the fights and screaming at home. I remember being provoked and poked at until I lost it. And I remember consciously thinking one day, I was probably 12 or so, that I didn't have the energy anymore. It was almost literally like I was raising my internal storm wall, locking the door and swallowing the key. I was safe on the inside, but I could not go out and no one could come in. When the screaming or insults begun I would just walk away. And then I found power through shutting down. I discovered that by walking and by internalizing, I could pretend that what I was living was not real and that I could not be touched. A great survival strategy, but at a great loss and at a risk for future passive-aggressive behaviors.


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## Jwing24 (Aug 2, 2010)

I am not derailing, I just want to share my experience. 

My parents IMO were too lenient and spoiled me. With no responsibility whatsoever, and getting everything I wanted, I grew up to expect things for nothing and that life was easier than it really was. I still have problems with this. I would also consider them to be helicopter parents, always wondering what I was doing and giving their 2cps. This is not wrong, unless you already know I don't go out and I'm in my room playing a computer game, then the questions are now useless and silly. 

What I really need to get over is the passiveness both parents display that I have as well. They have trouble making decisions and when I've asked for advice growing up they have trouble giving it. I don't know if lack of willpower has to do with it or what, I have no idea. Definitely are not take-charge people. I think that can be bad in some ways. 

I think part of it may be they didn't know how to react in certain situations and their default was to give me something instead. 

I also find the older I am the harder it is to break habits and ways of thinking. Even harder to do alone with no support.


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## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

stiletto said:


> What is the MBTI type of the narcissistic parent and what is your MBTI?
> Any patterns?


I dunno. My dad was ESTP SO, I'm INTP SX. 

Not sure what enneagram he was... 8w7? 7w8? I was kind of unnerved by type A males until my 30's, when I finally started to let myself challenge people around me, and then realized there wasn't that much to be scared of.

The few good conversations my father and I had, we connected on the TP end (we were both rational types and also a bit freewheeling), but his ES and my IN just did not mesh up. His "bull in the china shop" thing was a little too much for my sensitivities, where I would always be thinking about how my behavior could impact others around me and where it might lead.

Swede refers briefly to dysfunctional family roles. i was the eldest child and ended playing a combination of Golden Child and Lost Child. My parents were still harping about a college class I flunked, 15 years after I graduated college -- the sad thing is that it was the class I have worked the hardest for in my entire life (but failed because it was just beyond me, it was some 300 level advanced math/statistics course), but my parents found it easier to ignore my explanations and keep assuming that I was just "being lazy" because I was too smart to fail.



Swede said:


> ...
> Well, I know that this is a seemingly random collection of fractional memories, but what I am trying to get to is that I am sure that the reason why I am an introvert is because I chose to shut down as a survival strategy. I remember all the fights and screaming at home. I remember being provoked and poked at until I lost it. And I remember consciously thinking one day, I was probably 12 or so, that I didn't have the energy anymore. It was almost literally like I was raising my internal storm wall, locking the door and swallowing the key. I was safe on the inside, but I could not go out and no one could come in. When the screaming or insults begun and I would just walk away. And then I found power through shutting down. I discovered that by walking and by internalizing, I could pretend that what I was living was not real and that I could not be touched. A great survival strategy, but at a great loss and at a risk for future passive-aggressive behaviors.


There was a lot of insightful stuff there but I just wanted to say that I totally, TOTALLY get this. My home was full of constant screaming and fighting between my parents; one reason I don't care much about Christmas is because pretty much Christmas for me growing up is full of terrible terrible memories (like my drunk dad getting thrown out of my grandparents' house by my grandfather while my mom cried and cried; or my dad packing his bags and walking out the door, blaming me and my sister for his leaving, and me crying and begging him to stay, so he did... although later I realized it was all about him and his insecurities and I had done nothing wrong to apologize for).

it's stuff you can't even talk about to others who didn't live through it or who did not see that side of the person in question. They just think you're a complainer or trying to create drama and pull back. The only think you CAN do is internalized, withdraw, shut down, pull into the storm cellar, put up the walls. As you say, it allows you to survive and even look strong to others, but at the same time you are trapped within the very walls you have erected to sustain you.
@_Bear987_: i also relate to your post about the kid, and the very wide mix of emotions and thoughts you had internally regarding it. It can be such a churn sometimes.

The very first counselor I had, who was actually GOOD for me (the others were okay but i didn't really feel I got anywhere), she was successful with me because she figured out quickly that what she needed to do was give me a safe space to just be myself, whoever that was... and she knew I wasn't even sure if I knew who I was. I could be that "kid" in the picture -- I no longer had to monitor all of my thoughts and feelings to avoid doing something that would bring down reprisal upon me, I no longer had to be reserved and controlled, I could just 'be" , just like that kid. carefree, spontaneous, enjoying the moment.

At some point, she talked to me about parenting myself. She thought i was a good parent of my children, and she knew I had one insufficient parent and one terrible parent, so I needed to be parented.... and she made me envision myself and then imagine how I would parent my child. How did I feel, imagining that child in front of me who I was so long ago under my dad's control? What was that child doing? Who was that child? Knewing what I knew, how could I help liberate that child and be a good parent for that child? It was very interesting. The thing was that I was good at parenting others, but for some reason did not spare the same niceties for myself; it was like I didn't feel I deserved it.

Now that i think of her, I have to say that I only spent about 2-3 years in therapy with her before time and distance took us away, but in many many ways, she was really the best most capable "parent" I had. She was a very wise woman who, by giving me space and attention and valuing me in the moments we had together, helped me feel human and acceptable and even desirable to another person... someone of interest to them. That's not a feeling I had often with my parents growing up, even though I know my mom was consciously trying.


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

@_Jwing24_, thanks for sharing your experiences. 

Your post reminded me about something that I wanted to ask all the posters in this thread about: please share anything that you think is a positive that came from your dysfunctional childhood!
- I can see through (most) manipulative people in 10 seconds blank
- I can be extremely focused and hard-working & I am very competitive against myself
- I think that I have a pretty high level of compassion and empathy
- I know that I am incredibly strong and a 'survivor'


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## Brian1 (May 7, 2011)

I think it can be any type, that can be a narcissist. My younger brother noticed how our dad is a pri ma donna, and at least he thought our dad could be more empathetic to the people around him. My mom married my dad, and there's this cliche that women marry their dads. when my aunt married my maternal uncle, she just took him out out of my maternal grandfather's sphere, because my maternal grandfather played favoritism with his sons. And my aunt could not stand to be in the same room as ,my grandfather. This is mainly because my maternal uncles, one is very successful, and the other one is not, and something of an addict. And my grandfather would always praise the addict and belittle the uncle that my aunt married. My maternal grandfather's father deserted his family, and my grandfather had to quit school and go to work at age 14 in a printing press. Whenever my grandfather talked about his dad, he would always end with "how I hate him." So, I think there's clearly an absence of love, and responsibility that then trickles itself down. 

I wouldn't go so far as to say people had a disorder though.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

In the home of a substance abuse or personality disordered home, you have roles that people have defined. You have the substance abuser/personality disordered individual, the codependent, the golden child, the scapegoat, the lost child and the clown. In such a family, you typically play one role at a time, but you can slip from role to role. My father was the alcoholic, my mother was the distant codependent, my sister was always the golden child, and I slipped in between the scapegoat, lost child and clown roles as needed.

My sister, from her early childhood, remembers a much more fun, relaxed man than the man I was subjected to as a young child. She was almost always the golden child, only wavering from that role once during her childhood: the night a teacher phoned home to tell my parents that she hadn't done her homework. My sister was seven or eight, and my father was very drunk. She tried to lock herself into her room, and he kicked in the door to her bedroom. Until three years ago, that door still had a hole in it. Subsequently, anytime anyone tried to lock themselves in their room, doors were not kicked down, but instead the door knobs were taken off the door. Hearing the sound of the drill was frightening for a pretty long time. By the time I was ten, I was adept at barricading the door, pushing the screen out of the window, and escaping onto the back porch. Once outside, I stayed at the house, but I think my parents' fears of exposing the family to ridicule is what made this pseudo-escape a safe bet.

My earliest memory of my father comes from when I was two. He was asleep on the couch (drunk, of course), and I needed something that only an adult could give. I don't remember what I needed, I just remember the terror of what happened after I woke my father. He immediately flew into a rage (alcoholic rage is very similar to narcissistic rage, as I've said earlier) at being woken up, and I ran into my room and hid under my bed. Being two, I was crying. I was told, "Shut the fuck up, or I'll give you something to cry about!" He doesn't remember this, but I remember it very vividly. Fear is a powerful tool either for building memories or erasing them completely. My childhood was riddled with traumatic events like this; I was threatened with violence whenever I did something to make my father angry. Fortunately, he was usually in too much of a drunken stupor to act upon his threats.

I spent a week this summer with my aunt, and she recalls how frightened my grandmother was for me to be in a home with my father. My aunt told me stories about how my father would for no particularly known reason, fly off the handle into rages at people who were guests in the household. My father's anger really knew know bounds; the difference between an alcoholic and a narcissist is that the narcissist usually gives a shit about outside image. My alcoholic father was not adept at impression management the way that narcissists are. The immediate family knew more than the extended family who knew more than non-relatives. Most people who weren't within the bounds of family, however, were just under the impression that my father was a charming, witty man who was maybe a touch too sarcastic.

My mother was not good at sheltering me from the worst of my father's alcoholic rages. She couldn't stand to be around my father, and so she got very involved in her church. Church and charity are still her solace to this day. I've tried explaining to her how her submersion into church life had actually been detrimental to me during my childhood, but she really couldn't comprehend it. She's stuck taking care of my father nowadays, so I try not to burden her too much with my childhood, but her general absence during some of the episodes definitely left its mark on my psyche. I really feel like my elder sister was the one who raised me, and this has come up a few times with my psychiatrist.

TL;DR -- growing up with an alcoholic or personality disordered parent is a total mindfuck.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

And, for what it's worth, this Wiki article gives a decent summary of what narcissistic rage is:

Narcissistic rage and narcissistic injury - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This shit is fucking scary, though, and I can't imagine being a child dealing with a narcissist's tantrums.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

By the way, for those of you who have had to deal with a narcissist, this post from One Mom's Battle about Christie Brinkley's ex husband is pretty entertaining:

» Divorcing a Narcissist: Peter Cook’s Internal Feud One Mom's Battle

They will do just about anything to keep themselves relevant.


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## John Coltrane (May 11, 2013)

Very interesting and insightful posts so far. I've talked a minimal amount so far but perhaps I can elucidate upon the little I've shared - its kind of strange to talk about this stuff as I've never really done so off the web. After my father left, my mother's boyfriend came into my life when I was about 13 and he and my mother have been together ever since - he lives in the house with my mother that _my father_ left us with before he left us.

For the most part, I was treated with indifference and despite the fact that he was living with us I can't remember a single word of encouragement from my mother's boyfriend throughout my teenage years in any of the endeavours I pursued. 

Its so bizarre, I had a similar experience to one mentioned by *koalaroo* above. I remember one morning when my brother was late for getting up for school and my mother's boyfriend took a hammer and started smashing apart the handle on the door so they could get him out. I can't imagine any decent-minded parent doing that in _their own house_. I've witnessed verbal abusive cycles between him and my mother with him calling her worthless and degenerating into the incoherence of an enraged child whilst retaining the body of a middle-aged man. 

He is extremely difficult to make a point to (_very_ argumentative and circular) and has a poisonous worldview (thinks humans are a virus). Anytime I thought I achieved something, he'd either sneer or pass it off as easy...which never seemed like a valid dismissal because for myself it was more than whether it seemed easy, but whether it was just _beautiful &/or applicable_. On top of that, I've heard him denigrating my father without ever even meeting him and when I used to sit down for dinner with him there were times when I looked across at him and his non-verbal expressions (mostly facial) dictated that I was worthless. As a result of this, I've thought less and less of the house my father left behind as my own...its almost as though the whole thing were some kind of power game. It was very different from the life I had before, even if little of it was spent with my biological father. That period of my life was golden compared to the uneasy atmosphere I came back from school to every day during my teenage years.


On the lighter side, I'm defintely more perceptive of such tactics now and I really do resonate with having survived the worst of it. In addition, one positive result was probably that I set an unreachable standard for myself in most things I did which led to internal satisfaction & self-worth when I actually met my standards.


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

@stiletto, when I discovered MBTI, about 9 years ago, I was thrilled. I asked my family to take the same test I did, but I don't recall what they were typed as. 

Needless to say, my mother didn't take the test because it was not something that she was interested in. (Which makes me realize that I stopped asking her for anything very early on. It is also one of the reasons why I tend to give up very early in many potential relationships - if I sense disapproval or judgement, I retract immediately. I don't want to beg, I don't want to suck up, I don't want to adapt, I don't want to prove myself, I don't want to manipulate - I want people to accept me for who I am. If they have already made up their mind, I don't see the use to even try. I'll write more about this and other coping mechanisms that I developed in a later post.)

Anyway, what I was going to say is that IMO (keep in mind that I am not any expert by any stretch of the imagination), MBTI is not necessarily applicable to people with personality disorders. 
As I mentioned before, my mother had a number of different personas depending on who was around her at the moment, so I am not sure that she knows who she is at her core. I now see her as a scared or injured child, cornered and reacting with aggression because she does not have the capacity to communicate or to break out of her own personal prison (my grandmother was also a narcissist and I'll talk more about that in later posts).
I know that to me it seems that she never did any introspection or self development, but I may be wrong. Her way of 'evolving' was to bend everyone around her to her will, projecting and placing blame. It is impossible to grow as a person when you are never honest enough with yourself to see how your role impacts a situation/relationship - you don't take responsibility and you can't see what you can do to improve. 
I am also fairly certain that she would not be able to be honest enough with herself to take the test - I believe that she, together with all other narcissists, is in a constant state of denial when it comes to who/what she is. This also applies to all her selfish actions; she always had seemingly reasonable excuses for why she behaved the way she did. Some examples: She still today never calls any of us because she "doesn't want to smother us". She never played with us because she "didn't want to impact our imagination". She didn't discuss things with us because "she didn't want to impose her opinions on us". She didn't want to encourage or praise us because she "didn't want us to get spoiled". And on and on. Basically, her refusal to engage with us in a normal way, did two things - it cemented her role as the "sacrificing mother" and it also rationalized her behavior in her mind. 

Now, the enneagram may be different, but I don't know enough about that either. I do know that it is intriguing because it is a tool focused on how we behave when we are in a mentally unhealthy state.


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## -Alpha- (Dec 30, 2013)

Really tough topic to tackle. It's amazing how many J personalities come out of this. You're all so great for sharing. Later I want to post responses for everyone. I might even recount my own experience.


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## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

Swede said:


> please share anything that you think is a positive that came from your dysfunctional childhood!
> - I can see through (most) manipulative people in 10 seconds blank
> - I can be extremely focused and hard-working & I am very competitive against myself
> - I think that I have a pretty high level of compassion and empathy
> - I know that I am incredibly strong and a 'survivor'


My list includes some of the stuff you said:

- I can handle crazy amounts of stress w/o it impeding my performance.

- Like you said, very understanding and empathetic towards others in bad situations. No one needs to be ashamed of what they've been through, when talking to me; they can be very open.

- Nothing in life however horrible really fazes me out, I take it in stride.

- I can see through lies very quickly and know when someone is being manipulative. I naturally don't take things at face value but look for the underlying patterns.

- I know how valuable those moments of beauty and love and connection in life actually are, and I treasure them. I don't take things for granted.

- I can survive just fine on my own, I'm very capable and independent and competent.

- I've had to learn how to forgive so as to not let bitterness ruin my life. I also can live in peace with people I disagree with, as long as there is mutual respect for each other on some level there.

- As a parent, I was able to empower, encourage, exhort, and liberate my own children in ways I never was when I was their age.

But ugh... still... sometimes it still just really hurts, the sore that never completely disappears.


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## -Alpha- (Dec 30, 2013)

So, I'm ENTJ, enneagram 8w7. To call me a control freak would be the understatement of the decade. My mom was neglectful, psychologically and physically abusive. I didn't recognize it as abnormal growing up as I wasn't allowed enough social interaction with others for my childhood life. I grew up with my mother and my sister. I have two older brothers, but being 10-12 years older than me, they moved out when I was very young. As I grew up, it became very apparent that my sister (who I'll refer to as 'S') was the "favorite child. S is two years younger than I am (I'm 25). I might have a lot of bias against S, so I will attempt to spare the details. S and I had different fathers, as did my brothers. We grew up with my mother. I grew up in a jewish household, though to call my mom Jewish would be completely innacurate, as there were many traditions and practices we did not follow. When I woupd misbehave, my mom would preach to me in conjunction with other physical punishments I won't go into. In the 90s she would spend a majority of her time in online chatrooms, talking to men, among other things. Periodically she would invite them over, shuffling me to my only friend's house. My aister stayed. When I was called back, my sister would in secret, tell me stories about how they went for ice cream, how nice her friend was and how much fun they had. Being very young, I didn't understand, and when I would ask, the claim would be denied, sometimes very harshly. I would often hear my mother bragging to her friends about my sister (who did not do well in school, like she claimed, nor ever graduated high school). On the rare occasion I wasn't aboe to leave the house for her friends to come, my sister and I were shuffled into our rooms. Later I would hear her sneak my sister out to meet the visitor. This was a pattern my entire childhood.

When I was in fourth grade, my mom and sister took a rrip to Illinois, leaving me in the care of my brother, who was 20 at the time. The trip was to last two weeks, but those weeks turned into four months. It didn't affect me until much later. For the time, my brother allowed me to go outside and play with the kids in my neighborhood and I was able to finally get my first real tastes of social interaction. I was free.

Eventually my mom came back. We immediately began packing our things, starting a yard sale and moving to Illinois, where we met my mother's new boyfriend 'Al'. Rockford was a dead town in the middle of nowhere. It was blisteringly hot, which didn't matter because I wasn't allowed outside anyway. My mom homeschooled us. Because of my poor behavior, my mom implemented a new policy for me wwlhich dictated that any offense I commited, no matter how big or small illicited the same response. With a belt. Administered by any adult in the house. I got it for sneezing once, not covering my mouth and lying about it, which came out of fear. Eventually things with my mom and Al became sour. We came back to our state. Things continued as normal.

I remember the day when she stopped doing it. I don't remember what the argument was, but I knew I was right. I was 15, and as she reached out to hit me, I grabbed her wrists and threw her off. It was time to stop. The following three years were rough. She took away my house key, saying I wasn't responsible enough for it. She then would lock ke out of the house. The cops were called more than once to get me back in, which she played as me forgetting my key.

We lived in an upper middle class neighborhood, and I had all of the things I wanted, though I couldn't go anywhere or do anything due to not knowing if I could get back in. At school I was labeled a problem child. I stopped doing well, I stopped socializing, as my mom drove away every friend I had, which she had numerous reasons for. This persisted and at 18 I was kicked out of the house. That day.

Like I said. I'm ENTJ. To this day I have mixed feelings about my mother. I don't want to explain why. I'm small in stature, but I'm aggressive and controlling and have unrelenting principles. I channel it in the most productive ways I know how. I haven't had many lasting relationships due to what I label as intimacy issues. I work all the time and sleep very little. I feel very numb to other people a lot of the time and have trouble understanding their emotions as people seem overly sensitive to me. At the same time, I like people and actively seek to understand them. I'm the most black and white non-religious thinker I've ever met and I strive for objectivity as hard as I can. I don't have fits of rage and other than caffeine, I have no addictions (even quit nicotine!). I acknowledge that my mom was unfit, but telling your head that and telling the emotions that are different. I consider myself a child of the media. My personality is made up of somewhat consciously selected traits assembled from parts of cartoons, sitcoms, books and movies and contrassed against my observations of normal human behavior. I taught myself to be aggressive and confident 'cause I saw those things work in the real world. I learned to dress myself well because status is important. I did the best with what I had. I think. In a lot of ways I'm still just a child on the inside. My biggest fear is finding someone I want to open up to completely and them looking at me and feeling that I'm emotionally empty.

A lot of things have happened, but now I work at a bank in a vault in conjunction with a part time Carl's Jr job. I plan on going to school for business/economics. I still have mixed feelings about my mom, but I'm working through them. I won't become her.


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## -Alpha- (Dec 30, 2013)

Jennywocky said:


> But ugh... still... sometimes it still just really hurts, the sore that never completely disappears.


It's like a bitter aftertaste behind every emotion. You never just stop feeling it.


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## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

koalaroo said:


> My sister, from her early childhood, remembers a much
> more fun, relaxed man than the man I was subjected to as a young child.


I get sad looking back at pictures of my dad, now that he's 
finally gone. I know on those rare moments he was sober he was actually pretty 
wonderful -- he could be engaging, and funny, and giving, and he would step in 
and fight for the causes and people he believed in. But I have only a handful of 
"good" memories of my dad and the majority of them were when i was very young 
and sometimes I forget them.

When he died in October, a high school friend sent my mom a picture of my mom and dad when they were both twenty (so it 
was before my dad really fell into his drinking pattern), and I love this 
picture. It's how I want to remember them both together and what I wish he would 
have stayed as over the years, despite the reality that things were just far 
uglier. What happened to them? They both look so young and happy together, my 
dad is almost unrecognizable with a full head of hair and a lot less 
weight. 

Yet to take this as "them" is a lie, because the truth is that it was just one of the few happy moments in their long marriage and our family. it almost hurts to remember the few good things I can recall, because it makes the bad ones seem so much worse in comparison.



> .... [anecdotes] My childhood was riddled with
> traumatic events like this; I was threatened with violence whenever I did
> something to make my father angry. Fortunately, he was usually in too much of a
> drunken stupor to act upon his threats.


That would be very scary. 
I guess I was fortunate that my dad was emotionally and verbally abusive, but 
never really physical. Even when he was sober, i remember only being spanked a 
handful of times in my life when young. But at night when I heard him drunk 
stumbling around the house I would shut my door and always pretend to be asleep 
when I heard him coming, praying he wouldn't try to come in my room. One time 
while drunk he got confused and tried to go into my sister's room and it utterly 
freaked her out.



> My father's anger really knew know bounds; the
> difference between an alcoholic and a narcissist is that the narcissist usually
> gives a shit about outside image. My alcoholic father was not adept at
> impression management the way that narcissists are.


That's true. 
Maybe that is one reason why I didn't view my dad as a total "narcissist" in the 
classic definition. He was too muddled by the booze to maintain the illusion (in 
fact, he lost the career he loved in his 30's because of his drinking); his 
typical approach was just to lie and deny, rather than trying to make things 
reconcile. He was so brazen about it, and he held such terrible grudges, that 
usually it wasn't worth people challenging him and creating problems for 
themselves in the process. Even now, I'm kind of surprised at how many people 
DID know but just kind of ignored it / swept it under the rug and excused him 
because of his other qualities.



> My mother was not good at
> sheltering me from the worst of my father's alcoholic rages. She couldn't stand
> to be around my father, and so she got very involved in her church. Church and
> charity are still her solace to this day.


My mom was already a 
believer, but she did the same thing, she's very religious and depended on God. 
The thing is, without God to rely on, I don't think she would have made it. And 
since she was the only one who kept my life stable at all, I just never really 
went there with her. 



> TL;DR -- growing up with an alcoholic or
> personality disordered parent is a total mindfuck.


That's the 
truth. I had no idea what "normal" (in terms of the average experience of 
people) actually was, or how basic relationships work. it throws everything off 
-- and even when your head tells you that you're getting healthy, you still FEEL 
like everything's wrong because you're a grownup, yet it's all new and scary and 
there's all this trauma attached to vulnerability.


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## -Alpha- (Dec 30, 2013)

Swede said:


> I always dropped, spilled and broke things as soon as she showed up. Still after 10 years of not living in my parents' home anymore, I would still become hopelessly clumsy as soon as my mother critically observed me - she expected me to fail and I readily complied.
> The first time I got positive feedbask for a job well done, at the ripe age of 18, I felt so humiliated that I started crying. I could not take kind words or compliments or credits because I had never learned how. My boss was totally freaked out at my reaction and you could tell that he was seriously concerned. Sadly, at that point I still had no idea that the way I grew up was seriously abnormale.


I had to answer this. I feel, or understand or something your pain. I was 24 and my boss hugged me and told me she loved me. I cried right in front of my co-workers. What do you even do with those feelings?


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## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

^^ I honestly don't know.

It's a huge deal to us. To other people, it's just the way things should be and have been and still are for them.


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## -Alpha- (Dec 30, 2013)

Jennywocky said:


> ^^ I honestly don't know.
> 
> It's a huge deal to us. To other people, it's just the way things should be and have been and still are for them.


I know. For feelers, emotions just are a way of life. For the rest of us emotions are hard and overwhelming. Sadness and excitement hit me like a truck. Tgose things are valuable and hard on us. We can't give those things to just anybody.


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## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

Darth Alpha said:


> I know. For feelers, emotions just are a way of life. For the rest of us emotions are hard and overwhelming. Sadness and excitement hit me like a truck. Tgose things are valuable and hard on us. We can't give those things to just anybody.


I have the "waiting for the other shoe" syndrome. It's very easy for me to get into a mental mindset where, no matter how good something is, I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop; my experience was, "It never lasts." So I had to be prepared for when everything eventually went bad.

Honestly, I don't know why I'm not a cynic. I still am willing to go for the good stuff. But emotionally it can be stressful even when things are good, because I wonder whether it'll endure and it's hard to go all-in.


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## Orchidion (Jan 3, 2013)

Reading this thread was very enlightening. The behaviour of my mom and a lot of my personal complexes, be it my suicide fantasies or my self destructive behaviour, make so much more sense when I think back of my childhood and how I was raised. I will mayheps add a more detailed account later, but I have some thinking to do. Thanks for everyone who was brave enough to recall his childhood. I know it is painful to even think back of this time and recall the guilt, the shame, the psychological pressure that many of us faced every day.


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

Great posts everyone! It is hard reading in many ways, but very open and honest and insightful and so well expressed. I am thrilled to see that this is now a sticky thread too!
I have so many replies I want to write and so many thoughts and associations popping into my head. I am also very happy that I have not slid into depression yet either - which is something that I always tend to do when I try to talk about this or think about it. 
@_Jennywocky_, in regards to "waiting for the other shoe to drop", I outlined a post earlier on about coping mechanisms and this is definitely one of them. 

In addition to "shutting off/down" strategy, I also used the following methods, some of which I am still working on changing:
- never expect anything good -_ Expect only bad things, because you will get pleasantly surprised when something good happens. Expecting good things is like asking for bad karma. When you expect the worst possible outcome, you will never get disappointed or hurt (yeah, right)._

- never make any demands/request or express any wishes - _Chances are slim that you will receive anything other than a no. In addition, your expressed wants and needs can be turned against you and used to gain power over you or to humiliate you (this is also part of shutting down)._

- never ask for help - _It won't come. Instead the request can be taken as another opportunity to inform you that you are worthless, lazy, stupid, greedy, hopeless, what have you. It is still very hard for me to ask for help. The way I try to change this is to recognize that help is a give-and-take and actually a part of how people get close to each other. We are allowed to rely on people who care for us. Helping each other is a way for us to express love/care. When you never allow anyone to help you, you are basically tying their hands behind their backs in that you are denying them a way to show that they care.
_
- deflect anything that is 'risky' with humor (gallows humor being the number one choice) - '_risky' is when someone is getting close to penetrate the wall. It can be anything, from a compliment to someone being genuinely interested in hearing your opinion. Thanks @koalaroo and @Jennywocky for talking more about the various roles children are dealt in the unhealthy household. I will try to research this more in depth and I will write more about how the role of Scapegoat affected all my other relationships for years after I moved out of my parents' house._

- memory loss - _I remember very few things about my childhood. When I, in my early twenties, expressed concern about this to may parents, my mother 'comforted' me by telling me that "you just don't care enough to remember". 
My middle sister on the other hand (at least claims that she) remembers everything. She had a psychotic breakdown at 17 and was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder 4 years later. I am guessing that memory loss is a blessing in many ways. 
My youngest sister developed an eating disorder, became a self-cutter and is extrovert on the edge of abnormal. She has told me that she is scared of being alone, because she "doesn't want to think".
When I look at my sisters' traumas, I am grateful that I did so well. I wish that I could have done more for them - guilt is a pretty steady passenger in my life.
_
- move away - _Obviously far, far away. To another continent!  It is hard to inflict pain from a distance. It is easy to defend yourself from a distance. The 'out of sight, out of mind' approach has helped me tremendously, because you can 'disguise' emotional absence with physical absence. The vast distance and the time difference become excuses and comfortable lies.
_
- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance - _I believe that The Stages of Grieving is applicable to many situations where we struggle with loss in life, where the loss can be something that we actually never had. When we realize that we were denied something that most people take for granted, like the unconditional love from a parent. This is very well illustrated in the post with the photo of the happy boy in the post by @Bear987. I sometimes look at my girls and I think "how can ANYONE hurt their children!? They are innocent. They don't deserve it" but at the same time, I think, maybe I was just so bad that it wasn't possible to love me?
_
- excessive masturbation very early on (before puberty) - _A very common way, I learned later, for children to deal with high stress situations. I guess that it is in fact a way to 'self medicate'. It is also something that can seemingly verify that you are 'not a good person'.

_- anger & tantrums _- A very common way for children to deal with/express depression.
_
- tie strongly to one person -_ Every child needs a family. When you don't have the sense of security that kids should get from their parent/s_,_ you start looking for an alternative. @Darth Alpha touched on the __process of plucking out role models from whatever source available. I started my own 'families' in my teens by getting very close to one other person. When I was younger, I suspect that I tied to people in the same situations as I was in. As I got older, I started to subconsciously tie to predators instead. I will expand on these experiences later together with a discussion about the scapegoat.
I was not comfortable in a group setting, because in my mind that was a competitive state. I knew that I would lose, so I gave up before even trying to be part of the group._


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

> When did you first understand that your parent is/was a narcissist.


I didn't really have a word for my father's alcoholism until I was about twelve. I knew something was amiss before then, but we were all pretty much sworn to secrecy. I think the first time I really recognized it as alcoholism was after he had quit. My grandmother was a Lutheran, and they use real wine for communion. He actually refused communion at her funeral because he was scared that one drink would send him back into drinking.



> Do you believe that the experience impacted the type you became (MBTI, enneagram, etc).


I'm overly analytical of just about every situation that I'm in, and I think the wariness of my father's alcoholism brought that about. I have avoidant personality disorder due to the abusive environment that I grew up in, and thought for a very long time that I was actually an introvert (INTP). The truth is that I lead with extroverted thinking as a function, and that I actually really do like being around people (I get to a point where I will feel bored by myself, and when I get to that point I seek out people and lively discussion.) I'm probably an enneagram 1 (not sure on wing anymore), and I think seeing the injustices of my own childhood made very obvious to me the injustices that other people were experiencing. 



> How did it impact your relationships as an adult?


I ended up with a man who, after further inspection, probably has six of nine traits of NPD and exhibits three traits of antisocial personality disorder. It took me a while to believe my psychologist and psychiatrist that my ex probably had NPD (it had been thrown around as a potential diagnosis when I was forced into therapy to "learn" not to make him angry.) The gaslighting was a familiar situation, and it was so subtle that I let this narcissist subvert my reality because the one thing that I yearned for was his approval (good luck getting that from a narcissist after you're no longer in the idealization phase.) I am a people pleaser, and probably have codependent traits, so I end up with men who, as I say, are lost puppies who grow up to be rabid dogs.



> Did you resolve your personal issues that stemmed from growing up with a narcissist parent and is you feel you have, how?


Currently in therapy to learn healthy boundaries. Boundaries were not something allowed in my household, and they certainly weren't allowed in my last relationship (with the narcissist, any boundary I tried to establish was seen as "manipulative" or "controlling".)




> What were/are your personal comping mechanisms?


Cooperative video games and MMORPGs. I get to fight bad guys and save the day with other people. Also, humor. I'm in the process of writing a stand up routine (that I'd probably never actually get on stage and share) about shitty relationships, particularly relationships that involve abusive behaviors.



> What are the positive things that have come from the way you grew up?


I'm typically self-sufficient. I was raised by my sister, and when she went to college, I raised myself.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

Oh, by the way, I didn't share anything about my abusive childhood with my psychiatrist until after my breakup with my ex. I've been his patient for eight years, but I had always refused to talk about my childhood. Most of the time now, my thirty minute appointments with my psychiatrist focus on either my father's alcoholism or my ex's narcissism.


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## -Alpha- (Dec 30, 2013)

I'm at work on my phone reading all of these posts. The fact that you guys are even here still is evidence that you don't believe the shit they said to you or the way they made you feel.

Really, no matter how deep the scars are, the fact that anyone was able to turn it into anything positive says a lot for what you actually are. In my experience as an adult, I came out strong. The worst is over and you can handle pretty much anything else that can happen to you.

Damn these feels... I think ninjas have been cutting more than one or two onions at my place.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

Does anyone know if their gaslighting is intentional or unintentional?


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## vertigo12314 (Jun 30, 2013)

I didn't have narcissist parents but a brother. The best thing to do is to stay away from them as much as possible. 

I would also read the book *Meet Your Happy Chemicals* and especially read about Serotonin. Serotonin is about domination because it gives you the feeling your needs are being met. Everyone (and every mammal) want serotonin but how we get it can be done morally or immorally. Narcissist personality disorder types want to dominate much more than the average in the population. You'll notice powerful people in jobs and work will have that attitude and body language of domineering, especially when they sense a threat to their power and esteem.

The best way to get Serotonin is simply to be the best you can be at skills. That's it. There's no need to bully people. If your skills aren't better than someone else's then just keep bettering your skills.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

BTW, for those curious about what gaslighting is:


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## L (Aug 12, 2011)

Swede said:


> We were specifically interested in hearing from people growing up under similar circumstances and how you think that your parent’s narcissism impacted who you are today.
> For example:
> - When did you first understand that your parent is/was a narcissist?


 When I was young, she acted like such a child if she didn't get her way, always believing that I, and everyone else, needed to take care of her for some reason... She would even storm off to her room on occasion just like a child. 


> - Do you believe that the experience impacted the type you became (MBTI, enneagram, etc).


 Not sure, it's possible. 


> - How did it impact your relationships as an adult?


 I do not trust a single person on this planet anymore. I also believe myself to be emotionally broken as I don't understand the concept of friendship very well and do not feel close bonds with the people that I'm fond of. I feel somewhat like Dexter when it comes to people who are supposed to be close to me... All I can honestly say about people is that I'm fond of some of them but I don't believe that I would even be upset if they were to die. I hate that I can't feel close to anyone and that I'm so apathetic to their possible deaths but that's how I am and I have yet to find a way to change that. 


> - Did you resolve your personal issues that stemmed from growing up with a narcissist parent and is you feel you have, how?


 Unsuccessful. 


> *Edited to add:*
> - What were/are your personal coping mechanisms?


 It's instinctual to keep everyone as far away from my heart as I can despite trying to let certain people in. There have been moments where some people have managed to break through a few barriers but as time goes on those barriers reform and the people that made it through are forced back out. 


> - What are the positive things that have come from the way you grew up?


 A strength as well as a weakness is that I will not burden anyone else with any of my problems in my life. I've only really asked for help once in the past four or so years, possibly only twice since grade school that I can think of off the top of my head. The exception is that I occasionally write about things on this forum but even then it's just kind of 'out there' and most people who interact with me probably haven't even seen such things.

EDIT: A few other ways that my childhood has directly effected my character traits:

-I rely entirely on myself (except on those blue moon occasions that really angers me that I even have to resort to outside help). 

-I'm very sensitive to malicious manipulation and if I sense it in another person I immediately distance myself from them in every way possible. There was one exception that I had that was an internet 'friend' where I wanted to learn more from them and didn't deem them any threat. Needless to say I didn't learn much of anything other than to reinforce my own way of thinking. 

-I'm very open and nonjudgmental which quite a number of people have seemed to catch on to. People tend to feel relaxed around me though that could be because I try to bring humor into the lives of whoever happens to be around me at the time. 

-A negative trait is that I tend to view things in a 'what's in it for me?' way a little more. Certainly not always but when it comes to situations with strangers I sometimes go along with that way of thinking. When dealing with other people I always ask myself that question from their perspective as well 'what do they hope to gain from this?'

-As I said earlier, I do not trust people, period. 

-Groups of people tend to make my stomach turn and I try to stay away from larger groups of people I don't know whenever possible. The exception is if I'm doing something that can allow me to escape any need to socialize with people in any way. At any kind of social event I more or less just stick to the corners of the room.

-I don't care about this as much as I used to but I tend to try and analyze people for malicious intent. I've calmed down about this tremendously but I still enjoy analyzing people that seem interesting to me. 

-You will never see me cry and you will never be able to see me vulnerable. Thanks to the internet I can dip my toes in whenever I feel particularly beaten but thanks to the internet I'm fairly safe doing whatever.

-I also cover any kind of vulnerability or sadness in front of people with humor. It's like a knee-jerk reaction to cover the pain with. I suppose it's a way to keep people out and instead of being a burden to other people I bring a radiant joy into their lives instead, even if it comes at a price. 'What is to give light must endure burning' is a quote that deeply resonated with me when I heard it the first time.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

BTW, being abused by proxy by my narcissistic ex right now. FANTASTIC feeling.


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## L (Aug 12, 2011)

Swede said:


> @_Bear987_, I can understand the concern about having our shared storied being trivialized, because I think that many of us are uncomfortable opening up since
> a) people who have not lived it can not understand. When I try to explain to friends, most of them can't even begin to fathom. Heck, my own sisters can't even understand, because we did not have the same mother in practice, only in theory. How do you even begin to share with just words?
> b) many of us are used to being met with skepticism, Part of this is because the narcissist parent can bully in a very refined way - manipulation is a lifestyle and turning stories to get the sympathy is second nature. When the other parent is an enabler, and your siblings are turned against you, you learn to believe that you are at fault. My mother had a range of different personalities; the tyrant at home alone with her children, the hard-working and self-sacrificing mother and wife in front of our dad, and the meek, quiet and submissive woman to the rest of the world.
> c) as has already been mentioned in several previous posts, you are used to being shut down every time you try to share how you feel, because you are not important. Many times when I was seeking support from my parents, I was shut down with the "you always feel sorry for yourself". This is a very efficient way to shame someone into a continuous silence.
> These reasons are why I have a hard time talking in depth about how I grew up - I don't want to risk being seen as a whiner, a liar, or a crazy person, because all of these are stamps that I got in the past from the people who I was supposed to feel safe with.


I know that feeling as well, whenever you try to talk about anything it always gets flipped around to being your fault. It's always your fault... 



> I was never really physically abused, but I do not really recall loving touch, but rather being yanked hard in my arms whenever I was not complying in a satisfactory manner or pushed/getting an elbow deliberately showed into my side if my mother and I happened to pass each other in a narrow space. Basically the message was that I was not allowed to take up physical space. Today, my top Love Language is touch and I love the hugs I get from my daughters, and I love when they come over to crawl up in my lap and that we can look at each other and smile! I don't recall my mother ever smiling at me and once I got really damaged, I stopped smiling at people, looking people in the eyes, facing people - in short, I stopped using the basic ways to communicate that most people take for granted.


Come to think of it, I don't really ever remember being smiled at either. Neither did I ever really learn to to accept or give any kind of loving touch. It really baffled me when I started going to college and could keep from being around everyone as often that people started wanting hugs. It was incredibly awkward and uncomfortable. It's still fairly awkward. 

In fact, my older cousin has seemed to change a little bit ever since I moved out a year ago. This past Christmas he said he wanted a hug (my first reaction was to guard my lower region from a sneak attack) and it was very awkward as well. I was just starting to get used to the weirdness from the women of my family wanting hugs but now grown men want them too!? 

Needless to say I had a lot of personal space issues, still got a few alarms that go off but not as many as I used to when people invade.


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## L (Aug 12, 2011)

I feel kind of bad for even feeling bad about my experiences after reading through this thread. At least at home, I didn't have to deal with any physical abuse. 

It's also strange, I don't really have many memories of my childhood. Actually, I don't have many memories at all that involve moments of any kind. Anything that I do remember is in third person, from a narrators perspective. Any first person memories that I have are severely fragmented into just pictures. It's kind of weird to even try to remember a real time, first person look at me doing anything that isn't in a picture form or in third person...


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## -Alpha- (Dec 30, 2013)

L said:


> I feel kind of bad for even feeling bad about my experiences after reading through this thread. At least at home, I didn't have to deal with any physical abuse.
> 
> It's also strange, I don't really have many memories of my childhood. Actually, I don't have many memories at all that involve moments of any kind. Anything that I do remember is in third person, from a narrators perspective. Any first person memories that I have are severely fragmented into just pictures. It's kind of weird to even try to remember a real time, first person look at me doing anything that isn't in a picture form or in third person...


Don't feel bad about it. Just because others hurt in a different way doesn't make your experience any better. You prick your finger, it hurts regardless of what other pain happens in the world. There's no finite amount of suffering. I dealt with physical abuse, but truth told, it's the dissonance, the inconsistancy and the confusion that really does the worst.

I wonder if there's a name for that. It's like you're a camera over your shoulder. I get that to in large amounts.


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

Interesting Wikipedia read about coping mechanisms

@_Darth Alpha_ and @L, I don't know what it is called, but it may be part of dissociation? Included under this umbrella is Depresonalization Disorder - I don't know if you identify with this? It sounds pretty severe, but I assume that most of we have been going trough internally is, right? We just simply can't understand just how bad, because we don't have a base-line to compare with.


> Common descriptions of symptoms are: feeling disconnected from one's physicality; feeling as though one is not completely occupying the body; not feeling in control of one's speech or physical movements; feeling detached from one's own thoughts or emotions; a sense of automation, going through the motions of life but not experiencing it or participating in it; loss of conviction with one's identity; feeling a disconnection from one's body; inability to accept one's reflection as one's own; difficulty relating oneself to reality and the environment; feeling as though one is in a dream; and out-of-body experiences.[SUP][2][/SUP] Depersonalization is described as suffering from episodes of surreal experiences. Some of these experiences have been also reminiscent of panic attacks and paroxysmal anxiety. While many people experience brief moments of depersonalization, in others it may last much longer and can become a persistent problem.[SUP][3][/SUP] Diagnostic criteria for Depersonalization disorder include, among others, persistent or recurrent experiences of feeling detached from one's mental processes or body.[SUP][4][/SUP] A diagnosis is made when the dissociation is persistent and interferes with the social and occupational functions necessary for everyday living. Providing an accurate description through investigation has proved challenging due to the subjective nature of depersonalization, the ambiguity of the language used to describe episodes of depersonalization and because the experiences of depersonalization overlap with those of derealization, which are two separate disorders.[SUP][5]
> [/SUP]Depersonalization disorder is thought to be largely caused by severe traumatic lifetime events including childhood abuse, accidents, war, torture, panic attacks and bad drug experiences. It is unclear whether genetics play a role; however, there are many neurochemical and hormonal changes in individuals suffering with depersonalization disorder.[SUP][6][/SUP]


Also:


Darth Alpha said:


> I'm at work on my phone reading all of these posts. The fact that you guys are even here still is evidence that you don't believe the shit they said to you or the way they made you feel.


 *exchange 'you' for 'we'!!!*  

@_koalaroo_ - Thanks a lot for bringing up gaslighting! I have to think more about it (and I still need to watch the video you posted & read the links you provided), but I believe that in my mother's case, it was probably vastly used unintentionally. I have to think a lot more about this, but I have definitely experienced it - especially once I got older and started to confront my mother with events from my childhood. I get the "I don't remember that" (implying that I am either making it up or making a big deal about nothing), "can't you remember anything positive from your childhood?" (indicating that I am only focusing on the negative), "I have no idea what you are talking about!" (outright denial) and the look of concern, shock/surprise and sadness if others happened to be around.
I don't think that my mother had malicious intent, I do not believe that she was torturing us deliberately - she just did not have the capacity to behave any other way. BUT, at the same time, being incapable was her CHOICE! I think that she was just severely damaged herself, because her mother was a narcissist and my mother was the only child and the Golden Child. 
One of my sisters (both of my sisters studies psychology in college) claims that the ultimate humiliation for a narcissist is shame. It needs to avoided at all cost, including the cost of the well-being of everyone around. This aligns with what I observed at home; my mother was always right, there was only one way to do things - her way, everyone else was an idiot/mean/selfish/bad, I have never ever heard my mother apologize and actually mean it. So, I think that in my mothers case, gaslighting was as much for keeping up appearances for the surrounding, but maybe even more importantly carried out to convince herself that she was 'perfect'.


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## -Alpha- (Dec 30, 2013)

- When did you first understand that your parent is/was a narcissist?

Earlier this year. Talking to my psychologist when she asked me about my early childhood. Until then I wasn't entirely sure I wasnt just biased because I felt negatively. The biggest red flag was hearing her lie about having a youngest son to her friends. That I knew was wrong. I never felt I was fit to diagnose, though. I'm far too biased on the matter.

- Do you believe that the experience impacted the type you became (MBTI, enneagram, etc).

Very much so. I'm unsure of how I came out a definite extrovert, but growing up with such little control over any aspect of your life? And now I'm a control freak? I've also heard somewhat invalidated claims that intuitives grow in abusive upbringings. I also think more than feel as a result of probably burying some painful stuff.

- How did it impact your relationships as an adult?

I had one extremely codependent relationship around 19-20. After that I've had a string of meaningless flings, some one-nighters and a bunch of girls I've sort of just pushed away. Some got disinterested as a result of emotional unavailability.

- Did you resolve your personal issues that stemmed from growing up with a narcissist parent and if you feel you have, how?

Do they ever really go away? In some ways. Like my self esteem issues sort of naturally melted off. I never really trusted anyone again to the same extent and chose to surround myself for many years with people I felt had lower social value than I did. 

- What were/are your personal coping mechanisms?

When I experience things I'm not comfortable with, I disconnect from the emotions. I hard focus on something in my environment, a song, a destination. Anything. Back then I dove myself into video games, tv shows, movies and things. In my adult life, constant movement.

- What are the positive things that have come from the way you grew up?

I will live through anybody. I've decided that my life is gonna end better than it started by a large margin. I work, I see a psychologist and I'm determined to live the best life I can. I'm the most resilient person I've met.




Swede said:


> Post


I'm pretty sure I don't have a disorder surrounding it. Its never affected my life. Haven't experienced other people's memories, so I figured it was normal. Probably worse for other people.


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## -Alpha- (Dec 30, 2013)

Swede said:


> Post.


My god. Its different with your own parents cause of dissonance and such but when I read your's I get angry. As a parent you have a responsibility to your children's emotional and physical health. It's so damn selfish when I look at your story. Saving face at the cost of your emotional well being. 

Personally, I think my mom was threatened by me. When I was young I was IQ tested and analyzed and generally poked with a stick. My mom basically ignored the results of the IQ test when I noted that it was higher than either hers or my sister's. Not that I subscribe to them, but still.


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

koalaroo said:


> BTW, being abused by proxy by my narcissistic ex right now. FANTASTIC feeling.


That sucks, @koalaroo! Do you have a plan to get him to back off?


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

@koalaroo, can you talk a bit more about the concepts of  the golden child, the scapegoat, the lost child and the clown, please?
I was only aware of the first two, but I realize now that I did take on the clown role to get my father's attention. And it seems that some of us seem to mantle the clown role in the 'real world' as well, including myself and @L. 


You know, the more I think of it, the more I am starting to believe that maybe more than just my introversion comes from my background. The reasons I am starting to view things differently is because of a statement in the coping article that I linked to earlier. It says:



> People using problem-focused strategies try to deal with the cause of their problem. They do this by finding out information on the problem and learning new skills to manage the problem. Problem-focused coping is aimed at changing or eliminating the source of the stress.


This is how I function all the time. I want to collect all the puzzle pieces and solve the puzzle. I get almost ridiculously excited - almost obsessed - when I find another piece, like the statement about the golden child, the scapegoat, the lost child and the clown.


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

Darth Alpha said:


> My god. Its different with your own parents cause of dissonance and such but when I read your's I get angry. As a parent you have a responsibility to your children's emotional and physical health. It's so damn selfish when I look at your story. Saving face at the cost of your emotional well being.
> 
> Personally, I think my mom was threatened by me. When I was young I was IQ tested and analyzed and generally poked with a stick. My mom basically ignored the results of the IQ test when I noted that it was higher than either hers or my sister's. Not that I subscribe to them, but still.


This is so funny (as in 'sad funny' not 'glad funny') because all of us are thinking the same thing. Just as @L expressed, I feel somewhat ashamed for posting in this thread, because it feels like I had a pretty good life compared to everyone else. I know that it is not rational or logical, but it is natural. 
The thing is that we have all been conditioned to deny our own feelings, so it is easier for us to see the pain in others than it is to see it in ourselves. I guess it may even be some form of projecting? Sorrow, fear, confusion, is/has been our normal state for so long that we take it for granted. If you would hear someone else tell your own story, you know would have the same reaction! Someone once told me that I have a 'very strong sense of fairness' and I guess in part it is because I don't like when people are treated badly. 

I think that you may be right about being a threat to your mother. Maybe she knew that you were too smart to manipulate? I know that my mother was furious when I finally shut down because I took the power away from her.


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## -Alpha- (Dec 30, 2013)

Swede said:


> Someone once told me that I have a 'very strong sense of fairness' and I guess in part it is because I don't like when people are treated badly.
> 
> I think that you may be right about being a threat to your mother. Maybe she knew that you were too smart to manipulate? I know that my mother was furious when I finally shut down because I took the power away from her.


Yeah, I got that as well. Seeing people treated differently from one another is infuriating.

I'm pretty certain it was that she knew early when I would question her rules, like to make sense of them. That and being a boy I would likely grow physically stronger than her. Can't be the alpha dog with someone bigger, stronger and smarter than you.

Also, I'd like to hear more about that from @koalaroo and more from @L . Very interesting.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

@_Swede_ -

*Golden child* - This child can do no wrong in the eyes of the disordered parent, and this child is frequently used as a comparison to the other children. The other children are frequently told that they are inadequate compared to the golden child or children. It's a simple form of triangulation that the disordered parent commits.

*Scapegoat* - This child can do no right in the eyes of the disordered parent. Everything they do is wrong, and frequently, they are put down in comparison to the golden child.

*Lost Child *- This child is almost forgotten in the family. They typically seem aimless in what they do.

*Clown* (sometimes called the *mascot*) - This child escapes from the reality of the situation by means of humor. They develop a strong sense of humor to keep themselves from being the target of the disordered parent.

(Sorry for a lack of response today; we're snowed in, and the power and internet were out due to a tree falling on the power lines and causing about 6 or 7 power poles to topple over like dominoes.)


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## L (Aug 12, 2011)

Darth Alpha said:


> Also, I'd like to hear more about that from @_koalaroo_ and more from @L . Very interesting.


If you wish to learn more about my situation just look at one of my blog posts on PerC, shouldn't be hard to find...


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

koalaroo said:


> (Sorry for a lack of response today; we're snowed in, and the power and internet were out due to a tree falling on the power lines and causing about 6 or 7 power poles to topple over like dominoes.)


Yikes! I feel for you - we have been lucky here in my part of KY so far. Snow & cold, but no severe ice-storms so far. Supposed to be in the 60s next week. Hop0e that the electricity is up and running shortly!


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## Jwing24 (Aug 2, 2010)

Swede said:


> @_Jwing24_, thanks for sharing your experiences.
> 
> Your post reminded me about something that I wanted to ask all the posters in this thread about: please share anything that you think is a positive that came from your dysfunctional childhood!
> - I can see through (most) manipulative people in 10 seconds blank
> ...


No problem. Some things I've learned to do as a result of my upbringing of being on my own most of the time and thinking about things too hard for too long:

Long post, lots of thoughts:

Ridiculous drive/focus. I've always fought with school. Growing up I was a C student, almost failed 2nd grade, it wasn't until late in high school when I realized I was on a shitty path. So from then until end of college, I busted my ass. I know people work hard, but did they work as hard as me?

Did you study 6-7 hrs/day to get a B in HS? I bet you didn't. How about a C in college? Probably not. I've always had a "fuck you, I will find a way to succeed" sort of attitude since that day in high school. 

Never went to a high school party, event or anything. Never went to a college event of any kind other than some volleyball tournament because my dad wanted to see it before school started. Busted my ass for B's all the way through. Like I said, how bad do you want it? Do you want it as bad as I do? I bet you that you don't. That has been my mentality, and it still is, for better or worse. I remember so many nights in high school and college, friends are partying having fun, meeting new people, I'm in the library trying to figure out something for the past few hours that it took them to figure out in an hour. They are doing keg stands and the next day getting a B. I am working through my shitty reading and english skills to get a C+. I never once considered giving up.

I thought of a lot of other things but many of them aren't too good. This one above is by far the best one, it has carried me to where I am now, which is not a bad place. If you told me in elementary school when I never got above a C, and had below average standardized test scores, that I would be preparing for a masters program, possibly the top program in the country, made it through finance even though I am not great at math and used those principals to amass some savings, I would've never believed you in a million years. 

Without this work ethic I developed MYSELF (no one else, I don't give my parents any credit for this), I know for a fact I would not be here, probably wouldn't have graduated college, and probably be doing a low paying job I hate. 

THIS is why, when my parents still try to spoil me it pisses me off. People on the outside see us and think "wow what an ungrateful man, he doesn't deserve his parents". No. It is my parents inability to see my work ethic I've developed, to appreciate that I want to earn everything on my own, no free passes, no shortcuts, no help from them, that frustrates me. 

Because the last thing a spoiled kid who is now a spoiled adult needs is another handout. What they need is to get kicked in the ass, see reality, and work hard to earn something. I've done the first 2 and am working on the 3rd.


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## L (Aug 12, 2011)

Swede said:


> - Do you believe that the experience impacted the type you became (MBTI, enneagram, etc).


I forgot to list my types:
ENTP
5w4-9w8-3w2 => Sometimes I wonder about the order of the 9 and 5 though... 5 fits the best over 9 though...


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

Oh, I definitely think that the things I went through as a child made me see more easily the injustices in the world, thus I've almost always been a crusading enneagram one.


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## Centaur (Feb 11, 2014)

I'm pretty sure I'm an ENTP, but don't want to call it yet (and that's another conversation). I find I really relate to ENTJs though.

You guys are giving me feels. It's a sensation around my throat. Geez.

But you all seem strong to me.

My dad is/was a doctor (ISTJ), my older brother by 6 years is a doctor (INTJ). And emotionally..........non-existent. I'm sure there are plenty of kind doctors, or even kind in the office, but if you know anything about them they have this rather odd God Complex as you can imagine (and they are NOT the same person at home) They are ALWAYS right. ALWAYS. That's how they're conditioned once they reach Dr. status and that's the environment they work in. My brother and father have been known to make female staff cry on the regular. Assholes to this day. 

I was never physically abused, or even verbally berated. But more like ignored. Just ignored, and eternally not good enough. A B+ in an AP class was not good enough. Ha that reminds me of Asian Father meme. And just typing this makes me think I’m a whiney little baby, with white people problems. I’ll go on though.

I think I remember having one conversation with my brother. I think it was about boys or something. I don't remember my dad teaching me ANYTHING except one thing, he taught me how to drive a standard transmission. That's honestly all I can remember of any father/daughter heart-to-hearts or life lessons. Everything I’ve learned about being an adult, I’ve done on my own, I’ve collected father figures (I think that’s a line in a movie) anywhere I could. Read about how to be an adult, learned everything the hard way. VERY late bloomer, on top of being mostly ENTP.

I don't really mention my mom here because she was/is such a pushover (ISFJ). Sweet. My mom is sweet, but gosh, just weak, walked all over by my dad, and I'm ashamed to say, me, in my teenage years. And if my dad didn’t’ approve of me or something I did (even if it was totally normal), she just didn’t really say anything. 

I guess the weird thing about it all is that on the outside we were the happy church going family (3 times a week, yech. Sunday, Sunday night, and Wednesday church group, groooosss). Ha I remember the youth pastor asking the room of kids on one particular night I REALLY didn’t want to be there, “Now guys, why is it that we come here to worship?” And I just blurted out, “BECAUSE OUR PARENTS MAKE US.” Everyone nervously laughed.

No one was addicted to drugs (I have never seen my dad touch alcohol, or mother), no abuse. But it's like, I had no role models, no one that I felt didn't judge me (again my mom didn't but she didn't call the shots), I mean I almost WISHED that my brother had pulled my hair, or beat me up like an older brother was supposed to. Is that weird? I guess I would have liked that instead of just……..nothing.

And I say assholes, not because I'm bitter and blame them, I got over that, even though I did for a long time (pointless, I know), but well, haha, they are assholes. My dad is still terrible, everyone in the family and extended family, no matter who you are, your life is going to get critiqued. Even if you stop by the house for some snow shoes you left there. Even my sister-in-law. I don’t go over there if he’s there and I can avoid it. I can handle him now, I just, it can be exhausting.

This may all seem very dull to you guys that have gone through much worse. But it was hard, it was like I was always alone, even with my brother in the next room and my parents married (still are though they have nothing in common, and my mom can’t stand my dad, fascinating how couples can do that). When I finally did make friends, good ones (it took forever, late Jr. High?), they weren’t Christian enough, and was more or less forbidden to hang out with them (until I was able to drive and they didn’t know).

Rebellion doesn’t even begin to cover it.

So I don’t know, so much time spent alone, so much time trying to gain peoples’ approval that I never got at the household. I’m fiercely independent and basically trust no one. I don’t know how. I keep everyone at arms length, even boyfriends. I’ve never had a relationship longer than a year. I’m open about my life, but I have a super fortress around my feelings. I don’t care about pleasing people like when I was young and wanted people to like me, but I did learn how, and can be quite charismatic, so I'm told.

I can come off as cold in some situations, but if I see someone hurting or with low-self esteem, I want to help, and if I can I do. Also, people with narcissism or huge egos, I want to dismantle, piece by piece, and often have. Including my brother, who in matters of debate, gets destroyed now. I’m strong, but feel weak when I’m not being strong, like I have to be strong all the time. Sometimes it can be exhausting and I beat myself up over it (probably my dad’s voice in my head somewhere).

Anyway, I know most people have it much, much worse, but that’s my lil sob story.


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## -Alpha- (Dec 30, 2013)

Centaur said:


> Post


What kind of role models did you have? It seems to me that a lot of people find role models elsewhere when parents and family aren't enough.

What'd you find? Was it good?


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## BlissfulDreams (Dec 25, 2009)

*- When did you first understand that your parent is/was a narcissist?*

Not until this week, actually. Before that, an old counsellor and my psychiatrist told me that my mom is self-absorbed and sounds like a narcissistic. I always imagined a narcissist as someone who was completely full of themselves and thought they were the greatest thing ever, but that isn't my mom at all.

I later found out that it is someone who protects their self-image above everything. Sometimes it's done out of conceit, but often it is done because they have a cover that they have to protect. They don't feel like they would be loved if they were found out and so they try to delude everyone, including themselves, into thinking they are something they aren't. This is her to a tee.

*- Do you believe that the experience impacted the type you became (MBTI, enneagram, etc).*

I don't know if it impacted my myers-briggs type, but it's possible. I was pretty outgoing as a very young child, but dealing with confusing behaviours at home and at school made me retreat into myself. It's possible that I came to rely on Fi to figure out my own values and what I wanted to be like despite everything. I could have used Ne as a form of escape, like thinking about possibilities and alternative events. It's also possible that I used Si to fall back on past knowledge. (ie. making sense of things with the lens that I developed and weighing new information against what was already known.) This is especially true since she often made me (and continues to make me) question reality.

I know that it affected my enneatype. For a long time, I thought I was E4. I was trying so desperately to figure out my identity seperate from my parents. I was very emotionally intense and unstable because of everything that was happening. Those emotions made me feel special and became my identity. I was the messed up one and it was re-affirmed when my mom tried to smother me and do everything for me because she thought I was sick. She still refuses to see me as anything but her helpless, sick child that she needs to take care of.

But what I realized was that the identity is so important to E4's that they care more about expressing themselves genuinely than upsetting someone. I am the opposite. My number one concern became trying to ensure stability and harmony in my family. I wanted to minimize threats. My mom has always been an unstable person, but when I was struggling with issues like bullying and anxiety and didn't feel comfortable opening up to her out of the fear of her dismissing me or overreacting, she would take it out on everyone else and put herself in the spotlight. It was so exhausting to deal with that and I felt so guilty about expressing my pain that I suppressed it, along with my anger, in the best interest of my family. It now seems pretty clear that I'm E9. And when I look at articles on the effects of parenting styles on enneatypes, I am clearly neutral and my mom was active. This is theorized how the E9 child is formed.
*
- How did it impact your relationships as an adult?*

Growing up with a narcissistic mother has affected my relationships in a huge way. I have lived in constant fear of upsetting her and doing something that shakes up my family and being blamed for it that I have avoided friendships and romantic relationships.

I feel like an alien and that I have too much baggage. I don't know if anyone would understand. I feel like I'm crazy. I doubt everything. I feel like I'll hurt people if I get too close to them. I feel like I'll turn into my mom if I'm not careful enough.

I have become really passive and let people walk all over me because I don't know the difference between being assertive and being "angry" (what my mom calls it) and unreasonable or paranoid. I am really afraid of being stuck in an abusive relationship. I feel like I would be the prime target for an abuser.

*- Did you resolve your personal issues that stemmed from growing up with a narcissist parent and is you feel you have, how?*

No. I'm definitely still dealing with everything. I still live at home.

*- What were/are your personal coping mechanisms?*

My main coping mechanisms are shutting down and keeping track of offences.

I shut down because anything I do seems to upset my mom. She always suspected me of lying and keeping things from her. She grew into the habit of reading my facial expressions, so I tried to become stoic and expressionless. She will try to analyze me for subtle hints about what is actually happening. I learned not to do or say anything that she might find offensive. I even convinced myself that living this way made me happy.

I learned to keep track of offences because she has selective memory and refuses to see herself in critical light. Even shortly after she does something, she will have no recollection of it happening. She honestly won't remember and will make others think they are crazy for suggesting it. I learned to keep a mental tally of what she was doing.

*- What are the positive things that have come from the way you grew up?*

I feel like my escapism helped with my imagination and that I learned to focus on the little joys of life to keep me laughing. I don't really care if others think I'm weird for noticing little details and patterns or keeping track of random facts because they amuse me and keep me happy.


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

BlissfulDreams said:


> I have become really passive and let people walk all over me because* I don't know the difference between being assertive and being "angry" (what my mom calls it) and unreasonable or paranoid*. I am really afraid of being stuck in an abusive relationship. I feel like I would be the prime target for an abuser.
> 
> I *learned to keep track of offences* because she has selective memory and refuses to see herself in critical light. Even shortly after she does something, she will have no recollection of it happening. She honestly won't remember and will make others think they are crazy for suggesting it. I learned to keep a mental tally of what she was doing.
> 
> I feel like my escapism helped with my imagination and that I* learned to focus on the little joys of life to keep me laughing*. *I don't really care if others think I'm weird for noticing *little details and patterns or keeping track of random facts because they amuse me and keep me happy.


 @BlissfulDreams, this is so well expressed and I can relate to this 100%. I still struggle with what you wrote about being assertive vs aggressive and unreasonable and I am aware of this.

The segment about keeping track of offenses and why is absolutely great! I did this too for many years, but did not understand why until I read what you wrote. Since my memory was damaged and since my perceptions were always questioned, I needed to keep track to not lose myself and as a verification that I was not insane. The things I remember actually happened. I let go of this years ago and I try to focus on pleasant experiences now. But if someone betrays me badly enough, they are out - no second chances, because I don't need any more people to use me as a door-mat - I'd like for that part of my life to be done with (not always successful, but at least I am aware). And as I understand it, this is not uncommon for INTJs.


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## John Coltrane (May 11, 2013)

I hovered over the thread for the past two or so days, its been interesting and I intend on responding to some posts. Many of them were hard to read, as was writing about my own experiences. Anyway, I've had an interesting plot twist just today. My mother's long term boyfriend who caused me so much grief growing up was recently operated on to remove a tumour and just today he received a report verifying the remaining abnormal cells as malignant, but superficial and not so advanced. He has to go back for an operation in 6 weeks. 

I'm not even sure how I feel about it yet, its really making me just think about how human everyone is in the end, even if they put you down, were self-serving and raged to the point of physical aggression. Weirdest 14th in my life for sure is all I can say.


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## Bear987 (May 13, 2012)

Similar to what others have decided I will try and structure my thoughts by writing several posts instead of one huge unattractive wall of text. Writing down my experiences and reading yours triggers feelings that have a way of overwhelming me, so my attendance in this thread will be erratic.

This post will be mostly about what @Swede wrote about earlier. She wrote that "she [mother] expected me to fail and I readily complied." First, I of course recognize the experience. I reckon swede provides an excellent example of how children's natural loyalty to their parents can be destructive to the dignity, development and the integrity of the child. That children will sacrifice themselves in an all-out attempt to please their parents. I reckon this touches on one of the main characteristics of a dysfunctional family: where children (have to) take care of the needs of their parents instead of the other way around.

I remember how my dad would always blow up and freak out when we as small children would break a glass or a dinner plate. Since setting the table and doing the dishes were part of our chores as children, plates and glasses would break quite regularly. I remember a time I was brushing my teeth at the sink in my parents' bedroom. There was a glass to use for rinsing after brushing. My dad was there. All I could think was: do.. not.. drop.. the.. glass.. I dropped the glass. It made a lot of noise falling about in the sink, but it didn't break. I was terrified and all frozen up. When I noticed the glass had survived its fall I felt like I somehow had escaped from certain death (my dad throwing a fit and slapping or spanking me).

There you go: simple and everyday activities like brushing my teeth resemble battlefield experiences of feeling shell-shocked, stunned and terrified. Ordinary life simply ceased to be ordinary whenever my dad was around. More on that in another post perhaps.



A second quote from swede's earlier post: _"I was never really physically abused, but I do not really recall loving touch, but rather being yanked hard in my arms whenever I was not complying in a satisfactory manner or pushed/getting an elbow deliberately showed into my side if my mother and I happened to pass each other in a narrow space. Basically the message was that I was not allowed to take up physical space. Today, my top Love Language is touch and I love the hugs I get from my daughters, and I love when they come over to crawl up in my lap and that we can look at each other and smile!"_

Firstly, swede, a lack of loving touches equals abuse (negligence) in my book. What I recall when it comes to being cherished physically as a child is pretty meager as well. Even today I sometimes have nightmares about being poked in the sides - way too hard and unrelentingly. My dad would also just slap you in the face hard. I totally relate to how wonderful it is to just be close to someone you love - and just look into each other's eyes. That's how I know there's something really wrong with a narcissist, or any adult who can look a child in the eye, only to then slap their tiny face hard.

I don't have any children of my own to love to pieces (perhaps more on that later, since it might be a result of having to deal with my narcissist dad) but I have compensated a little by reaching out to other people's children - during my time working as teacher for instance - and I have gotten to know and gotten to love some wonderful kids. Never ever would I (or could I) humiliate, hurt and destroy the spirit of these kids by slapping them right in the face.

There's at least two more points I would like to respond to - please see my next post.


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## Bear987 (May 13, 2012)

In response to what @Swede wrote about earlier, there are several MBTI angles to having a narcissist parent. Swede wrote: _"I am sure that the reason why I am an introvert is because I chose to [be]"_ Now, Swede, I will of course not tell you whether you're wrong or right about your being introvert or extravert and how that came to be. I would like to contrast it with my experiences, though. I pretty much know for a fact that I am an introvert. I need plenty of time alone to recharge on a daily basis and I reckon that pretty much seals it.

I grew up in a pretty big family however: I have 5 younger brothers, 1 older sister and 2 younger sisters. All of us were subjected to the same dad. Not all of us became introverted (I) or extroverted (E) as a result. Therefore I think a narcissist parent cannot bully a child into becoming an I or an E. I do think that a narcissist parent's bullying will scare an introverted child into even more introverted behavior, limiting their interactions with the outside world to beyond what's good for an introvert. Kind of like in the way swede described:_ "(but) I could not go out and no one could come in"_

As for trying to have some kind of a life, I reckon my extroverted siblings are doing better in a sense. They've met and married people and have gotten some kids of their own. I am not saying it is smooth sailing for these brothers and sisters, but they at least go through the motions of life. Extroverted kids also object out loud to their narcissist parent, too.


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## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

Bear987 said:


> ... I would like to contrast it with my experiences, though. I pretty much know for a fact that I am an introvert. I need plenty of time alone to recharge on a daily basis and I reckon that pretty much seals it.


Yeah. Sometimes people have tried to say (usually online) that I'm an extrovert, but I'm not. What happens for me is that my Ne and SX kick in and I can emulate extraverted behavior for a bit, but almost like flipping a switch, I burn out and need a lot of recuperation time... more than the time I spent extraverting. I can spend a lot of time alone, even if sometimes I get lonely; but I can't handle even close to that amount of time around others without going rather nuts, I need the space.



> I grew up in a pretty big family however: I have 5 younger brothers, 1 older sister and 2 younger sisters. All of us were subjected to the same dad. Not all of us became introverted (I) or extroverted (E) as a result. Therefore I think a narcissist parent cannot bully a child into becoming an I or an E. I do think that a narcissist parent's bullying will scare an introverted child into even more introverted behavior, limiting their interactions with the outside world to beyond what's good for an introvert. Kind of like in the way swede described:_ "(but) I could not go out and no one could come in"_


That's how I feel about me. I think my experiences growing up exacerbated my own natural tendencies to withdraw, to introvert, to be self-reliant, to minimize dependency, so it all because rather extreme for me. But it's not like I ever was an extravert.

My experience in my own family as the parent is similar -- my kids' introvert/extrovert natures were apparent pretty early, each of them. We only have one extraverted child, VERY extraverted.... and the rest of us were introverts. We actually unfortunately put a lot of pressure on him to focus, quiet himself, not make so much noise, introspect when he was young, and what it did was DEPRESS him so that he became sad and miserable all the time and nothing like himself. We recognized that we had tried to restrict him too much to accommodate all the introverts in the family, and that it was bad for him, so we eased up and adjusted ourselves to accommodate his need to be more out there, louder, more engaging, and he recovered in a short while and was back to his old happier self. My point there is that we tried to mold him to be more like us, and it was too much, he did not become introverted but just because very miserable.

But with my dad, I always felt like he was disappointed in me for not being as engaging like him. I think he also misread my quietness as some kind of rejection of him, instead of recognizing it as a trait where I just needed space. That only exacerbated things, because then I really did want to pull away more. it is a shame, because I probably was the most extraverted in the family after him, despite being an extrovert, and we could have made some kind of connection there.




Darth Alpha said:


> What kind of role models did you have? It seems to me that a lot of people find role models elsewhere when parents and family aren't enough.


I rarely had any real life role models. All my role models were artists and philosophers, honestly. On very rare occasion, I would run across someone in life that I respected and who I trusted to be able to teach me things, but they were always very human. I don't think there was anyone alive I would look at and want to be like. That makes me sad in some ways. It's like always feeling you are walking alone through some kind of wilderness... I mean, the terrain is fresh and open for exploration, but at the same time there is no reassurance of where I'm going nor kinship with a mentor figure.


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## Bear987 (May 13, 2012)

@FearAndTrembling just shared a poem by Kahlil Gibran in another thread. I reckon it suits this thread quite well too, since it provides some contrast between how a parent 'should' treat a child and how a narcissist violates the needs of their children (by possessing them):

"Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For thir souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you."

Read more...


Gibran wrote more about boundaries, about keeping relationships from becoming symbiotic, about keeping people from completely devouring or absorbing another. My narcissist dad was terrible with boundaries and respecting personal space as well. He for instance never knocked when entering my bedroom, my space was his space - I didn't have a space to myself. He also would comment on the way I dressed or looked without thinking twice about his timing or being considerate.

Like @Jennywocky wrote earlier: _"I did not exist"_, nothing about me was really mine. Not my room, not my clothes, not my look, not my thoughts, not my anything. My dad would comment, take, touch or hit anything about me without any consideration. I reckon that as a result, I still do not attach myself to stuff easily, since I am used to someone taking it from me at will. Maybe I should rephrase that into: I attach myself to objects too much: I hate it when someone else just takes my stuff, or thinks my stuff is there at their disposal, to meet their needs just whenever.

I hate being this way, I don't think it is congruent to being an INFJ also, I wish I could share more easily. But I just cannot anymore.


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## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

Bear987 said:


> ....
> 
> "Your children are not your children.
> They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
> ...


Thank you for this poem, I'd never seen it before. It's wonderful, and it's something I've striven to do with my kids.



> Gibran wrote more about boundaries, about keeping relationships from becoming symbiotic, about keeping people from completely devouring or absorbing another. My narcissist dad was terrible with boundaries and respecting personal space as well. He for instance never knocked when entering my bedroom, my space was his space - I didn't have a space to myself. He also would comment on the way I dressed or looked without thinking twice about his timing or being considerate.


As I read this, I literally felt a wave of nausea roll over me, because I could identify with it. I guess I'm not over things yet. I wasn't expecting it to impact me like that, but yes... there was no private space and the "I did not exist," thing that you mention me saying is exactly right. I always felt like he viewed me as an extension of himself, not as a separate person.

It's not your fault, but I'm just feeling ill right now, I'm gonna go do something else... sigh.


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## FearAndTrembling (Jun 5, 2013)

As an INFJ, I could not grow up in the households you guys did. My parents were very understanding and respected my boundaries. My room was no mans land. I was pretty reclusive, and they mostly let me be. They were actually accommodating to it and I kind of feel guilty for being so distant.


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

@_Bear987_, thanks for posting the poem and discussing the possible differences for introversion vs shutting down. I tried to (very clumsily) explain to another PerC member how I often see myself as a prison, that in long periods my hell has been inside my own head here on earth. To better explain, I used a poem by Gustaf Froding (1860-1911), who was a Swedish poet - a schizophrenic and a genius with words. 

This poem, En ghasel, resonates deeply with me (it is a translation, so it is significantly less elegant and beautiful, but the message is the same). I still remember how it felt like I was hit physically when we read this piece in middle school - I must ave been ~14 at the time
--------------------------------------------------------------------
*A ghazal*

(_En ghasel_)

I stand and watch the world through iron bars;
I can, I must not release these iron bars,
it is so soothing to watch, how life abounds
and washes high waves against the iron bars,
so painfully bright and enticing it sounds,
when laughter and songs trickle through the iron bars.

Light shifts of aspen and alder and birch,
and above the precipice dark as pine,
fresh fragrances trickle through the iron bars.
And above the bay a majestic light,
within each drop an emerald shines bright,
watch, the divine glitter through the iron bars!

It abounds sail ships there and steamers too
with horn players and cheerful singers’ tunes
and thousands of joyous people wander,
cross country over hill and dale to feast;
I want, I want, I shall, I must escape
and taste life, if only for a single grape,
I must not vanish behind these iron bars!

In despair I shall bend, I shall scratch and batter
the old relentlessly hard iron bars
— they refuse to bend, they refuse to shatter,
for within myself I nailed and forged these iron bars,
and only once I shatter, shatter the iron bars.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Speaking of hell, one of the many ways I forgot to add to my coping list was religion. From the age of 15 I was searching frantically for God. I took the bus or biked to church alone every Sunday (religion is not big in Sweden, especially not compared to here in KY). I prayed, I listened, I really, really tried. For about a year, I guess I searched for some sort of light, but I never found it. I am not one of the atheists who belittle believers or think that religion is illogical. I believe that some people were given the gift to believe and this can be a tremendous support - something to lean on when hard times come. 
My husband is a believer. As I said, I am an atheist. My children will be whatever they choose, but no matter what they choose, I will not judge them or tell them that they are wrong (which ties back into the poem you just posted Bear).

I also forgot to say that I started to train a lot around that age too and pretty much stopped eating. I lost my period for a while. Now I understand that it was a way to feel control, maybe even some sort of way to punish myself, but also a cry for help: "please, someone see me"!


Finally, thanks again to everyone for your posts! I have learned so much from all of you and it has been great for me personally. I just realized a day or two ago that this is the first time in my entire life when I have been able to verbalize this without sliding into a depression. It feels fantastic - a huge step forward, that's for sure. I wish all the rest of you the same feeling of liberation, if you have not already reached that point.


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## Bear987 (May 13, 2012)

Jennywocky said:


> Thank you for this poem, I'd never seen it before. It's wonderful, and it's something I've striven to do with my kids.
> 
> As I read this, I literally felt a wave of nausea roll over me, because I could identify with it. I guess I'm not over things yet. I wasn't expecting it to impact me like that, but yes... there was no private space and the "I did not exist," thing that you mention me saying is exactly right. I always felt like he viewed me as an extension of himself, not as a separate person.
> 
> It's not your fault, but I'm just feeling ill right now, I'm gonna go do something else... sigh.


I read what you wrote about your extroverted son after I posted the poem and I immediately realized your experiences with your extroverted child are exactly what the poem is about. It makes me immensely happy that you, and surely others too, have succeeded in actually 'allowing' kids the room to breath, the room to exist and the space to be(come) themselves.

If you care to, could you perhaps write something about what it is like to switch gears and see your child flourish as a result? In relation to your own youth, do your experiences as a parent have therapeutic value? I have been thinking about how maybe taking good care of a child of my own might help me ... I don't know.

To be honest, the poem makes me cry. Mostly happy tears, since the author acknowledges my existence as an individual - mine and everyone else's. It's like a belated birthday gift. At the same time, the poem accurately identifies the ways in which my needs were violated as child. My childhood was (partly) a prison cell, so much of my existence, every aspect of my existence, has been coerced into a state of servitude - to accommodate the needs of my dad. His never-ending need for attention and 'applause'.

Lastly, I understand how (some of) this makes you feel physically ill. I get the same way, as do others. I am not sure whether that's a good sign - it signals that we're still able to get in touch with ourselves - or a bad sign signaling that we're not 'over' it yet and that we perhaps never will. At any rate, take some time - enjoy some distance, by all means. Like Gibran wrote: _"And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.”_


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

Bear987 said:


> --- nothing about me was really mine. Not my room, not my clothes, not my look, not my thoughts, not my anything. My dad would comment, take, touch or hit anything about me without any consideration. I reckon that as a result, I still do not attach myself to stuff easily, since I am used to someone taking it from me at will. Maybe I should rephrase that into: I attach myself to objects too much: I hate it when someone else just takes my stuff, or thinks my stuff is there at their disposal, to meet their needs just whenever.


Just as Jennywocky do, I recognize this. I remember dad taking the screwdriver and taking the handle off the bathroom door (no lock on the bedroom door). The handle was screwed back again, but the message was that "this is OUR home, not yours, and you have no right to your privacy" (actually, I was told this outright in words many, many times). 

The biggest thing that I can recall was choosing programs for high-school. Back then (and possibly still today) we chose our specialty programs already at 15 and depending on what you choose, you may or may not be eligible for certain university programs. The three largest ones were science, linguistics and social studies. I wanted to go the social studies program, but my dad said that I was to go the science route. He told me outright that I was not legally an adult, so I did not have a say in the matter. He had the final say, since he was the one who was signing the papers.

I ended up becoming an engineer, which is something that suits me. I am really pretty good at it and I have done well in my career so far, but I don't really have a passion for it. It is pretty much 'meh' now that I have proven to myself that I can do it, if that makes sense.

------

And Bear, it is funny that you bring up "your stuff". My mother told me that "when you are 18, you are moving out" (because in my late teens I started to push her back when she pushed me into the walls - at one occasion we almost came to blows and seeing how angry I was at the time, I am sure that I would have beaten her.) Once I was 'discarded of', I moved into a student housing and a lot of the money I earned on the side went to building a home. I started collecting household items for my future; plates, silverware, linens, you name it. It sounds so silly and so 'girly', but it felt like I was building something that was mine - a future that would be only mine and my safe haven. See, because my parents would not let me leave until I was 18. Now I understand that it was to make everything seem normal and dandy on the surface - save face in front of the rest of the world...'
I still have all these household items here in the US and we use them everyday - I packed it all up in a huge box and shipped it over to the US once I moved. I guess you can call it my security blanket. These things still make me happy, because they remind me of how I finally got freedom.


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## Superfluous (Jan 28, 2014)

I grew up in a broken home. My mother suffers from some kinda illness, I'm not too sure. They were seperated but still in the same house, around age 5. When I was asleep, she accused my dad of violence during a fight (I still think it was false, but I guess Ill never know) She had called the cops, and he was removed from property and he wasnt allowed on the military base. I woke up with my dad gone, and wondering where he had went for weeks almost. I gained a fear of sleep, scared I would miss something, and I have ended up an insomniac. I always fight sleep until my body forces itself to knock out. I never remember myself actually falling asleep. I finally heard his voice at age 8.

After he had left, my mom got an "order" from the miltary saying she had to be relocated in Japan, and how I couldnt come with for health issues. I was then handed to my crazy ass aunt at age 7, and we bounced around, constantly moving between relatives. I saw my mom once a year, and at age 11, I finally was reunited with her. We moved around some more, and then she said that she would quit the military so she could spend time with me. At age 12, she met a foreign guy who claimed he was a prophet. She married him behind my back, 2 months after knowing eachother. They fucked in my bed, and left evidence to prove it. This guy claimed he was a prophet but honestly, I felt like we were turning into a cult. So hauled ass & left.

My dad was the most introverted person you could ever meet. He left the house maybe twice a month. He seemed content, but I always questioned if he was depressed. He wouldnt let me out unless the weather was dandy, or I was with people he could trust. Needless to say, in highschool I didnt really learn how to socialize. Although he sheltered me, he was the sweetest, funniest guy. And I would go back if I could have him again.

Looking back, I look at myself. My mom was this total hard ass but she neglected me most of the time, and my dad was sweet & over protective. I always looked at myself to cheer me up, since I was an only kid. But I think the reason why I may be dependant is because of my dad. And the reason why I have control issues (like to feel in control) and insecure, is because of my mom. I dont really face reality because it was my way of coping, and I laughed things off or said "fuck it" when I felt out of control. 

I dont really bitch about it, cause parents always mess up kids lives - dont they?


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

Sunshine Boy said:


> Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited - The Essay - Chapters 3 and 4. This is the best page of information on narcissism I've seen. Highly recommend it.
> 
> So.. Thank you @_Swede_ for getting me on this topic. I have been studying narcissism all morning and I have learned a great deal. Most notably that I am USDA Grade A NARCISSIST. This may be my biggest demon of all. This has affected/ is affecting my life more than anything else. It has defined me and my life. It is why I abuse everything. It's why I am vein. It's why I run from my emotions. It's why I cannot have intimacy, why I don't have sex. HOW DO I GET AWAY FROM THIS? WHY WAS THIS CURSE PLACED ON ME? HOW WILL I EVER HAVE SEX WITH SOMEONE without jelousy AND how will I live with the absolute embarrassment of being a failure for so long. I'm not just a narcissist, I am a failure. I really feel like my life is over and I have failed. I was deprived of my childhood and now The influence of time and of narcissism has ruined my 20s. I am a fuck up, but I guess things could always be worse. I always think everything I desire should just be handed to me by nature. Why the fuck do I think like this? Why do I think I'm so special? Can I blame it on my parents? Sure, but that won't really get me anywhere. What a mess, man. What a mess. More to come.


Well, a lot of pessimistic people on the net seem to like to say that there is no cure for narcissism, but I think that is lazy, negative and even totally erroneous.

First off, you are saying that you are a narcissist and secondly you express that this is something that you are not happy about and that you would like to change. It is said that admitting to ourselves and our surroundings that there is something that we are not proud of and that we want to change is a huge step towards the ability and motivation to actually implement change. This is true for many other personal issues in life (low self-esteem, alcoholism, anorexia, and so on).

When I googled potential cures for narcissism, I found the following snippet (tools to help in the change process have been outlined very briefly as well):


> *Desiring Change*
> To cure yourself of your narcissism, you must first be willing to face your demons; this is never an easy task. Narcissists are arrogant, jealous, controlling and exploitative. They feel entitled and elevate their self-esteem by destroying that of others. Realizing that you embody these traits is certain to clash with the ideal image you have created of yourself. However, by realizing that narcissism is a mental disorder, one that causes you to act in a manner that not only hurts yourself but others as well, you can develop the motivation to change. The desire for change has to come from within; changing only for someone else often brings short-term success. By accepting your weakness as a part of your humanity, a desire for change will follow. Before seeking help, know that while in recovery, you may falter, but your desire to change will motivate you to keep trying.


and 


> *Success*
> The success rate of defeating narcissism largely depends on the individual. No amount of therapy or medication can resolve the problem if your desire for change is not sustained.


So as you see, you are in control, both in regards to your power to change and also in your chances to succeed.
In addition, it says


> According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), Fourth Edition, narcissistic personality disorder is an obsessive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration and praise, and lack of empathy, which *typically starts by early adulthood.*
> 
> and
> 
> According to America's Mental Health Channel, *the earlier you receive therapeutic intervention for your narcissism, the better your outcome will be.*


It sounds like you are still pretty young, so you have a great opportunity to work on change if you desire to do so.

This was also an interesting read, much in line with the other site.


> So the question many have is "How do I know I am not the narcissist?" When I was in therapy I asked my Therapist the same question. She told me "if you have to ask the question than it is highly unlikely that you are a narcissist because narcissistic personalities don't think the problem is with them."
> Victims of abuse often feel the problem is with them and this is re-enforced on a regular basis by the abuser.


Other interesting reads: here (refers to the book you mentioned in your post) and here (Do Narcissists Know They Are Narcissists - I am inclined to agree with the message in this article that many narcissists are aware of the fact that they are narcissists and they *embrace* it.).


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

@_Swede_ - My psychiatrist treats a few narcissistic patients; most of them do not want to change and cannot accept that they are actually the reason for most of their troubles.


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## Indiana Dan (Jun 11, 2013)

Swede said:


> Well, a lot of pessimistic people on the net seem to like to say that there is no cure for narcissism, but I think that is lazy, negative and even totally erroneous.
> 
> First off, you are saying that you are a narcissist and secondly you express that this is something that you are not happy about and that you would like to change. It is said that admitting to ourselves and our surroundings that there is something that we are not proud of and that we want to change is a huge step towards the ability and motivation to actually implement change. This is true for many other personal issues in life (low self-esteem, alcoholism, anorexia, and so on).
> 
> ...


Ever since I conquered alcoholism (for the first time) 3 or so years ago, I have never had a problem admitting my flaws. I am highly aware of myself in many ways. In fact, I go _overboard_ admitting my flaws in an attempt to garnish sympathy or attention.. A strange narcissistic behavior. As far as being controlling and exploitative.. I don't see myself with these qualities.. maybe they are there and I can't see them. 

After studying a bit more on narcissism, I am no longer sure if I am a true narcissist or just have been raised by my alcoholic narcissist father. Maybe I created an alter ego since my young years and have not let my true self show. Maybe I am just acting on the mirror image of my father. I tried being a 'badass' for the past couple of years and it has come crashing down. That's why I'm here i guess. The realization has been made.

edit.
I was just thinking how I do not apply to the NPD profile because I have a _lot_ of empathy for others. I mean come on.. I'm an INFJ.

edit.
Im the man in the mirror!!
@koalaroo You're therapist ain't met nobody like me!


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## Indiana Dan (Jun 11, 2013)

*Has a grandiose sense of self-importance *(e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements) _*yes*_
*Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love  yes*
*Believes that he or she is “special” and unique *and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions) *yes*
*Requires excessive admiration  yes*
*Has a very strong sense of entitlement*, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations * yes*
*Is exploitative of others*, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends _*no*_
*Lacks empathy*, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others * no*
*Is often envious of others *or believes that others are envious of him or her _*yes*_
*Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes yes*




Sorry I know I'm being a narcissist right now and hijacking the thread. I'm getting it out of my system!
A winter's day 
In a deep and dark December; 
I am alone, 
Gazing from my window to the streets below 
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow. 
I am a rock, 
I am an island. 

I've built walls, 
A fortress deep and mighty, 
That none may penetrate. 
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain. 
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain. 
I am a rock, 
I am an island. 

Don't talk of love, 
But I've heard the words before; 
It's sleeping in my memory. 
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died. 
If I never loved I never would have cried. 
I am a rock, 
I am an island. 

I have my books 
And my poetry to protect me; 
I am shielded in my armor, 
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb. 
I touch no one and no one touches me. 
I am a rock, 
I am an island.


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## loving2011 (Nov 6, 2012)

Swede-Exactly. Nobody would believe us, if we told anyone. That's the one thing I hate. Why didn't you tell anyone? Dude, because NOBODY WOULD LISTEN! We children know when it's safe to not tell or tell. It's easier not to tell than tell.


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## starri (Jan 23, 2009)

Bear987 said:


> I am pretty sure I am really really sad inside - but I can't quite reach it (yet). Thinking of my youth and comparing my younger self to the kid in the picture, I feel some rage, some sadness - but I end up feeling just numb.


Very well put.


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## petite libellule (Jul 4, 2012)

There's been some who have shared their experience with Narcissistic dads and how that has impacted them. I thought I would share what Narcisstic Mothers are like and how that's impacted my relationships (partly for cathartic reasons). 


* *




My mother is an ISTJ 1w9 Self Pres. Those versed in enng know that the instincts change the presentation of the types greatly. For a self pres 1, they're professional "worry" warts. That's what they do. It's a part of their manipulation in the case of the narcissistic mother. Covert caring. 

How it effects my relationships. What relationships? I've never been allowed to have any. I'm versed at making friends because I'm so accustomed to not being able to keep them. We're talking even as a small child. For those familiar with narcissistic mother syndrome, they split their children. My older sibling "the golden child". And then my younger (though he intuitively is more aware, he would prefer not to deal with it and encourages me to help myself and move out of state). I, the female (as is common, the scapegoat child is the same sex and is a source of envy and hate and suffocating "love"). 

Now when I say envy. I'm serious. I was a total daddy's girl (my father entp 8w9 sx) and she hated it. She was mean and cruel in an underhanded passive aggressive way and even my father has told me "I don't understand. she wanted a little girl so bad". But as we know, the narcissistic mother has a daughter to live through. Much like the black swan flick example in this video however, the mother doesn't REALLY want to live through the daughter vicariously (as in being happy of the child's accomplishments or anything). Rather, they have a source of envy and so have to squash the child's achievements. I had to make sure I was never too pretty or too smart. Even as far as last year, when I started to sell little pipsqueak articles, I received scoffing, rolling eyes, you can't do that, and so on. 

Again, like in the part 2 vid. I personally to this day deal with "infantilism". I was never allowed to paint my nails, or wear make up until I just did. And as little as last year, I was not allowed to go to a dinner date without a chaperon. Yet, when I DO date, she sabotages it. It's incredibly embarrassing and humiliating. No one wants to deal with that shit. I had one long distance relationship. From my experience with other people I had attempted to get to know long distance, I had to be very careful when I timed the skypes so as to avoid any embarrassing reprimandingings. If on the phone, if she's triggered, she'll come down on me like I'm 12 like a lunatic and there I am, jaw dropped to the floor, a grown adult, who either has to hang up on the person to save face or deal with trying to be honest and explain things and then the person doesn't want to deal with that shit. 

It's always the same. From grammar school to this day. I'm not allowed to have friends. And yet, I'm berated for being different and not having friends. I'm not allowed to go to school. yet, berated for not working. I'm not allowed to work, but berated for not being able to budget the small amount of money I get a month. I'm not allowed to talk to my family (honestly), if I do, all hell breaks lose, but I'm also in trouble if I don't make appearances and play my role. She gets angry if I'm a burden. She gets *angrier* when I help myself. 

She's an ISTJ 1w9 sp which is to say, her expression of anger is covert and passive aggressive. This is why I'm so scared to be involved with someone who won't yell in my face if they're mad at me. That makes me feel loved because they are letting me know they're angry. To hold anger in, makes me feel scared. I've an insanely highly developed radar for how people are feeling. what their moods are. What their needs are. What their fears are. So I don't get hurt. So I can be loved. Because my entire life, I have had to be "good" and take whatever lesser evil of abuse in order to be accepted or loved. Obviously, as an adult, things are different. and luckily. My father, tried as best he could, so I would love myself and have expectations and never be treated poorly. The dichotomy between the two is outrageous. And I was always caught in the middle.

Unlike some examples the videos use, my mother is never the friend role. instead, she flips from the mother role to the child role where she'll use me to emotionally counsel her for when she needs to feel loved. She will also do a million other tactics in order to get attention and feel like I still care. This is no doubt why she sabotages and can't stand it when I go out to date. Which is not very often. I go in cycles. She has always been like this. Even to this day she will make comments as if I'm disgusting for wanting to have sex. I told her once I wanted to have a partner for companionship etc. as I was ranting and she responded with "I hope you find what you're looking for" in a sick way suggesting as if something is wrong with me for that. Guilt and Shame are only two of the many manipulative tactics she uses. I've only as an adult in the last few years been able to really understand and detect her logical manipulation.

For the last 6 years she's literally held my child as a pawn much like divorced parents will use their children. It's sick. I must admit, I'll probably be in counseling for the rest of my life to undo her damage. I've aggressively read and learned about brains and behavior for over 10 years now. (no lie). I do think I am healthy. But I'll always be healing. and in my marriage in the beginning of it, I was loved and life was good. and I've had other people who have loved me as well who have helped me heal and have faith in the world around me. I can't get into all of the specifics of all the painful lessons I've learned in order to gain the necessary humility. Even on this board, so many lessons. Too abstract to really get into much less insanely personal. But talking about her and this issue is cathartic. I'm not allowed to talk about it in real life. Much less am I allowed to cry. Literally. 

I have so very few memories of her as a good mom as a child. (and I've gripped on to those for dear life once upon a time). For the most part, she was overshadowed by my fathers personality. But, she made her impressions when she would take her shit out on me. the most painful memory is whenever she had a fight with my dad (or whatever it was that would set her off), she would come into my room with a garbage bag and throw all my toys away because they were all over the floor and I was messy. Mind you, this is how it always was. only that every now and then , out of nowhere it was not acceptable and she would come in my room like a psycho ranting. And chuck all my toys into a black garbage back where I would tantrum screaming and crying. And each and every time she did this, I remember waiting till everyone was asleep and I would sneak out of the house and pick out my favorite doll. This doll with blond curly hair my dads friend from California gave me once when I was little. I named her pebbles. Pebbles was donated to the poor in less than a week after I moved out at 17. when I went back for it she said she thought the doll was old and ugly. but she barely donated anything else.

narcissistic mothers love to the point of suffocating. but underneath is this toxic simmering hatred. I will not say it "fucked me up". I refuse to let her fuck me up. I will say she has made my life hell. And I refuse to believe her belief that I am not worth being loved or that I'm stupid or worthless, a burden or disgusting for having needs. She doesn't say these things outright (some of them but most not), but trust me, this is what it is to have a narcissistic parent. 

She wants to buy me a condo this next year because of all sorts of transitioning and she's afraid I'll leave. But that's the thing. Would you live the rest of your life like a doll ? Just so you never need to worry about money. And then what, I'm living a role. She isolated me from my entire family my entire life too. I have this large Italian family I can't access because she blocks it. On purpose. And the attempts to get closer to an aunt and some cousins was thwarted by her, again. It never works. It's as if I have no family. I have no relationships. ... you're not allowed to have one when you're a narcissistic pawn.

I guess how it effects my relationships in the now (after I've gone through hell and back a million times), is a moot point. Because I am SO self aware it's sick. I have unreeled every inch of my mind. I no longer attract narcissists romantically and I no longer will maintain connections with people who feel entitled to the connection, who won't meet me half way to maintain the connection. and I do not think this is to give to get. especially since I see the "give to get" trap clear as day - which mind you, NO ONE really understands and makes it something it absolutely is not. IT's a defense mechanism as all types are subject to. 

and so my parent no longer effects my relationships because I'm now free to communicate whether I'll be judged, dismissed, abandoned or not. sometimes it's 2 steps back before 3 steps forward. 

(sighs of cathartic relief). I've outed my mother. And I don't care. I've an evil smile because, I know she would just die to know I slammed her publicly. She puts such great efforts in being "perfect". ... she's probably the only person I seriously struggle to forgive which is why other people get it easy. well. kinda. the experience of her has given me an impeccable bullshit radar. 




Video 1 & 2 (2 giving the infantilism example)

* *













* *


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## petite libellule (Jul 4, 2012)

I just want to say that the dude who makes these vids wrote a few books, one titled "Defense Mechanisms" and that the latter half of the book goes on to describe the defense mechanisms that encompass narcissism. It's worth the read. Though if you're not into these abstract topics you'll probably have to tough out till you reach the half way point to start to understand its value. 

:: :: ::

This was a good overview profile video that gives the 9 requirements. His example is for a man. From my experience, the females are less obvious and so I think it's important to note.


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## petite libellule (Jul 4, 2012)

Just another look to it via documentary. It's not that long and incredibly interesting w/interviews.


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

This post is about my view on forgiving my narcissistic mother. 

Earlier in this thread, I brought up these questions:


> - Have you forgiven your parents?
> - If you have, how did you reach that point?
> - If not, are you aiming to get to that stage?
> - How do you define forgiveness?
> - Do you believe that forgiveness is necessary for the healing process?


I have not forgiven my mother and I probably never will. There are a few different reasons for this.

- by thinking more about my mother's background, I have been able to draw a number of parallels between her life and mine. Since she also grew up with a narcissistic mother, I have reached a certain level of understanding. 
However, I do not believe that understanding and forgiveness is the same thing. Actually, it can almost be contrary - since she grew up with the trauma of being raised by a narcissist, she should have been able to see the immense negative impact her childhood had on her life. Many people who grew up with narcissistic parents have one huge fear in common: the fear of making our own children relive our childhood traumas. My mother never reached that point and should not have had children.

- the fact that I was the scapegoat and my sisters the golden children makes it very hard for me to forgive. When someone has made it their mission to break you down any chance they have and you can see that they are not abusive (in the same manner) to their other kids, it is hard to forget. It is the unfairness of the situation that makes it so much harder to accept. 
I assume that when a parent abuses all her/his children 'equally', there is a difference. In those situations it may even be possible for the siblings to support each other in a different way, but I don't know.

- I don't know who my mother is - as in, when is she truly herself? I have not seen the person who tormented me for many, many years. She has slipped a couple of times, but my sisters have been there to witness what has been happening and she has noticed that we all see through her now, so she adjusts quickly. It doesn't make her look good... 
My mother and I have not been alone just the two of us for probably ~20 years, so I am not sure whether she has truly changed or whether she has just adopted a new persona when she interacts with me. I strongly suspect the latter. Has she truly changed? Does she acknowledge me as a person with feelings who she can hurt and has deliberately hurt in the past? Does she respect me? Does she regret anything? She has never said anything close to "I'm sorry". The person I meet now is someone who I have never known.
So, that makes me think, can you forgive someone who is not really even there? I personally don't think so.

- I believe that society generally places too much importance on forgiveness as the only way to heal and move forward. I think this is BS. I can accept my childhood now. I can see how deeply it hurt and affected me. I can even embrace the positive impact it has had on myself. I have moved forward and I haven't needed to forgive my mother to do that. I would probably be even happier if I just cut my parents out of my life for good, but I would feel guilty and selfish if I did. Very ironic!

- one of the greatest aha moments for me was when I put together @_koalaroo_'s and @_BlissfulDreams_' posts mentioning gas-lighting and keeping a tally as a sort of sanity check, respectively. It is possible that part of why I refuse to forgive and forget is because it is too easy to do so. It is too easy to look back and think: 'did I overreact?', 'did this actually really happen?', 'it just can't have; people don't treat their kids this way' etc. I am worried about forgetting because I don't want to end up in this situation again (because I have) and I don't want to ever treat my own children the way I was treated.


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## birdsintrees (Aug 20, 2012)

I'm gonna take post #2 here and chime in. I don't think I've ever writtin this down, apologies if it's a bit scattered. I didn't grow up with a narcissistic parent. I grew up with one parent who is chronically ill, which has been life-threatening since I can remember, who was an alcoholic, a frequent visitor of the psychiatrist and who had very poor overall life-management skills. My other parent has/had PTSD stemming from a very violent and repressive upbringing. It wasn't much fun in our household. There was violence between them. There was full on open warfare between them. Some of my earliest memories are going over to my brother's room at night when they were fighting downstairs and then pretending to be asleep when they come up and check. There are so many events that I don't even know where to start. One of them took us away at some point in the middle of the night to go stay with friends. Another time one of them went missing after they had a fight and we had the police over. Coming home from school one of them would sit with a bottle of sherry on the lounge, clearly intoxicated. It was always screaming and fighting. 

I became a caregiver from very early on. If my mother couldn't sleep next to my dad because he'd snore; She'd swap me and sleep in my bed. I would be awake for the rest of the night. If something happened that upset her and she cried, I comforted her. I became as invisible and quiet as I possibly could. I disappeared inside my mind and inside my room and created my own world. As long as they didn't notice me, I wouldn't get swept up in the storm and in their rage. Both of them used me as an emotional dumping ground. As soon as they had you alone, they would go into how sad and upset they were and how bad their lives were and they went into great detail what was wrong with everyone around them. 

They never asked if we, my brother and I, were ok. We were there to support them, not the other way around.

*
- Do you believe that the experience impacted the type you became (MBTI, enneagram, etc).*
I don't think my MBTI was influenced by this. My brother lived through the same and is a different person alltogether. I do think that my E6-CP is very fitting for the stuff that went down and even if it hasn't impacted the type, it will have impacted the level of health in type 6 that I came out of adolescense with.

*- How did it impact your relationships as an adult?*
Greatly. I didn't trust anyone with my emotions. They were what made you volnurable and people take advantage of that. It has taken a lot of hard work to allow people into my inner world without feeling the need to put up barriers, smoke screens and booby traps. I lived by the philosophy that as long as I didn't need anyone, I'd be safe. 

*- Did you resolve your personal issues that stemmed from growing up with a messed up parent and is you feel you have, how?*
I'm getting there. Removing myself from their sphere of influence has really helped me detach from their problems. I used to feel a lot of guilt and responsibility towards them even when I hated them. Now that they aren't part of my daily life I can manage that better. I am forever working on remaining myself and claiming my place in the world. I think the hardest thing to overcome was to stop thinking that they should have never had children. There was a point in my life where I was honestly convinced that it would have been better if they never had me and my brother and I think that is about as low as you can get.

*- What were/are your personal coping mechanisms?*
I disappeared. I tried to do everything right and make myself as invisible as possible in order to stay unnoticed. They were brutal when they did notice. I also had one family member that was a lifeline. I honestly don't know what life would have been like without her to escape to. These days I manage contact and I have disconnected from them emotionally. I don't get swept up in their drama anymore.

*- What are the positive things that have come from the way you grew up?*
Resillience. I don't need you in my life in order to survive. I can survive on my own if I need to and that, at the foundation of my person, is security.

What bothers me most is that nobody saw. No teacher ever asked if everything was allright at home. No other parent ever questioned why me and my brother were such messed up kids.

Edit to add: Forgiveness. I don't think it has been about forgiveness for me. I have come to understand their limitations and have come to understand how terribly inequipped they were to have a family. I've grown to understand that all their best intentions would have never been good enough and that they simply couldn't do any better. I am not forgiving towards their current day behavior. If they behave in a way that I disagree with; they will hear about it and I will put them in their place. I don't resent them for what happened. I resent what happened and how I will probably never fully erase the effects of that from my personality.


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## petite libellule (Jul 4, 2012)

@_Swede_


* *




Don't take this the wrong way. You might not know who your mother is because she doesn't know who she is. Like any "label", she lays on a spectrum. I've met those with narcissistic tendencies who are healthy people who have to mind their weaknesses - much as I have to mind mine ... Many narcissists are children of narcissists themselves but more common are those who produce children that are co-dependent. In a psychological book about "Cinderella" (not sure the verbatim title off hand), it talks about how Cinderella would end up with a prince charming narcissist. And from experience, I will inform you that this is the case.

My mother has always been heavy on the spectrum. I've had heart to heart talks with an aunt who gave me all sorts of insight as well as memories my father has recanted when he was healthier years ago. She (not saying your mother but most narcissists) are seriously sick. They psychologically destroy those around them.

I always attract those at level of mine and heal and move on. ONLY now have I reached a point where a man ACTUALLY was a man and took responsibility for himself. It was awe inspiring and I could care less if he never wants to see or speak to me again because it gave me hope. There is a FINE LINE between a man who wants a nurturing woman and a man who wants a mommy. And that is what narcissists want. An emotional parent or "victim" for them to feed.

They want parents and other "hosts" to feed off of to sustain their psychological sense of "well-being". They're sick. My mother is sick. I watched her destroy my father psychologically. and as an avid people watcher, I've seen MANY women DESTROY men. And MANY men Line Up to be someone's babysitter (because it's an easy ego fix) just so they have the privilege to be destroyed later. There is a fine line between the "co-dependent" and the covert narcissistic. 

You see. MUCH of these labels do NOT fit people nice and tidy. There is much cross over. The picture is way more convoluted and abstract and beautiful in its intricacy. (I know. twisted of me to say. It's like all the years I studied autism. as heart breaking as it was, it was incredibly fascinating as well). studying the sick teaches us of ourselves much in the same way that studying the enneagram (and the extreme unhealthy examples they use) teach us where we could hypothetically be if left to our own devices.

If your mom is a narcissist. I would seek a therapist and a support group. At least for me, it's served me well along with rigorous overlapping self study over many years. My experience with my mother is serious novel material. Literally. It's flowers in the attic creepy. and the main reason why I've been so wary of letting people know is because I do NOT want to attract predators, or people who want to exploit my vulnerable position much less end up with someone who wants to "save" me. I do NOT want to be with someone who feels they have to 'put up' with me, and I certainly don't want to feel that way either. and I don't want to be someone's "project" or emotional savior so they feel better about themselves. I want to be with someone who I respect, who respects me and we're equals; different with equaling valuing gifts to offer. Sadly, when you have a parent of a narcissist, it is a long LONG road to this place and still - to this day, I attract those who want to take advantage. Other narcissistic or toxic people in high places who see someone in a tough position and think, how can this person "fit". It's not the same as "how can I make this work". It's malicious manipulating and I ALWAYS inevitably sense what is up and fade out or out right bolt from the scene. 

This is how I've been affected and it is NOT the same as having an alcoholic parent, though I'm aware that in itself is painful. I know from experience watching someone go from 10 to 0. it is not the same because it's the narcissistic who will bring that person to a point of self destruction. Again, NOT saying your mother is like this. Just that narcissism is DEEP and lays quietly and it's MUCH like carbon dioxide poisoning. The silent killer so to speak. 

(though obviously, it is okay people post eclectically in this thread. I felt it important to differentiate that all of these situations are incredibly challenging and difficult. 
*
narcissism is an INTERNAL coping personality deficit. 

unlike alcoholism being an external source of coping gone awry.
*





Finally. On the forgiving factor. I wanted to share some knowledge on that topic real quick.

*
 




Precipitous Forgiving


*
* *





(from a book on avoidant personalities)

A way in which people avoid healing is through the use of precipitous forgiving. On the surface, forgiveness has appeal. It seems virtuous and ideal. it demonstrates maturity and the ability to let go. It connotes a position of strength, a rejection of the victim role and a direction back to "normalcy".

But to forgive assumes there is a "forgiven". someone who has apologized, communicated remorse and/or appropriate understanding and suggested growth from the circumstances. 

Sometimes, forgiveness is used in a way that is emotionally dishonest. It's not helpful nor congruent towards health and healing. It is a way of avoiding the painful experience of mourning. Mourning a childhood never being privy to, or mourning the expectation or love you deserved etc. This famous psychologist named Herman wrote about it and went on to suggest that some people, bypass their outrage altogether through a fantasy of forgiveness. (something maybe an optimistic type or an idealist, or someone who is partly in denial might be apt to do). The survivor or person who has been insulted by injury emotional or otherwise, imagines that they can transcend their rage and erase the impact of the events, trauma or experience through a willed act of defiant love (feeding the ego through pride or) by the free will and having that power and control (again, feeding the ego). whichever the case, it is self denial. 

People who have difficulty acknowledging feelings of anger, disappointment, and disgust with others (especially family or loved ones) often rush to forgive. but it isn't true forgiveness. The problem with precipitous forgiveness is that it fails to account for the real emotional experience. It cuts out the hurt and sets it aside instead of integrating it into the individuals life story (possibly contributing towards disillusionment already existent) and bypassing growth for the individual in an honest, balanced way.

Now I've been through lots of shit and time and again I've "lost" or gone off track only to "re-calibrate" and come back together and integrate. Though if one doesn't use their intuition to guide them through this process, (and yes, sensors have intuition too), then over long duration of time (years) the persons personality becomes compartmentalized and scattered, or "disillusioned" and they begin to struggle holding authentic connections and "deal" with life's sub par moments. Coping is difficult giving way to unhealthy modes such as excessive drinking, eating or std sex etc. 

Forgiveness of caregivers who may have knowingly or unwittingly caused traumatic stress is highly compatible with the tendency toward parental idealization. and that is another rant for another day. again, a very slippery slope leading towards less than healthy conditions for your mind to grow. 

Also, forgiveness is also compatible with the self image of emotional strength so those who are of a social instinct or a core 8 or have an 8 wing or those of the image triad who all might be apt to be concerned with "strength". It's avoidance of feeling feelings of hurt, pain and vulnerability and instead move directly into a position of socially appropriate strength and grace. the one who grants forgiveness than the one who is waiting for an apology is far more powerful. But it's false. true grace is within the long haul of authentic integration of any said such experience. 

In contrast, being emotional "irrational" (which, no offense to anyone who has ever used that term in a superior way. feelings are not suppose to be rational and rarely are. that is not the nature of feelings. it's an oxymoron to expect otherwise). In contrast, feelings of ANGER, or HURT, and mourning and experiencing emotional injuries is meaningful, honest and healing.

It comes through the painful, hard work of acknowledging and experiencing the emotions related to loss and rejection (whether it be of the person or an expectation etc.) , it's accepting the many complicated , contradictory feelings that accompany the experience, making sense of the impact such varying emotions have had on the person and integrating this understanding into the persons view of themselves within the relational world (not that of the world of ego/disillusionment). 

True forgiveness cannot be granted until the perpetrator has sought and earned it through confession, repentance and restitution which is exhibited either verbally and/or behaviorally with evolved understanding and acceptance of the lessons learned. 

Healing does not need forgiveness and happens through the discovery of restorative love in the persons own life (though I would be lying if it wasn't absolute bliss being able to forgive someone for once. in the domain of narcissism, this never happens. a narcissist is incapable of holding themselves accountable for their end of the stick because they are emotionally dependent on the outside world to fill the void in their psychologically fractured skulls. (sorry. that sounded mean). but it's true.

So because the condition is that of stunted psychological growth - 
while it is okay to feel sorrow or compassion for a narcissist. 

Forgiving them is nothing but your mind playing tricks on you. 


which is probably all I needed to say in the first place. 







anyways. sorry for the rant. If nothing is beneficial to you. .. it's on the thread for others if need be.


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## Master Mind (Aug 15, 2011)

I grew up with a parent with severe Narcissistic Personality Disorder. My father. I was, in fact, the first person to recognize he had NPD. I'm not at home now, but on my phone, so I can't go into it. But I've often wondered if my personality is how it naturally would have been, or whether it's the result of growing up with a narcissistic father. My mother said I was outgoing and always smiling as a baby, but with the passage of time life beat it out of me. I don't know though if I would have turned out a _better_ person even if I might have turned out "happier." I might have taken some things for granted, never having to think about it. I wouldn't be as sensitive to certain things as I am now. So it was probably necessary.


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## Bear987 (May 13, 2012)

Master Mind said:


> I grew up with a parent with severe Narcissistic Personality Disorder. My father. I was, in fact, the first person to recognize he had NPD. I'm not at home now, but on my phone, so I can't go into it. But I've often wondered if my personality is how it naturally would have been, or whether it's the result of growing up with a narcissistic father. My mother said I was outgoing and always smiling as a baby, but with the passage of time life beat it out of me. I don't know though if I would have turned out a _better_ person even if I might have turned out "happier." I might have taken some things for granted, never having to think about it. I wouldn't be as sensitive to certain things as I am now. *So it was probably necessary.*


My father was a severe narcissist as well. I have written some posts about it in the thread already. I wonder about your final sentence where you say "it was probably necessary".

Is that something you would prefer? That having to deal with a narcissist dad was somehow necessary or beneficial to you even? How open-minded are you still about your final thoughts on this? Could there be other options e.g. having a narcissist dad has burdened your life as a child and may have affected your life in the long run in ways that aren't helpful?

I am asking these questions, because from my own experience I know it is hard to even acknowledge that something in our past has been a burden. This especially goes for the parts of our childhood we had no say in and no means to really defend ourselves against.


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## Bear987 (May 13, 2012)

I would like to share a song that makes me think of how as a child I tried to defend myself somewhat against the circumstances I had to face and how some of the coping mechanisms (still) hold me back now that I am an adult.

Alanis Morissette - Precious Illusions


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## Master Mind (Aug 15, 2011)

Bear987 said:


> My father was a severe narcissist as well. I have written some posts about it in the thread already. I wonder about your final sentence where you say "it was probably necessary".


You bolded that while skipping over the previous two sentences.



Bear987 said:


> Is that something you would prefer? That having to deal with a narcissist dad was somehow necessary or beneficial to you even? How open-minded are you still about your final thoughts on this? Could there be other options e.g. having a narcissist dad has burdened your life as a child and may have affected your life in the long run in ways that aren't helpful?


It's possible for it to have been necessary and beneficial in some ways while detrimental in others. Posing it in terms of either/or is a false dichotomy. On the plus side:



People have said my father was a charming individual, and he had the ability to say the right things to the right people, which I've observed can get one far in life. Due to this ability he was able to manipulate and dupe a lot of people, including my mother when they first met. She was introduced to him by a mutual friend who said he was "a nice, Christian young man." But that friend was duped just like everyone else by the image he presented. I read yesterday about a study that found that a person's appearance alone can trump any subsequent knowledge learned or presented later. It said that first impressions are so powerful that they often override what we're told about people. Facts don't matter if they contradict a person's appearance. My father was good at making first impressions and thus a lot of people were taken in. As a result, I wasn't believed when I said he had NPD. Because I grew up with a narcissistic father and saw the difference between how everyone else perceived him and how he actually was when not in the public eye, and how easily he fooled people, I am not taken in by the image people present as most are. I don't care about appearances, as I know all too well how phony they can be. And rarely do people attempt to look beneath the surface. If I hadn't grown up with a narcissistic father and witnessed it for myself, then I could have turned out to be no different from the people in the study who go by appearance and can't be convinced otherwise if the facts differ from the appearance. 
My father would say he'd do something and make these promises, but wouldn't follow through on them. I went by his actions and disregarded what he said he'd do, as he didn't actually do it. As a result of this, I've been careful to make sure to do what I say and not saying anything I'm not actually going to do. Keeping my word is one of my core virtues. People who know me have said that when I say something, it's as good as done. No one ever has to wonder if I'm going to do something if I say I'm going to do it. At one point in history, a man's word was his bond. But now, people often say something for expedience. Some people may even mean what they say at the time, but once the moment has passed, they've forgotten about it. Because I grew up with a narcissistic father whose word couldn't be trusted, I made sure that people could count on my word. If I hadn't, I would've been just like everyone else. Maybe I'll do what I said I'd do, maybe I won't. Most people have no reason to even think about it. 
My mother was introduced to my father because he was "a nice, Christian man." Growing up with a narcissistic father who presented himself as a man of God was the impetus to my researching the history of the church and how people over the course of history have used religion as a means of furthering whatever their agenda happens to be. Because people are told not to "lean to their own understanding," they never think for themselves or question what they're told. Hence why so many people are so easily manipulated by any Joe Schmoe who comes along who claims to be of God, despite the fact that Jesus the Christ is on record of warning against false prophets and wolves in sheep's clothing, and the book of Proverbs said that the simple believe every word. I've found it odd, because if someone genuinely believes in God, it seems to me that they'd want to know who the false prophets are, but if you say anything, then you're "of the devil." They'd rather continue following whomever it is because it's more comfortable, when the truth is supposed to set one free. I took it upon myself to educate myself as to the different ways people use to manipulate others and why it's successful. 
Growing up with a narcissistic father made me indifferent to praise and criticism. He used to praise me and claim credit for anything I did as evidence of being "a chip off the old block." Any- and everything positive I ever accomplished came from him, but anything he didn't like, he "didn't know where that came from," and _that_ came from me. Everything anyone did became about him and making him look better. But he was highly critical and I was always on pins and needles when he was around because I didn't know what he would find to attack me. And at the end of his life, I was suddenly a bum because I knew where he was coming from and couldn't be manipulated by him. Praise and criticism leave me equally unaffected, because from growing up with a narcissistic father I know that people can praise you one minute and tear you down the next. If I was someone would put a lot on praise, then my self-esteem could be adversely affected when people tear me down. I need no external validation, thus no one can do anything to my self-esteem or use it to control me. 
Growing up with a narcissistic father rendered me immune to manipulation. Growing up with a manipulative father, I am conscious of and vigilant against any attempts to manipulate me, be it emotionally, sexually, through flattery, etc. I do not allow control of me to rest in anyone's hands but my own. 
Growing up with a narcissistic father provided me a model of what not to be. Observational learning and modelling isn't solely about imitating what you see. He was what I didn't want to be, which led to me being the man that I am. Women I've been in relationships with have told me that I was unlike any other man they'd ever known before. That is a direct result of my having grown up with a narcissistic father. How he treated my mother was an example to me of how not to treat women in my own relationships. He was verbally abusive and misogynistic. "The devil worked through Eve, not Adam," and all that that the old church fathers said back in the day. He used to talk about how he never cheated on my mother, but just because you're not unfaithful doesn't mean there weren't other things you could be failing in. I didn't have to make certain mistakes when I could see from him what not to do. Seeing how my dad treated my mother made me empathetic to what women have to go through, which might not have been the case had I not seen and witnessed it. 

On the negative side:



Growing up with a narcissistic father has led to me being distrustful of people in general. Supposedly, your father is supposed to be someone who wants to see you succeed in life. I was nothing more than a means to an end for him, and was discarded once I served no purpose to him. That was my reality and what I grew up in. Subsequently, my trust is hard to gain, and once broken can never be regained. My mother came from a generation that believed that marriage was 'till death do us part. To her credit, that's what she believed, and that's what she did. She was with him until death parted them. I don't agree that she should have stayed, but she was true to what she believed. I, however, have a one-strike policy on certain things. 
I will never confide everything to anyone. I've found that everything you say can and will be used against you. My mother would confide in my father as she thought a wife should do for her husband, and my father would use it as ammunition later to hit her where it hurts. I didn't let my father know anything about me so he wouldn't have anything to manipulate me with. My father then tried to pump my mother for any information on me, so I was selective with what I said. I've been described as "mysterious" and "an enigma." People who knew me for years realized upon thinking about it that they didn't really know much about me. Experience has shown that people use their emotional state to justify certain actions. One time in high school someone who was supposed my best friend put my business in the street after he got mad at me one time. I made sure never to do it again. One time during a disagreement with a woman I was in a relationship with at the time, in her anger she tried to hurt me with something I had told her. I saw that I had made a mistake in telling her, a mistake I wouldn't repeat. People are untrustworthy with personal information, and if they aren't looking to manipulate you with it, they'll use it against you later when they're mad. I instantly think of my father and what he did to my mother. I remain in control of myself at all times. People have remarked on my composure in situations they'd expect people not to be. I've never used anything told to me in confidence for purposes of manipulation or as a weapon. I've found I can't expect others to treat me the same way, so I don't give them anything that can be used as ammunition against me. 
My making sure other people can take me at my word has the flip side that I can't and don't expect to be able to do so for other people. "Doing unto others as I would have them do unto me" doesn't work for me because I've never met anyone who would do the same for me as I've done for them. I told a friend of mine that there was only one person in the world I could count on to be there for me 100% of the time—me. She then said that she only knew one person in the world who would be there for her 100% of the time too. "You," she said. But no one has been able to comprehend how frustrating that is for me. I grew up with a narcissistic father who couldn't be counted on or relied upon. That motivated me to not be that kind of person. I grew up to be the type of person everyone said was reliable and could count on. My friend said I was the only person she could count on to be there for her 100% of the time no matter what she was going through. But—and I told her this—I don't have a me I can go to when _I_ need it. I'm counted on to be the rock for everyone else, but I can't be strong all the time. There are times I have moments of weakness and go through things. But no one's understood how it feels for me to know that when I go through something, I'm all alone, despite my trying to explain it to people. People have said I put too much pressure on myself and hold myself to too high a standard, which comes from my determination to be the kind of man my father wasn't. And thus expecting other people to do the same for me is unrealistic. If I didn't grow up with a narcissistic father, then it wouldn't be as important to me, as I'd simply accept it as "normal." 
Compliments make me uncomfortable, because my father could compliment me as well—albeit in a way that was actually complimenting himself. I'm always analyzing it to see if it's sincere. I don't particularly care about what people say, because I've seen how little it means. And being unmoved by compliments can be a problem in relationships. 
A female friend of mine said I'm amazing, she loves me dearly, and would love to have a son who was like me, but the one about me is that I'm so pessimistic. My point of view of human beings comes from someone who grew up with a narcissistic father who was able to fool and manipulate people because he could talk the talk, was verbally abusive behind the scenes when other people weren't around, presented himself to be something he wasn't, and I was the only person growing up who thought something was wrong, who the thought even occurred to to look into things for myself, and the first person to both recognize and diagnose him as narcissistic. But I wasn't pessimistic, I was right. It's felt like no one else was willing to see what I saw. I was a kid and couldn't do anything about it, yet all the adults who _could_, didn't see it. People have always said I was "so serious" from the time I was a child up to now. People comment on how I don't smile much. My friend, who's the only person who knows everything that happened, said it's made me jaded. That's a turnoff for some people. 

I'll stop, because I've already gone long past the "tl;dr" point. I know that the adaptations that were necessary in order for me to reach adulthood without lasting emotional trauma were maladaptive in other areas, such as in relationships. I told my friend that. But it's still made me sensitive to things I might not have been otherwise. I emerged through the crucible a stronger person and wiser than I would have been otherwise. Perhaps I might be a "happier" person had I not gone through that, but, as I said, I likely wouldn't be a better person. People who haven't gone through certain things have no reason to think about certain things. I'll end this now.


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

@NK, no worries about me taking anything you wrote the wrong way and thanks for a great and very interesting post (I will go back and reread the section about forgiveness a few more times!). 

I think that the hope for this thread is not only for people to have a safe place to unburden without being met by disbelief, but also as a place to share experiences, knowledge, opinions and discuss with each other. I know that the posts I have published here are irrelevant to most people, but if anyone would benefit from reading about my childhood and its impact on my adult life, I’d be glad. Likewise, by reading some of the posts here, I have found some huge and important puzzle pieces that I have been missing. In a way, this is part of my healing process; if what I have gone through might help anyone else, it would feel like more ‘value’ is added to my childhood. And likewise, the more I understand, the easier it is for me to see what I need to do in order to move further away from my childhood.


It is funny that you brought up spectrum because I have been meaning to write this post for a while after @_koalaroo_’s comment in regards to the possibility of ‘curing’ narcissism/NPD. Your post motivated me to finally sit down and try to formulate my thoughts. Be warned, the section below is pretty unstructured and scattered and possibly repetitive in some places. I did my best not to jump all over, but I don’t think I was real successful.  (Oh, and it is not written specifically in response to your post, but it is just a general 'thinking out loud' post. It would be very interesting to hear what you think, though.)
____________________________________________________________________________

First off, I agree with the statement in that it is very possible that my mother does not know who she is. I mentioned earlier in this thread that I see my mother as a scared child – it is like she is frozen in time and I think that this is the core of her person. I can see my mother as a victim and it is very possible that she was so victimized that she lost herself. 
I also have also mentioned that I am not 100% sure whether my mother really is a narcissist or not – when looking at the many various different ‘narcissist check-lists’ available on-line, I don’t feel that my mother is a clear cut case according to *some* of the check lists. However, when I look at her actions, there is no doubt in my mind that she displays both narcissistic characteristics (lack of empathy, manipulation, very poor self-esteem, inability to admit fault, forcing her children into roles, abusing her position in power, etc) and possibly combined with codependent traits. 
When speaking about check-lists, it is interesting to note that some sources claim that NPD manifests itself very differently between men and women. As an example; men tend to come across as overly self-confident and cocky to the general surroundings, while women often come across as humble. In other words, if the published lists are based on male subjects, they will not necessarily be applicable to female such.
Personally I believe that my mother ended up being a narcissist in order to protect herself from being engulfed by her mother – her defense was to develop a very strong sense of self. She does also show other abnormal (but very slight) traits, such as OCD and hoarding, which I also assume are remnants from childhood trauma. 

I agree that narcissism is not black-&-white, but rather that we have a range of various degree of severity arranged over a spectrum. As an interesting side note; I just learned that some experts believe that the spectrum in fact goes all the way from narcissistic personality disorder at the low end, through malignant narcissism, and then to antisocial character - psychopath or antisocial personality - at the high end of severity. It was interesting to find this point of view, because I have often thought along these lines myself - after all, these disorders all have the total lack of empathy/remorse in common. 

I also find it interesting that we have a lot of other conflicting data/theories out there – some articles claim that most narcissists are fully aware that they are narcissists but completely all right with it while others state that narcissists are in denial about their state and that ‘if you ask yourself whether you are a narcissist or not, you are likely not’. 
Again, this makes me think that the mechanisms behind the development of narcissism/NPD may be multiple AND/OR that it is possible that narcissism is just an ‘umbrella’ under which we gather a number of various mental abnormalities that express themselves in a similar way, but are in fact nowhere close to each other.

Even though I say that I believe that my mother was abused into a narcissist personality (interesting read here under heading Causes), I do acknowledge that it is also quite possible that she has a brain damage that causes her behavior. Or it is possible that it is a genetic disorder (as in, is the brain damage genetic?). 
Of course to me, and many others with me I’m sure, the last possibility is by far the most terrifying one, because that would mean that my children are likely doomed to relive what I lived and what my mother lived and quite possibly what many, many generations of women on my mother’s side lived. It also means that my children might be running a high risk of becoming narcissists and child abusers themselves. (And this is a post that I've been sitting on for a while as well.)


Tying back to the discussion about the spectrum 
- we know that the levels of narcissism in an individual varies throughout life and that ‘narcissism’ really is necessary for us in order to break free from our parents and for our brains to develop. This is probably why it is sometimes said that narcissism can be properly diagnosed first in the individual’s early 20s; it is normal and even healthy for a child or a teenager to be self-centered. 
- in addition, there are no short cuts; if our personal development gets interrupted, we lag behind and have to catch up once/if the disruptive situation has been settled (and I would argue that ‘disruptive’ is a state of normalcy for most, if not all, children of narcissists). People who suffer brain damage or a mental disorder (or possibly even abuse/childhood trauma) in their adolescence/teens are generally still stuck at the ‘narcissistic stage’ when/if they fully recover years later. They do eventually catch up, but the time that the brain needs to mature cannot be sped up – it takes the time it needs to take. In other words, if a person’s brain development is interrupted at age 17 and the person is healed at the age of 22, there are 5 years of maturity that the brain has to catch up with and it will take 5 years to get there. 
- one can also argue that if we are 100% unselfish at all time, we are not taking responsibility for our own well being. Many of the sons and daughters of narcissists know that it can be a huge struggle to get in touch with our ‘selfishness’ and not deny who we are and what we need at all times. 

And so here is what the entire wall of text boils finally down to – my studies (collecting puzzle pieces), reflections and personal observations have lead me to believe that just as there are different levels & shades of narcissism, I also believe that it is safe to say that there are different causes. 
I would clam that, depending on what the underlying cause is, the narcissist may actually have a choice whether he/she embraces their narcissism or fights for chance at ‘recovery’. As koalaroo pointed out, chances are likely very slim for recovery, but I do believe that in some cases it is possible. For example – if the NPD is caused by brain damage there is likely not a cure. However, if the NPD was caused by childhood trauma, I believe that therapy can help *if *the individual really wants to change. It boils down to nature vs nurture.
_____________________________________________________________________________

@NK, it does sound like you and I have come to the same conclusion in regards to forgiveness, even though we may have reasoned differently to get there. I am glad that I am not the only one who believes that forgiveness is not the ultimate goal in life! 

To me, again, it ties back to knowing who we are. I think that no one knows who they are from day one. 
We change throughout life as biochemical balances and electrical wiring of our brains change, but from numerous research studies in many different areas it seems that these changes are greatly impacted by base personality, experiences and choice – it appears that many times it is hard to know what causes the change, chemistry or choice? 
We know that it is possible to rewire our brains fairly easily (see the studies in regards to young men and excessive internet porn consumption for example) and we know that a normal human being can learn to control his/her impulses - after all, that is basically the definition of being human and 'civilized' IMO.

And so many of us choose to actively work on who we would like to be/become and this is the crux, did my mother choose to be many different persons instead of working on becoming one genuine person or did she not have the ability/capacity to make a conscious choice? Is her disorder caused by nature or by nurture?

By allowing myself not to forgive my mother, I can tell myself that no matter how my mother ended up doing what she did, ultimately it was wrong and my sisters and I did not deserve what we got. In a way, not forgiving my mother is a big part of forgiving myself; to leave the guilt and shame and the feeling of being unwanted and unworthy of anyone’s love behind. And for me, this is what ultimately has helped me get a huge step forward towards healing.

And as @_Zoof_ said


> What bothers me most is that nobody saw. No teacher ever asked if everything was allright at home. No other parent ever questioned why me and my brother were such messed up kids.


It also becomes a question of forgiving the 'world'. But I'll save my thoughts on that subject for another post. For those of you stuck with it to the end of this post: thanks!


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## Master Mind (Aug 15, 2011)

Bear987 said:


> Inspired by this website about The Narcissistic Father - which among other things, writes:
> 
> "Never let a narcissist determine your self-worth. Narcissists lack empathy and the ability to validate others, so be careful about trusting them with sensitive information or sharing important achievements because they won’t treat it with the respect it deserves. I have seen this backfire many times."


Correct. As a result of having grown up with a narcissist, I don't allow *anyone* to determine my self-worth. _Others_ have nothing to do with *self*-worth. I also don't trust anyone with sensitive information either. As far as important achievements, when I was in college, no one even knew I was graduating until that very week (it was five days before I was to walk the stage), and only because they happened to ask me. Since I was specifically asked about it, I responded with the truth.

"So when are you graduating?"
Me (matter-of-factly): Saturday.
_Saturday?!? This_ Saturday?
Me: Yeah.
_Why didn't you say anything?_

Things like that are why I've been called "secretive."


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## Master Mind (Aug 15, 2011)

Swede said:


> So, I have a couple of new questions:
> 
> - If you got to go back and change your childhood, would you?


There's one thing I would change, and I've told my mother this:

If it were possible, I would sacrifice my existence in order for my mother to have not gone through what she did, and be happy. Since he was my father, if my mother didn't get together with him, I would never have been born. I think that for her happiness, that would be a fair exchange. 

The only drawback is that my siblings would never have been born either, since I'm the oldest child, and I couldn't make that choice for them. But if I could go back in time and warn my mother, and if she would subsequently eventually meet a guy that actually treated her well, and they had children as my mother actually did, with the exception that I would not be born but the rest of my siblings would be born as they were, then I would do it. It would be my final Mother's Day present to her, to give her the chance at a better life, one that she never got the chance to have.


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## petite libellule (Jul 4, 2012)

@_Swede_ That was an amazing response! Seriously. I read your whole post and afterwards thought how awesome would it be to have a drink to that! haha! ... I'll try to respond with more thoughts later but wanted to let you know. 

@_Master Mind_ Even though Fathers w/ narcissism vary from mothers I absolutely related to a LOT of your post. I think because our MBTI & Enng is different attributes to the varying ways we maintain our autonomy and privacy. 


This thread has turned out all the more interesting and fantastic! 
Good Call on this thread Swede!


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## Fern (Sep 2, 2012)

I'm still unable to completely accept or analyze my mother's narcissistic behavior. It all still feels too raw and recent.

It wasn't until I met people that truly expressed love and affection in healthy ways that I began to sense that her behavior was not indeed the norm. 

It is normal to imagine all human experience is parallel to your own, so I was shocked to witness the kindness of even strangers... I was isolated as a child and every time I began to cultivate a friendship, my mother would promptly cut said potential friend down and convince me they would hurt me and didn't want me. She got all her self-satisfaction from her children and wanted to latch onto us (my brothers and I) for as long as possible. Seeing it from her perspective, it's truly sad actually 

My main fear is that I will one day turn into her. I see so many traits creeping in  My dear sweet boyfriend reminds me that if I am having those concerns, it is evident that I will not turn into her... But there's no way to know. I have to be proactive. I have to fight it.

I was never permitted to express any negative emotions and never allowed to be right even in the most unfair and brutal of scenarios. And once I began dating a man who allowed me to express negative reactions in healthy ways, I became truly freed.


In terms of how I coped? I often poured myself into theatric roles in theatre productions. I felt empowered, embodying the struggles of a character, and breathing in their skins, *fighting* for them-when I could not fight for myself. I didn't know how. Not yet.

Huh.
I do believe this is the first time I have begun to be vulnerable on PerC...Maybe I will make a habit out of it


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## comanche (Mar 25, 2014)

I am glad for this thread! Really! 
Both my parents are difficult. Narcissistic weak mother and a very aggressive, paranoid father. Both grandmas have psychopathic tendencies... It must have affected my parents a lot and turned them into what they are. You know.. the whole nature vs. nurture thing!
Grandmas are really scary. really ruthless, no love for the grandchildren and no respect for boundaries. 
It affected me a lot but although I am still young, I learned how to avoid people that had this pattern. I made a few mistake by "unconsciously choosing" people with narcissistic/ psychopathic tendencies because, as many of you in here could agree, I had a history with these types. 
It made me very empathetic, irregardless of my MBTI type, INTP. 
A harsh lesson for many of us, but hopefully, it was for the best!
I wish you all a narcissist-free life!


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## comanche (Mar 25, 2014)

Swede said:


> A couple of new questions:
> 
> - Have you met other narcissists, other than the one who affected your life directly? If so, how did you handle that situation?
> 
> - Have you noticed any signs that you are recovering/healing?


dear @Swede, I try and avoid them. If there's one thing I've learned from tv, it's how to be "calm and assertive".
1.I met a few. I keep away and I don't let them have any power over me by giving them information. They would walk over dead bodies to get what they want.
2.Yes, I have recovered and I won't allow myself to make that mistake again.They play victim very well, damn them!


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## comanche (Mar 25, 2014)

Bear987 said:


> I think I had some sort of a break through today. It made me think of the ways in which I have more or less successfully kept myself from honestly looking at myself - my previous post.
> 
> When looking for a new wallpaper for my PC, I stumbled upon the following picture. I have looked at it for quite a while today and it made me think...
> 
> ...


I want to give you a virtual hug! I would say that everything is going to get better, but I know, as well as you do, that it is impossible to go back, start again and make other choices. I could recommend you this site: https://www.psychopathfree.com/ 
I know it helped me. I hope it helps you!
You are brave to talk with strangers about your sad childhood!


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## Bear987 (May 13, 2012)

comanche said:


> I want to give you a virtual hug! I would say that everything is going to get better, but I know, as well as you do, that it is impossible to go back, start again and make other choices. I could recommend you this site: https://www.psychopathfree.com/
> I know it helped me. I hope it helps you!
> You are brave to talk with strangers about your sad childhood!


Thanks for the hug! Also, in a way it is easier to talk to 'strangers' about sensitive stuff. However, at the same time, I no longer wish to 'be bound' by the rules of the game a narcissist parent plays: where opening up about what goes on is discouraged. I want to speak freely of what my youth was like, and I want to feel good about freely doing so. (And I do, since as it always turns out: truth has a way of freeing you up)


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## marbleous (Feb 21, 2014)

Public arguments, which lead to panic attacks. Being with my parents (mother) sets off the PANIC ATTACKS in me!

Within relationships, an extreme lack of trust. I want to scream to people, "leave me alone!" when they get too close.


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## marbleous (Feb 21, 2014)

@Fern,

yes, THIS.

It really sucks to express your feelings and to be told you're wrong for feeling that, to be told faults of why you are not feeling "perfect." That you are not mentally strong enough, that people don't actually care about you, they told you so and you didn't listen. It's horrible and no one deserves this treatment. Not even serial killers or martians.

Honestly, it's probably not best to analyze your mother's behavior anyways, especially if she won't change. It's not worth your time to focus on bad things you don't deserve. The places where you get your positivity is deserving.  which, bravo for finding a way out and not imploding. seriously.

It has helped me to think, every relationship has its optimal length of contact. Some relationships operate best (both people getting the most out of each other) when they're short and infrequent.


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## Fern (Sep 2, 2012)

marbleous said:


> @_Fern_,
> 
> yes, THIS.
> 
> ...




You get it. You really get it.

A part of me aches that anyone would be able to empathize with this based on personal experience, but another part feels a safe sense of belonging and comfort.

Thank you!


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## Pinkachu (Feb 16, 2014)

Bear987 said:


> From what I read, narcissists are very controlling. Focusing their attention and limiting their world (in every sense of the phrase), makes it easier for them to control their lives and especially the people close to them. It is no surprise this focus may well lead to success in the workplace.


Holy crap, that sounds like my boyfriend!


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## beth x (Mar 4, 2010)

Well, my father fits much of the criteria for a narcissism. 
I have an INTJ brother too so having an unhealthy ESFJ parent affected us both some similar ways but also some different ways.

Relationship wise I've always tried to avoid dating my dad but for some reason there have been elements of him in the men I've dated. The way my father dates is to charm, he's charismatic and gives the sense that he is control of himself and everything around him. He's an irritant to the nth degree. He'll poke at something until he finds it's weakness then he can figure then which way to go and set about getting other people to unwittingly manipulate you to do his bidding. So his relationships are more about him trying to control, get his way, pursue relentlessly, be completely validated and they have incredible highs and lows as nobody can sustain the attention that he is after. 

The highs and lows were something that I was unconsciously drawn to and surprisingly my brother had the same issue as well (we were drawn to constant drama even though neither of us really ever create it). It's like we both had to dismantle every little bit about how to avoid relationships which seem so bipolar in their 'mood'. We have both had relationships where we've had very little freedom to be who we are. It's like we've just taken the back seat and let people mold us into what they want. The differences are that my brother has more desire to let things lie (he is a drinker, a highly functional alcoholic) whereas I tend to squeal when you stand on me. He will just ignore and ignore whereas I will get more and more angry and aware until I 'pop'.

Oddly enough, since my older brother did most of the 'fixing' and parenting when we were at either parent's house (I was around 6 when the separated and he was told to look after his sister a lot) I eventually ended up with someone remarkably similar to him.....and even more remarkably found it the most peaceful relationship I've had.


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## INTP96 (Apr 8, 2014)

I have a narcissistic mother, controlling and conniving. And a pushover, whipped a sort of 'ball-less' father.

My sister is on the pushover side and let a lot of her happiness come from pleasing my mother whom she sought to please and to be loved by. Typical ISFJ. I was the last born and the only one to see my mom for who she was, a C unt.  so I was always back talking, defending my dad and sister from her bull, and she we irked my wisdom in doing so, yet HATED my defiance and that she could never control me.
In regards to logic and fighting verbally, I always beat my mom. Then she complains to my father and sister, bad mouthing me and turning them against me, and tells my dad to do something to protect her. LOL.
I've shed light on my sister and now she sees my mom for who she is too, but my dad is still a big time whipped enabler.

Because I always beat her and I can't really be beat by anyone in the family, she tried to kill me. Lol. But she failed at that too  anyways, her ass is a literal psychopath or whatever and yea... I guess that's it 



ENFP mother
ISTJ father
ISFJ sister
INTP me.


My Fe makes me feel sorry for my psycho mom. haha. Cuz she got molested when she was a child, and grew up without a father. Daddy-issues are strong in her. She married my dad who looks like her dad and my dad is 11 years older than my mom. 
16 and 27 were the marriage ages. Talk about statutory rape lol.

I sort of have a mini life story, but narcissistic parents do tend to be large parts of their kids' lives, sooo, yea:


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

@INTP96, what do you mean by your mother trying to kill you?
And I do understand about feeling sorry for a narcissistic parent/family member, but it doesn't resolve matters. :-(


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## INTP96 (Apr 8, 2014)

There was a problem with slight infidelity from my dad, and she retained her anger and never let it out. She sort of thought my dad to be perfect when she married him. And after that because, it's hard to stay faithful to a psycho lol, she expressed her anger in bad ways.

So she was talking to me about her feelings regarding that and she says she was overcome with anger at my dad and would've stabbed be with a knife if I hadn't moved out of the way and snapped her out of it. 


Yea, it doesn't solve anything. But I guess it comes from my Fe. To protect my dad and sister from her, and because I empathize her situation, although I don't agree with what she did.


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## INTP96 (Apr 8, 2014)

She's also extremely paranoid and jealous. She was angry at my dad before my sister was born and she said that she contemplated aborting my sister just to hurt him because of a fight they were having. O.O


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

@INTP96 - Your mother doesn't sound like she has NPD. She sounds like she has BPD.


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## INTP96 (Apr 8, 2014)

koalaroo said:


> @INTP96 - Your mother doesn't sound like she has NPD. She sounds like she has BPD.


Well, she is an NPD, it's just that I present her narcissism ...not well at all, I guess I drifted into venting and went off topic... Damn, I sound like a "pity me!" whore.
>.<

But regardless, she's a psycho  lol


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

A few e-cards for narcissism:


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

@koalaroo - the first one made me lol


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

Thinking about starting a thread on relationships with psychopaths and narcissists.


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

koalaroo said:


> Thinking about starting a thread on relationships with psychopaths and narcissists.


Maybe ask @fourtines to contribute?


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## petite libellule (Jul 4, 2012)

PoppaX said:


> My wife was in an abusive relationship prior to meeting me. And the one after that was with a self-absorbed asshole (not me, in case you were wondering). Her mom really did a number on her. She always seemed to gravitate towards the wrong guys. In fact, once her mom realized I wasn't going to fall in line and do her (my MIL's) bidding, she passive aggressively tried to break us up many times before the wedding.
> 
> I think being expected to jump and cater to her mom is one of the reasons my wife is almost hypersensitive to other people's needs. She was brainwashed from a young age to accept blame for her mom's actions and do whatever was necessary to please her, no matter how absurd. That's a recipe for a doormat and an easy target for an abuser. It plays right into their hands.


and so your wife's history, how does her struggle w/ boundary setting, communicating needs etc. how did that affect your attraction for you towards her. Or is she catering to you as well. (not to sound offensive! just not sure how else to put it). I guess what I'm trying to understand is, how did she break her pattern and end up with someone I'm assuming who accepts, understands etc.


I've honestly found myself in a spot where I'm insanely hypersensitive to not only other people's needs and wants, but to other people's attempts at emotional manipulation to push my emotions in a direction they want them to go. And towards other people's manipulation (or attempts) to push my behavior to where they want it to go. As opposed to just being with me, ignoring the bad (till I work it out) and letting me know they like/want me (possibly still a problem, needing reassurance). While this all sounds great in my head on the outside I find I come across quite narcissistically but that's not my intention. I just can't bare the anxiety. 

so curious how your wife reached a positive enough point to maintain a committed relationship.


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## loving2011 (Nov 6, 2012)

Swede-even though I have enfj on my profile, I have a lot of I traits too. The aggressive /domineering people I encounter see me as very I. They feel the need to comment on how shy I am or how I need to get out more....um, I don't need to blow off money every night. The biggest struggle for me is finding my identity.


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## PoppaX (Oct 30, 2013)

Lady Rainicorn said:


> and so your wife's history, how does her struggle w/ boundary setting, communicating needs etc. how did that affect your attraction for you towards her. Or is she catering to you as well. (not to sound offensive! just not sure how else to put it). I guess what I'm trying to understand is, how did she break her pattern and end up with someone I'm assuming who accepts, understands etc.
> 
> 
> I've honestly found myself in a spot where I'm insanely hypersensitive to not only other people's needs and wants, but to other people's attempts at emotional manipulation to push my emotions in a direction they want them to go. And towards other people's manipulation (or attempts) to push my behavior to where they want it to go. As opposed to just being with me, ignoring the bad (till I work it out) and letting me know they like/want me (possibly still a problem, needing reassurance). While this all sounds great in my head on the outside I find I come across quite narcissistically but that's not my intention. I just can't bare the anxiety.
> ...


It wasn't easy. Had I wanted to, I could have crushed her spirit. That's not said out of arrogance; it's an acknowledgment of how fragile her psyche was. But I have a very strong moral compass and an overdeveloped sense of fairness, so hurting her for my own benefit was never an option. 

In the beginning she was perfectly content to cater to my every whim like the good little 1950s housewife her mom tried to make her into. But I really didn't want a servant. I wanted a contemporary. I wanted someone with whom I could share my life, not someone who would do my bidding and treat me like a king. I'd have gotten bored real quick without someone to stimulate me mentally and emotionally. 

The beginning was rough because she hated when I expected her to take charge. She was used to cleaning up after someone, and when I didn't let her she got aggravated. I think it was only after I left grad school and we moved several states over for my job that she began to develop as an adult. It was simply something her mother had never allowed. But not having her mom within easy driving distance forced her to become somewhat self-sufficient. That's when she made her first steps toward breaking away from her childhood. 

She still struggles with making decisions and often looks to me for guidance. It's a balancing act. There are some aspects of marriage where it's good to work together. But when you factor in work schedules, kids, and maintaining your home, there are some things where divide and conquer makes the most sense. 



As for how we found each other in the first place, and I think I've mentioned this here before, she called the wrong number and got me instead. But that's a story for another time...


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## loving2011 (Nov 6, 2012)

How many of you also have strong intuition that's spot on? It's just that I'm easily persuaded by others, but I can pick up on a people's energetic vibes, can sense something and feel things before they happen. Everytime I shared my feelings, people told me that I was being overly analytical.... Only to find out that my intuition was right all along. I think kids of npds had to be in tune with what's going on


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## petite libellule (Jul 4, 2012)

PoppaX said:


> As for how we found each other in the first place, and I think I've mentioned this here before, she called the wrong number and got me instead. But that's a story for another time...


One of those right time, right place things  I have to admit I laughed when you said (1950's), because I love it for role play but in reality I'm super independent and fight to be taken seriously,
which pretty much looks like a 5 yr old having tantrums. :tongue: 

hhahaha! I don't know what's wrong with me! hahahaha!!! I'm so weird.! 
I don't think I've ever been a doormat. but I do get off on being a "good girl" 


She's very lucky to have you. Calling the wrong number for Mr. Right is really a GOOD open for a story!


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## PoppaX (Oct 30, 2013)

loving2011 said:


> How many of you also have strong intuition that's spot on? It's just that I'm easily persuaded by others, but I can pick up on a people's energetic vibes, can sense something and feel things before they happen. Everytime I shared my feelings, people told me that I was being overly analytical.... Only to find out that my intuition was right all along. I think kids of npds had to be in tune with what's going on


That's how my wife was/is. She's an INFJ, so she picks up on other people in ways that most folks find unnerving. But she's still very meek with it. I think part of it stems from being so naive about people. She still thinks everyone is honest and up front until proven otherwise. So it's easy for someone manipulative to take her for a ride. But that only happens once. When she realizes they've been dishonest, she never trusts them again, and they lose the ability to manipulate her.


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## MindBomb (Jul 7, 2010)

Lady Rainicorn said:


> and so your wife's history, how does her struggle w/ boundary setting, communicating needs etc. how did that affect your attraction for you towards her. Or is she catering to you as well. (not to sound offensive! just not sure how else to put it). I guess what I'm trying to understand is, how did she break her pattern and end up with someone I'm assuming who accepts, understands etc.
> 
> 
> I've honestly found myself in a spot where I'm insanely hypersensitive to not only other people's needs and wants, but to other people's attempts at emotional manipulation to push my emotions in a direction they want them to go. And towards other people's manipulation (or attempts) to push my behavior to where they want it to go. As opposed to just being with me, ignoring the bad (till I work it out) and letting me know they like/want me (possibly still a problem, needing reassurance). While this all sounds great in my head on the outside I find I come across quite narcissistically but that's not my intention. I just can't bare the anxiety.
> ...


My girlfriend struggled with the same thing where she just lost herself in her previous relationship--all stemming from a narcissistic mother. Thankfully, after her relationship fell apart, she sought out a good therapist to honestly work on the source of her difficulties in identifying and sustaining good interpersonal relationships. So that's one thing...

I also think that we make a good *team*. Like @PoppaX said, I want a contemporary, a true partner, in my life. Not someone who wants to dominate me nor someone that I will dominate. She knows I'm a good fit for her: I include her in our decisions (she's not the best at making decisions either), I respect and validate her opinions, and I encourage her independence. And hugely important, she trusted me with her "true self." These are things she was not familiar with in previous relationships. In fact, early on, she was waiting for "the other shoe to drop." 

I don't blame her. But, given my relationship experiences, life goals, and temperment, it wasn't going to happen. We have a very calm connection where it's easy to communicate our needs without defensiveness or emotional blow-ups. We can feel free to be exactly who we are deep down. It's quite refreshing.


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## petite libellule (Jul 4, 2012)

MindBomb said:


> My girlfriend struggled with the same thing where she just lost herself in her previous relationship--all stemming from a narcissistic mother. Thankfully, after her relationship fell apart, she sought out a good therapist to honestly work on the source of her difficulties in identifying and sustaining good interpersonal relationships. So that's one thing...
> 
> I also think that we make a good *team*. Like @_PoppaX_ said, I want a contemporary, a true partner, in my life. Not someone who wants to dominate me nor someone that I will dominate. She knows I'm a good fit for her: I include her in our decisions (she's not the best at making decisions either), I respect and validate her opinions, and I encourage her independence. And hugely important, she trusted me with her "true self." These are things she was not familiar with in previous relationships. In fact, early on, she was waiting for "the other shoe to drop."
> 
> I don't blame her. But, given my relationship experiences, life goals, and temperment, it wasn't going to happen. We have a very calm connection where it's easy to communicate our needs without defensiveness or emotional blow-ups. We can feel free to be exactly who we are deep down. It's quite refreshing.


well I do see a therapist and I get better all the time and do my best to address issues of guilt/shame in my head over things I shouldn't feel that way towards, and I'm doing the best I can. that's pretty much it, I'm doing the best I can. I understand my triggers now after the last few relationships so we'll see what happens w/the next one. for now I need just me time. but, it's nice to know that there are men who are capable of dealing - I'm w/you on the sub/dom thing (I tend to figure bedroom only for that type of power play) otherwise, I'm always pushing for healthy equal dynamic only that I push too much I suppose and need to learn to relax more and not be a crazy person. 

it's funny. about 3 years ago I purchased a t-shirt that had "anxiety girl" on it. 
why the obvious evades me throughout life is seriously a mystery. :tongue:


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

My grandfather married a woman when I was seven years old who was twenty two years younger than him. My grandmother died when I was five going on six, I think he wanted to be sure his new wife wouldn't die, as she wasn't a trophy wife, she was average looking and near middle age herself, though she was attractive and well groomed, I honestly think his motivation was just as much to outlive the new wife and not go through the pain of.losing a spouse again much as it was sex. She simply wasn't the trophy type, she was more housefrau.

However, through a series of events that surely affected me, I chose my grandfather and his new wife over my mom and her second husband. My mom's second husband was violent, he scared me, eventually beat and raped my mom, I found out as an adult he was untreated bipolar with sex addiction. Anyway, living with my grandparents seemed safer and more stable. I was very attached to my grandfather as a father figure, my parents divorced when I was a baby so my mom moved in with my grandparents before I can even remember, and my memory goes back to two or three years old.

So anyway, it was eventually my grandfather's wife who abused me, terrorized our family and eventually abused him in the last years of his life.

I have always thought she suffered from BPD with narcissistic features. She was court ordered to see a psychiatrist when I was about twenty, but it was too late to benefit me in any way at that point. Like some people , feel she robbed me of years of my life I was busy just trying to be functional rather than.live up to my full potential.

She was angry, verbally abusive, and though she originally terrified me, by my teens I learned to shout her down and psychologically intimidate her as retribution for what she did to me and other members of my family. I carried these traits into adulthood.

She was controlling, petty, mean, invasive and perfectionistic. She had delusions of grandeur and was jealous of my grandfather's family before her.

She loved jewelry and always had to have new cars and new furniture, drove my grandfather into bankruptcy, she dressed me in expensive mall clothes even when I didn't want them and made me fix my hair a certain way until I was about thirteen, at which point I actually had to battle her for the right to have my own hairstyles. It sounds crazy, and it was. It was baffling.

By high school I fantasized about killing her, my friends were scared of her and even my friends parents thought she was horrible. She was cruel to my mother and acted like she owned me and was a better role model than my mother, but there was a selfish creepiness to , not because she loved me more, but like I was.her posession and she wanted to win.

I developed compassion and forgiveness for her as an adult but spent years of my life hating her and have permanent personality defects because of it, and strangely she has a subconscious influence over my relationships with men, but most notably with a man who I had a six year relationship with in my twenties, my longest relationship to date.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

Oh yes it did have positive effects too, I took the high road in terms of violence towards her, because the rest of my mother's family isn't violent, and I am a very strong self directed highly driven person because of her. She was not all bad, she had BPD so could also be affectionate, loving, gave me things she thought I should have and probably sometimes lived vicariously through me, so it was a confusing sort of life, she got meaner as she - and I- got older.

She affected my Te because she was an unhealthy Te dom. That's the only way it affected my MBTI I don't think it gave me my inborn personality, nor do I believe narcissism or BPD have any specific connection to Te.

She could occasionally be fun, she liked to go to the beach and dance with me.

We can't demonize our abusers or we will end up becoming them.


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## nahuel_89p (Dec 27, 2013)

Disclaimer: English is not my native language.

Yes. My case.

I felt identified with many things written in this thread, such as:

-"Learning" to sacrifice my feelings, thoughts and behaviours just to bring stabilty in my disfunctional family whenever it was needed.

-Adopting a passive, adaptative and reactive behaviour. Which means basically, not standing for myself, which leads to lack of self steem and self affirmation. I did however compensate it by being excessively stood up for minor things. Or perhaps in the intellectual arena, that may explain partially why I'm an INTP. And that explains why I was a bit of a rebellious punky in high school (outside my house hehe)

-Being withdrawn, aloof, avoiding, etc, naturally because I was deeply afraid of commiting and showing eventual vulnerabilities, fears, rejection, disaproval.

-Too many silences and sacrificies mined my relationship with my younger brother, who thankfully did better than me. I noticed that being the oldest brother is an extra weight, right? Like you feel family issues are your responsability. 
My brother was in the back wagon, that must have been more relaxed.


*Solutions:*
Here comes the interesting part:

-Take this as a challenge and a game.  . Self victimizing is soo tempting. But no, I won't fall. The most challenging thing is this next one: you've created a representation of yourself in the minds of all the people you've got to know. So when you are in front of them, you feel enslaved if you suddenly want to change. So, take this as a game. KILL YOUR OLD SELF. Your old and scary self (which is not your true self after all, is just a screen) is there, you put it there in every people's minds. And you know that, when they look at you, you feel like you have to be the "same guy", but no hell. Surprise them, don't give a fuck at what they may think, and that's how you kill your old and stagnating self.

-I'm making major changes in my life right now (some radical ones, plus cuting down on shallow entertainment, cut down on PC hours, and became less fearful of speaking my mind and actually doing stuff), and I found myself behaving in ways I never thought I was able to do. Self steem is uprising and I feel I can be just another regular guy working in society and simply doing his stuff freely. (*KEY INDICATOR* = you no longer feel that shameful adrenaline rush after doing those things you normall avoid or do not wish to be exposed to).

This is just starting, though. 

-DO. Do all these things you don't feel like you can do, that don't suite you. Say, do, give less fucks about it, don't be afraid of you-know-what. Action is the best way to create new neuronal networks, in my opinion. You'll be surprised at how much you can change, and the feedback becomes positive, because you notice it. SHIT JUST GOT REAL, VERY REAL, IT'S IN MY SKIN NOW, and everything is screwed up already, so WTF?!?! MOVE ON UP NOW. It's time to shine.

-Do stuff thinking in the long term. Don't put yourself to the test in short term challenges or events. A supernova takes time and distance. There will be failure, and be thankful at failures! Really, when something bad happens, just say THANKS and smile, and think at fucking big the cosmos is. We're made of marvelous DNA, and you're not a fucking character in a someone's else written story where you are doomed to suffer and fail.

-Change your fucking clothes, your music, your wallpaper, your everything. Just fuck it. It's funny, because people like us judge as "daring" and "adventurous" things that are completely normal. Anyway, most things that you do/think or avoid doing/thinking are probably product of the complexs and screens. Kill them as well.

- (you can skip this one) Now this is a bit of my theory: All behaviours are mirrored, linked. Think of it this way: You have situation "A" and situation "B". Let's say you normally feel anxious and nervous in the situation "A", in a way that is almost impossible for you to overcome. Situation "B", instead, is less problematic, and way easier to overcome (like some silly and minor awkardness). Now do this: Next time you're in situation "B" (the easier one), think of what state-of-being you need to carry to do succesfully in the extremely difficult situation "A". You'd probably picture a stronger yourself, right? A proud one. CAREFREE. A real adult. Now "transfer" that ideal state-of-being to the much easier situation "B". Since it's easier, you'd do fine. Your brain will learn, and next time you're in situation "A", it will be easier. Of course you have to do it with C, D, E, F... etc... 
What im trying to say is that visualization is important. Use "A" for visualization (in order to figure out the direction of what and how much you have to change) , and use "B" for concrete action, the smal steps. Positive feedback is strongly linked with real progress...

I can come up with a few more, but I think that's the most important. I may edit, though.

Good luck! It stinks when shit gets real, but there's only one way out, and that's AHEAD, by the very side of you is only lame distraction. It's time to move, it's never too late to be who you might have been. Remember this naturally takes sooome time. A long time perhaps. Just stand up for yourselves, stay young, and remember: Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you. (Sartre). Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results (Einstein).
Best wishes.


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## Alethea (Apr 20, 2014)

Swede said:


> I think that maybe this also has to do with what MBTI and what enneagram you are. I would assume that you, as an E, have run in to a whole different set of issues than I have, as an I.
> As I eluded to in my previous post, I don't date others to please a third party, but once I am in a committed relationship, I tend to compromise until I lose myself. That in combination with being approached by manipulative & abusive men tend to generate a very imbalanced and destructive relationship.


I realize this in myself also.... I compromise, try, research ways to make the relationship better, etc then am hurt when the effort is not appreciated or reciprocated... It does become unbalanced...but how do you realize and stop it? I think some of it is having a mature partner, but we must be responsible for ourselves. 


Know thyself


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## nahuel_89p (Dec 27, 2013)

Just to summarize: Basically you have to teach yourself all those things your family didn't give you. In order to do so, you have to live by actively pursuing the push of your boundaries. Day by day, little by little.

There's identity between the contents of your mind and the external structures you live in. They both feed each other. Little by little change your mind and external structures (habits, networks, duties, thought patterns) and reconfigure them in order to achieve new balances. Don't try too hard all the time, just keep the new energy inside you and wait until there's a hot/sensitive moment to unleash the new responses. Easy. Carefree. This is a slow revolution.

Write letters to yourself, write stuff you'd normally feel ashamed to write. Shake the box, shake the damn box, shake it, open it, check what changed, close it, shake it again louder, and son on... that's pretty much it. Let it be a game, we're dead anyway ain't we?


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

koalaroo said:


> @_Swede_ -
> I
> *Golden child* - This child can do no wrong in the eyes of the disordered parent, and this child is frequently used as a comparison to the other children. The other children are frequently told that they are inadequate compared to the golden child or children. It's a simple form of triangulation that the disordered parent commits.
> 
> ...


It's interesting how these roles change with a disordered parent though.

To mine, I was first the Golden Child, the daughter her body couldn't give her, God had made us all a family, I was bright and beautiful in her eyes, but ofc because I was an object to her she began controlling me even then, but I half welcomed it then, mistaking it for the normal love and nurturing I had gotten from other family members. I thought she was cool, she bought me pretty clothes, and made sure I was "involved" in activities, I didn't realize I was simply a paper doll in her fantasy at that point. I benefited by her projecting her dreams on me, but even then was troubled by her making my mother the Scapegoat. I mean it was my mom, and she was my grandfather's daughter, but my disordered parent was jealous of her step daughter and fought with her over me.

Later in life I became to resemble my mother more and in many ways I became the Scapegoat in high school. Middle school was a most confusing time of worship and devaluation, as she both criticized me and raged for no reason, but still "provided for me" in spectacular showy material ways like she did in earlier childhood. I was put in pageants plays and recitals, but ripped into if I failed or disobeyed in the slightest.

It was actually a little easier to become Scapegoat and even Lost and forgotten or ignored, because at least then it wasn't confusing. Then out of nowhere she would hug me or ask me why I didn't want to watch tv with her. I tried to tell her it was because I often felt under attack for no good reason, I don't think she took it seriously.

She listened in on phone calls, cleaned my room and went through my things, followed me, accused me of things to try to catch me in a lie (I remember one time being utterly puzzled because I had done nothing) and she sometimes screamed at me to wake me up in the morning.

I have plenty of issues myself, and am rightly surprised I never have been diagnosed with BPD after all that. I also have never been diagnosed as narcissistic, though I am more histrionic.

I think what saved me is that I had so many "parents"...my mom, my grandma, my grandfather, and then Sue, who was such a big part of my life she may as well been more like a step mother than a step grandmother, because she tried to make me "hers."

And yes I think gaslighting is intentional. I felt that with Sue and also with a man I was involved with who I am fairly sure is a classic narcissist, rather than BPD with narcissistic tendencies.


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## John Coltrane (May 11, 2013)

It's been a while since I've posted in here, or at all really! I'm hesitant to go into details but I don't know what I have to lose. My mother's partner assaulted my brother's girlfriend's brother at her 21st last night which led to my bro being beaten up - I haven't seen him since. It was an alcohol fueled attack on both counts and wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for my mom's bf's actions...he's passed it off as 'shit happens', despite it endangering my bro & putting massive strain on his relationship with his girlfriend.

He hasn't been violent against my mother to the best of my knowledge...I have felt he was very close a few times and was stopped only by my bro; but now I'm concerned of the possibility especially since she's now old & weak. I was close to not posting this but I spent some time refinding this thread and felt like someone here could empathise. I feel like this guy is toxic but cutting him out of my life seems to mean cutting my mother out too.


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## HellCat (Jan 17, 2013)

I realized today my narc or sociopath whatever the hell she is, mother was grooming me from my toddler years on to be an Estella from Great Expectations type. Abusing me in disturbing ways my entire life, to freeze my heart while piling the love thick on my siblings in front of me. 

When I was four she threw a fit I had a bikini on and called me a whore, every time someone accosted me or tried to corner, kiss grope or rape me from age four until twenty five. 

She would blame my appearance, call me a whore and a drama queen. At ten when I developed she started buying me sexy lingerie I refused to wear and let her friends hit on me. She was deep into the bdsm scene and had me sing rocky horror picture show for her friends sometimes, I was eleven singing toucha toucha touch me. 

When I told her I did not want the attention, would rather be reading. She would scoff. I realize now she was trying to turn me into Lolita and LOVED me being hit on by men twice my age when I was in fifth grade. I honestly would rather be researching/reading/doing yoga and hanging out with my wild things now at thirty then partying. I am sickened with this realization. I can't imagine. 

Especially since I am the age now that she was when she started encouraging me about how all men are awful and should be used because they are stupid, trying to turn me into a merciless cold heartbreaker who dressed like she was going clubbing. I can't imagine encouraging ANY eleven year old to flirt with thirty yr olds who were my age, or drink liquor, dress like miley cyrus and be out all hours of the night. I declined, staying home to raise her kids instead. 

I am CounterPhobic. When I am told to be something I become what I want anyway. I started studying emotional healing, therapy, refusing to become that malicious beast she tried to make me become. I was definitely frozen but not malicious, never ever malicious. 

I feel for lohan. If someone doesn't have a mother like that its hard for them to understand the pressure. 

She was a computer tech and did quite well with money but my grandmother gave my to my father when I was fourteen because she was afraid my mothers hatred of me would get her to start pimping me out. Three years away from her I healed fast despite my father being nuts, my aunts and uncles protected me from most of his shit.

Then at seventeen I got in contact again and she nearly talked me into being a stripper, telling me I would make a mint and could use the money for Uni. Fortunately the club I was going to audition at told me you had to be twenty one. 

At twenty five, jealous some guy was talking to me about biology over a few beers at a hotel, she informed me I was only good to be fucked my whole life, and that she was saving me from being raped because that is all would ever been seen of me. 



My father, also the same psychopath type, would call me daughter of jezebel, ashteroth and worse and insist I was some evil succubus out to destroy any man I knew and deserved my exhusbands abuse because of the poison in my blood. Blaming my experiences with being cornered, kissed, groped, accosted on my symmetry and the poison he knew was in my heart. 

and I used to wonder why I could not love or trust a soul. It was fuckin self defense.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

I refused to go to Father's Day brunch today. I can't celebrate a man who did nothing but tear me down as a child, and who seems to be unrepentant for his behaviors.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)




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## HellCat (Jan 17, 2013)

A narcissist : someone who knows you just had major surgery " multiple wisdom tooth extraction" and then emails you incessantly trying to pick a fight about the terms of your divorce. While telling his fiancee who is your best friend "I don't want to fight with her, but picking fights with me behind her back" 

When you tell him you are sick and didn't he remember.. get a snide response and more threats.


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## John Coltrane (May 11, 2013)

Y'all ever seen the 1960's film 'What Ever Happened to Baby Jane'? Infamously dramatised narcissistic & manipulative behaviour, except with reference to two sisters. I first saw it when I was eighteen with a girlfriend but reckon it deserves another viewing alone tonight. Just thought someone else here might take something from it.


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## MindBomb (Jul 7, 2010)

LeoCat said:


> A narcissist : someone who knows you just had major surgery " multiple wisdom tooth extraction" and then emails you incessantly trying to pick a fight about the terms of your divorce. While telling his fiancee who is your best friend "I don't want to fight with her, but picking fights with me behind her back"
> 
> When you tell him you are sick and didn't he remember.. get a snide response and more threats.


LOL! I just had this happen to me within the last two weeks! I shit you not, the day that I got out of surgery, I received a barrage of text messages from my ex urging a response over a trivial matter. When I didn't respond, I received more texts the next day berating me for not responding. Seriously, who does this kind of shit? (narcissists, that's who)

Good times, good times...


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## HellCat (Jan 17, 2013)

MindBomb said:


> LOL! I just had this happen to me within the last two weeks! I shit you not, the day that I got out of surgery, I received a barrage of text messages from my ex urging a response over a trivial matter. When I didn't respond, I received more texts the next day berating me for not responding. Seriously, who does this kind of shit? (narcissists, that's who)
> 
> Good times, good times...


I am so sorry

usually I am fairly immovable. But he made me a fucking wreck yesterday high on nitrous, oxy and a muscle relaxer. 

Are you free of them now?


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

MindBomb said:


> LOL! I just had this happen to me within the last two weeks! I shit you not, the day that I got out of surgery, I received a barrage of text messages from my ex urging a response over a trivial matter. When I didn't respond, I received more texts the next day berating me for not responding. Seriously, who does this kind of shit? (narcissists, that's who)
> 
> Good times, good times...


Actually I think anyone with cluster B could do that, because if it's not out of entitlement, it's out of desperate neediness.

I've come to the unpopular conclusion that people with personality disorders need to be alerted to the fact, and often, especially if they resist therapy, because if you keep dropping terms and they look them up and they say "omg that's me" they might actually get help, I don't know.

The problem though with sociopaths and narcissists though is that they think you're the one with the problem. Always. Even if they've been gas lighting you they'll ask why you're so touchy or upset, are you crazy for getting upset that they're doing so and so.

People with BPD also tend to blame anyone and everything else for their problems. That's why I take the "bash them over the head with it" approach. People tend to disagree with me, tell me to stop suggesting arm chair diagnoses, but really there's no other way these people will get help without a court order or a serious life disaster.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

LeoCat said:


> A narcissist : someone who knows you just had major surgery " multiple wisdom tooth extraction" and then emails you incessantly trying to pick a fight about the terms of your divorce. While telling his fiancee who is your best friend "I don't want to fight with her, but picking fights with me behind her back"
> 
> When you tell him you are sick and didn't he remember.. get a snide response and more threats.


I'm sorry but I don't understand why you maintain contact with him. In a personal situation, such as a family member or ex, it's often best to completely cut off all personal contact, clearly explaining in no uncertain terms why you are doing it, so that there's no confusion.

Otherwise you're just enabling them and giving yourself more problems.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

John Coltrane said:


> Y'all ever seen the 1960's film 'What Ever Happened to Baby Jane'? Infamously dramatised narcissistic & manipulative behaviour, except with reference to two sisters. I first saw it when I was eighteen with a girlfriend but reckon it deserves another viewing alone tonight. Just thought someone else here might take something from it.


I don't know if WHTBJ is narcissism or BPD. I'm more inclined to think BPD with narcissistic features, severe BPD. Some serial killers have actually been diagnosed with BPD, including Theresa Knorr, and WHTBJ is almost like the sister version of what Knorr did to her daughters, except actually not as extreme.

I think it's actually imperative for people to understand just how dangerous personality disorders can be. They aren't necessarily just little character flaws. A severe personality disorder is what Jeffrey Dahmer was diagnosed with as well, he had BPD.

That's why I don't play around when I see the warning signs of it. My "disordered parent" was court ordered into therapy after I left home, and my ESFJ possibly could have KILLED me, and he acknowledged this in tears one night that he was afraid he might really hurt me when he lost control of himself, and he was sincerely upset about it at the time, but he spoke the truth. And I don't even think they're two of the worst cases I've seen, I would consider both of them moderately functional.

I think this is why most people are killed by someone they know. When murders are not motivated by tangible sane things like legitimate revenge, material greed or sexual jealousy, I would say it's typically because people were "normalized" to a family member who had a dangerous severe personality disorder.

All that being said, I don't think people with personality disorders should be "othered" and demonized if they are WILLING TO GET HELP. People who are cooperative with therapy and treatment, those people are not beyond help, and many people who have personality disorders have a milder form that dissipates with age...however, if someone exhibits violence or lack of regard for others repeatedly, I don't think it's wise to get too comfortable with it.


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## HellCat (Jan 17, 2013)

fourtines said:


> I'm sorry but I don't understand why you maintain contact with him. In a personal situation, such as a family member or ex, it's often best to completely cut off all personal contact, clearly explaining in no uncertain terms why you are doing it, so that there's no confusion.
> 
> Otherwise you're just enabling them and giving yourself more problems.


Because we share a big fancy house that is being signed over to me in winter 2015.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

LeoCat said:


> Because we share a big fancy house that is being signed over to me in winter 2015.


I see. I am the sort of person who would sleep in a bunk bed in a room with an old lady and a poodle in order to have my autonomy and sanity.

I might be younger than you though, I am not sure how old you are, or how I would deal with the same situation if I were in my 40s or 50s.

However, I am guessing I would be the same, more or less.


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## HellCat (Jan 17, 2013)

fourtines said:


> I see. I am the sort of person who would sleep in a bunk bed in a room with an old lady and a poodle in order to have my autonomy and sanity.
> 
> I might be younger than you though, I am not sure how old you are, or how I would deal with the same situation if I were in my 40s or 50s.
> 
> However, I am guessing I would be the same, more or less.


Im thirty. and we dont live together. We just share the title and loan. 

I am also a good businesswoman and wisdom says vent occasionally and get what is yours, rather than running away from what you fought so hard to purchase and the success you have made. 

He only affected me because I was high on nitrous oxide. Now that I am just on muscle relaxers and oxy I have my head back together. I also won the battle.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

LeoCat said:


> Im thirty. and we dont live together. We just share the title and loan.
> 
> I am also a good businesswoman and wisdom says vent occasionally and get what is yours, rather than running away from what you fought so hard to purchase and the success you have made.
> 
> He only affected me because I was high on nitrous oxide. Now that I am just on muscle relaxers and oxy I have my head back together. I also won the battle.


Ok we probably just have a different personality type. I seriously value every moment of my life in terms of things like freedom and my personal space. I am definitely willing to make small sacrifices for the greater good, but I would not consider cutting off from a narcissistic abusive partner "running away" even if money was involved. You could be an ENFP for all I know, but you sound like an ExTJ or something.

To me that's about the equivalent of marrying for money. Even if you no longer are with him sexually, he's polluting your space.


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## HellCat (Jan 17, 2013)

fourtines said:


> Ok we probably just have a different personality type. I seriously value every moment of my life in terms of things like freedom and my personal space. I am definitely willing to make small sacrifices for the greater good, but I would not consider cutting off from a narcissistic abusive partner "running away" even if money was involved. You could be an ENFP for all I know, but you sound like an ExTJ or something.
> 
> To me that's about the equivalent of marrying for money. Even if you no longer are with him sexually, he's polluting your space.


Entj, because cognition is not the same as presentation no matter how many people wanted to call me an esfp and marriage is legalized prostitution when it comes down to it. You are providing goods and services and there has to be an equilibrium reached in some way. 



I figured this time if he was going to spend his life obsessing over me, He spent three yrs trying to get me to remarry him after our first divorce at 22. I would further my career and investments. I was always respectful though, open about why and to quote him "the perfect wife" 

He is a 2 entp and did not like not being worshipped, apparently image types see themselves in their spouses, having adventure and an easy going life was not enough. He loathed my wisdom and resolve more than anything and made it his goal to break me.


The closest hes come in fourteen yrs of secretly hating me, has been the other day when I was vulnerable and high on nitrous oxide so I would say I am doing fairly well.

After that little fit of his, he agreed to pay the mortgage until the divorce was final. Nowhere near the amount agreed upon when I decided to remarry him, yet still a small victory.

Nobody victimizes you unless you give them your permission. Freedom is a state of mind. A few weak moments for what I worked my ass off to earn, balances in the end. 

I was originally going to give him the house but now I am going to give it to my brother instead.


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## John Coltrane (May 11, 2013)

fourtines said:


> I think this is why most people are killed by someone they know. When murders are not motivated by tangible sane things like legitimate revenge, material greed or sexual jealousy, I would say it's typically because people were "normalized" to a family member who had a dangerous severe personality disorder.
> 
> All that being said, I don't think people with personality disorders should be "othered" and demonized if they are WILLING TO GET HELP. People who are cooperative with therapy and treatment, those people are not beyond help, and many people who have personality disorders have a milder form that dissipates with age...however, if someone exhibits violence or lack of regard for others repeatedly, I don't think it's wise to get too comfortable with it.



Didn't get around to watching it last night but am going to do so tonight. Just read up a little of Knorr, that's astoundingly messed up and a tangible example of a family member being the perpetrator of abuse. The isolation of the children from the outside world is textbook, too. 

I think your attitude is sensible in that regard, best to act upon warning signs before you feel trapped & separated from the rest of the world. As someone whose step-parent possibly has BPD & has seen him lose control quite a number of times I can empathise. It's not nice to fear for your own life when you're in your own home & a teenager. It's not nice at any age. Enabling that sort of behaviour is inevitable when you're too receptive & don't distance yourself physically & mentally.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

John Coltrane said:


> Didn't get around to watching it last night but am going to do so tonight. Just read up a little of Knorr, that's astoundingly messed up and a tangible example of a family member being the perpetrator of abuse. The isolation of the children from the outside world is textbook, too.
> 
> I think your attitude is sensible in that regard, best to act upon warning signs before you feel trapped & separated from the rest of the world. As someone whose step-parent possibly has BPD & has seen him lose control quite a number of times I can empathise. It's not nice to fear for your own life when you're in your own home & a teenager. It's not nice at any age. Enabling that sort of behaviour is inevitable when you're too receptive & don't distance yourself physically & mentally.


Yeah I mean I added that part at the end because I have seen people demonize people with relatively mild cases of BPD and "other" them, and I actually have defended those people, because my ex wasn't a monster, he was very loving and affectionate and smart, and he had a horrendous history that caused his problems. When I first met him I thought he had Multiple Personality Disorder, like I thought he was two or three different people. 

Marilyn Monroe had BPD and she was actually very sweet and charming, and the only person she was unfortunately a danger to was herself. I think she may have been more on the histrionic than narcissistic end though. I think that may make a huge difference. People with HPD and BPD still have empathy, unlike Narcissism and ASPD, and the closer someone leans to Narc or ASPD, I think the more dangerous they may become.

I have seen men demonize women who have BPD, like oh that crazy bitch, but the women were mostly just emotionally unstable and draining people. That's usually what my ex was like, in fact as an ESFJ in many ways his personality could be quite feminine. But the violence is why I had to force myself to leave, I realized I was gambling with a person who wouldn't stay in therapy or properly get help. He feared psychiatry and thought they were going to steal his soul or something, I just, I don't even. My one condition was that he get help and stay in therapy and I would come home, and instead he just tried begging, pleading, crying, threatening, and manipulating. It was hard. I really loved him.

Most people with BPD are more dangerous to themselves than others, but I do emphasize that people with BPD who are severe and act out in ways that show a bizarre lack of disregard for the safety of other people should definitely be avoided. Yes, people do snap and kill, and yes, I actually think most times there ARE warning signs, most people just choose to ignore them because "my father/mother/son/daughter/husband/wife wouldn't do that!" 

I don't like that line of thinking. It's dangerous. I see people on the news sometimes who I am sure are sociopaths, and the mother is always there, being a classic enabler, not believing their child could be a heartless killer (inverted narcissism).


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## MindBomb (Jul 7, 2010)

LeoCat said:


> I am so sorry
> 
> usually I am fairly immovable. But he made me a fucking wreck yesterday high on nitrous, oxy and a muscle relaxer.
> 
> Are you free of them now?


Of the drugs or the ex? ;-p

Unfortunately, I cannot make a clean break, which is what you need to do with these types of relationships; I have to "co-parent" with her. Not easy. If you disagree, then you are not co-parenting. If you ignore, then you are not communicating. If you stand your ground, then you are not compromising. And if you upset her, then you are dragged into court or mediation. It's never-ending.

It's tough, because you can't be immovable all the time; you have the kids to think about. So, you have to be very clear with your values and your boundaries--helps when you are deciding which battles to fight.


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## MindBomb (Jul 7, 2010)

fourtines said:


> Actually I think anyone with cluster B could do that, because if it's not out of entitlement, it's out of desperate neediness.


Yeah, who knows? I mean, she's not diagnosed with a disorder. Usually, I describe her as having narcissistic traits. She's not needy though; she's domineering and controlling.



fourtines said:


> The problem though with sociopaths and narcissists though is that they think you're the one with the problem. Always. Even if they've been gas lighting you they'll ask why you're so touchy or upset, are you crazy for getting upset that they're doing so and so.


This. She's seen a therapist; but, honestly, I think it's more to help her to learn how to manipulate those around her, not for personal growth. There's no way that she thinks that she has a problem.

She's had some disasters--lost her job, declared bankruptcy, etc. But, it's not because of her actions or behaviors. No, I don't have much hope of her changing. That's actually better for my sanity...I can't keep hoping she'll understand (or be understandable) or be reasonable.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

MindBomb said:


> Yeah, who knows? I mean, she's not diagnosed with a disorder. Usually, I describe her as having narcissistic traits. She's not needy though; she's domineering and controlling.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hmm yeah that's why sometimes it's best just to cut all contact. If someone isn't open to growth sometimes you have to just stay away.

I haven't talked to my ...guardian...in about five years. She isn't my biological mother, but even if she was, I am not sure it would change my mind.

Same with my ex. I completely cut contact. Stupidly in a moment of weakness I talked to him maybe three years ago, and in a short space of time he conveyed to me his latest drama, things so disordered and inappropriate I actually wondered how I ended up with him in the first place. I am guessing lack of life experience and inability to identify BPD at that time. 

I actually was identified as Histrionic by a therapist in 2007 but I was very willing to get help at that point. I think I still have mild histrionic traits, but it's not on my chart anymore from more recent evaluations, and I consciously work to identify some of my issues.

I don't know that narcissism is treatable at all, especially in a culture like the U.S.


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## LyeLye (Apr 24, 2014)

I knew my father was a narcissist with sociopathic traits for a while. Even if my mother hadn't told me about stories of him not laughing at her jokes because (as he said) he "didn't want her to think that she was funnier" than him and reading books on manipulation, I would've realized it myself soon enough. He's actually very charismatic, even the life of the party at times, and sometimes he goes out of his way to do nice things for other people. BUT I'm more prone to believe that he does nice things for the sake of being called a nice guy, than out of any inherent goodwill towards people. He's a serial monogamist - he cheats and lies to his wife (he's on his way to a fourth right now). He lies about his own pedigree, and then almost convinces himself that he's telling the truth (I say almost because he's too smart to not remember the fiction he created). He is entirely convinced about his own genius and is open about that (to an extent - he'll be modest when he absolutely knows he's the best at something. Not to be harsh, but I seriously doubt that he loves me as much as he loves himself. Which is fine, because we're cordial and on our way to a less volatile relationship (maybe even good?), but there will always be that niggling doubt about whether he loves me (or is capable of love as we think of it).

I know I've probably got some issues from that. Part of my low self-esteem may have come from the fact that I know he'll always think I'm inferior to him. That's a hard thing for me to deal with, and contributes in a negative way to all of my relationships. When people tell me they think well of me I don't believe them, but paradoxically I'm always trying to be good enough and striving for those compliments. Interestingly, I'm strictly non-monogamous, perhaps partly because of my dad's cheating. Takes care of the problem, really, though I've found from other people's open relationships that they can get messy when you start building emotional connections to your other lovers as well.

On the other hand, while my perfectionism can be harmful at times, I've always been ambitious and I try very hard to be thoughtful. I would never want others to feel the same way I feel, so I try to treat people as kindly as possible.


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## -Alpha- (Dec 30, 2013)

Jennywocky said:


> I have the "waiting for the other shoe" syndrome. It's very easy for me to get into a mental mindset where, no matter how good something is, I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop; my experience was, "It never lasts." So I had to be prepared for when everything eventually went bad.
> 
> Honestly, I don't know why I'm not a cynic. I still am willing to go for the good stuff. But emotionally it can be stressful even when things are good, because I wonder whether it'll endure and it's hard to go all-in.


I was looking through this thread again and saw this.

I always wait for things to go sour or for others to become bored or find something they like better. I think I've polarized hard enough that I've developed a 'showing people the door' mentality. Often, when asked about my emotional distance in friendships and relationships, I don't tell people about this disposition as I don't want them to consider it if they actually do those things for fear of hurting me. Ironically, this leads to further emotional isolation which tends to leave them pretty cold. The result is collecting all of these emotions in a ball that never gets released, suppressed and exists as a weight in the psyche that never goes away.

I'm honestly not sure what to do with it anymore.


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## aeralin (Jul 11, 2014)

*When did you first understand that your parent is/was a narcissist?*
Hmm, I had a name for it when I was 16ish? I knew that there was something different about her, younger, around 13ish?
- *Do you believe that the experience impacted the type you became (MBTI, enneagram, etc).*
Maybe? However at the same time, this is the thing I was adopted at 12, so I know I was introverted before than. I was always independent and remember spending a majority of my time in my own head rather than socializing, playing, or being outside. I think some people would like to believe, that their parents had such a huge impact on their personalities and maybe in fact my N parent did. However, I think for me it would be hard to explain it, when I lived with other people till I was 11 and a half and than lived with a N parent, but still showed qualities of being an INTP but I was never in a "normal environment" per se.
- *How did it impact your relationships as an adult?*
Hmm...I think this affected my relationships in the future and makes me less likely to trust women in general? My birth mother, though she was not a N. She was indeed someone who left me for weeks to months at a time at other people's houses without saying anything and coming back whenever she felt like it, to come back and play mom again. So, I think through my childhood I was looking for a female to be close with. I preferred romantic relationships with girls and crushed on girls exclusively throughout puberty till college. Hmm...I find it harder to open up with girls now...and I generally mistrust them. I have had mostly male friends, that I have been close too. I met my current boyfriend at 18 and I am 28. We have had a stable relationship (we have never broken up), I do withdraw when I am having issues and push him away. However, he is a pretty unwavering and a stable person. I think he just takes them as moods and that I need time to be alone for the time being and gives me space.
- *Did you resolve your personal issues that stemmed from growing up with a narcissist parent and is you feel you have, how?*
Not really, I would like to say I have. However, I think this is more from the fact that my adopted mother died, rather than me resolving the issue. I still think about it, I have bad dreams about her berating me etc. (so, I know I haven't). I still have anxiety over visiting home, even though she is dead. I have tried to get over it, but I don't know how to stop dreaming about it and getting anxious every time I am going to visit home. I think the biggest part of me getting better, was moving away and cutting off contact for 3 years...I slowly got back to seeing my family just for holidays. Though, I don't think I was happy until I moved away. I still deeply mistrust therapists because she brought me to 5 therapists until she found the diagnosis she wanted. She would punish me every time the therapist told her, I said something about her that she thought I was wrong about or made her look like a bad parent. I haven't gotten over this, and I probably should really get therapy. It's a real hang-up and it sounds lame while I am even saying it now. Things that I have felt I have resolved are things like guilt for everything and for thinking I will never be good enough. Though, I feel guilty I hate her and she is dead and I hate her even there. I am not sure how to resolve this either.
- *What were/are your personal coping mechanisms?*
Reading and sleeping. Running helps...when I can't get stuff out of my head, because the weird thing about running is it clears my head and all I can think about it running or not think at all. When I feel like someone is going to berate me for something/thinking people are going to deny me something or I find myself in a negative spiral, I stop and think about it and analyze it.
- *What are the positive things that have come from the way you grew up?*
The only positive thing that came out of it, was I did really well in school. So I could apply for scholarships and go away to college. Every motivation I had was to move when I was living there. She kicked me out when she realized I was moving away to college, and I was glad I had saved up everything and not spent anything.


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## 539885 (Feb 11, 2013)

@_Swede_, thank you for showing me to this thread and the other materials. I felt like it laid out my life on a table and I see how the cycle perpetuates itself. I can look and see at least 4 generations of this crap.


* *





My grandmother on my biological father's side was the narcissist. I spent a year with her when my brother and I were 4 and 6 due to financial issues in my parents' home. I was the Scapegoat. My brother was the Golden Child. Despite what my mother tried to fix, there was a lot she couldn't see due to her own dysfunction. 

My INTJ father was a Scapegoat too, and a psychiatrist acquaintance suspected he was undiagnosed bipolar after observing him a bit. He tried to get out, and that's how he ended up in the military. He got into a non-alcoholic codependent marriage with my mother, who was also a Scapegoat in her family. He tended to throw those tantrums others mention, was emotionally distant and brooding, but it was clear he wasn't narcissistic as much as emulating what was normal behavior in his house.

So that leads to my mother's side... my biological grandmother on that side was also made into a Scapegoat. As my narcissistic great-grandmother viewed it, "Our perfect daughter was taken from us at the tender age of 7, and we were given... _her_." My grandmother was heavily abused and it manifested as Dissociative Identity Disorder, aka Multiple Personality Disorder. She had 2 personalities: Mary and Louise. The dysfunctional family she married into piled onto that Scapegoat mentality, which now had ample room with her being insane. She was committed, went through electric shock therapy, all the things.

My ENFJ mother grew up with that. She, too, was heavily abused, the rest of the relatives doomed her to a future of insanity, so she spent her childhood determinedly holding it together despite what was heaped on her. It became a challenge to her to be cheerful, friendly, and totally together out of sheer spite that they wouldn't have the pleasure of seeing her fall apart. She kept telling herself, "I'll outlive all these people." She was forced to work at age 12, but on the flipside it gave her a strong sense of independence and she was determined to break the cycle. At 16 she could afford her own car and was preparing to move across the country. She ended up meeting my dad while waiting tables, saving towards this dream. She got married to him at 17.

The problem was my father couldn't entirely break away from his family. Then ended up back in the same state as his parents, and my mother didn't realize what my grandmother was like. My mother endured 22 years of a craptacular marriage, and it was what my grandmother did to my brother and I that ended the marriage entirely. After that, my mom was just getting along until my brother and I were old enough that we would have a say in court and there wouldn't be a custody battle over grandparents' rights. I stopped speaking to my father entirely when I was 18.

In my life, I didn't have the abuse that my mother or my grandmother did, but I similarly fell through the cracks. The environment my father picked for us to grow up in was the bottom rung of society. There were gang wars in elementary school, violence, oppression, and daily decisions that were literally life and death. I went to school with what would become the future prison population, FUBAR children being raised by FUBAR parents. They picked up on my Scapegoat tendencies and went to town with it. I was outcast, abused, had an entire classroom of kids piling it up at one point. My mother couldn't see it. As far as she was concerned, everything was fine. I was a normal kid in normal schools and I wasn't having any real problems. 

Let's just say both my parents also had their tempers. So by the time I was 10, I had shut her and every other authority figure out--including an ENTJ teacher who would've been very helpful if I had let her in. (She pulled me aside once to ask about my situation and I stonewalled her, insisted I was fine. Everything was fine. It was always "fine.") I had decided adults didn't know wtf they were talking about or what was going on since they didn't do anything about the situation other than spin their own wheels. However, my mother was teaching me to think for myself, not to give in to being a victim. I was convinced I could figure my way out.




By the time I was 13, I had stopped valuing human life. I was a numb shell hanging onto the last threads I had of my humanity. I was well on my way to doing some real harm to the rest of the world. I was well beyond anger or revenge at any one person--no, the entirety of humanity was going to burn to the ground. Why? Because I wanted it quiet. I was so tired of the noise, the anger, the violence, the yelling, the screaming, the dysfunction, and my attitude was that the human race was the source of it. So the human race had to go. Simple as that.

Two things kept me from becoming this monstrosity: God and pets of the furry, warm, and unconditionally loving variety.

Until today, not a single soul has known that my primary struggle in life has been to get my humanity back. No one has known that it took most of my teen years and well into my 20s to salvage it, that I have a pact with myself that I would take my own life if I felt myself losing control. Only God has heard the depths of my screams. As hard as I've worked to become a good-hearted person, a kind person, I am always aware of this other part of myself. I know that if the world ever turns into what it was before, I wouldn't bat an eye over burning it all to ash. But as long as there is something in the world that is kind, I will be kind and keep my heart open.

Fortunately, there is plenty of kindness.

I share this openly since I think this is the sort of thing people shouldn't be quiet about. These people I've glossed over here had their situations perpetuated by silence and shame. 4 generations of people, who picked up that their situation was different and felt that isolated them from understanding and kindness. It's absolute BS. The internet is one of the greatest gifts to mankind since it has crushed a primary barrier of isolation.


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## Bear987 (May 13, 2012)

I found a pretty decent website recently. It's from a psychotherapists who put a couple of essays of his online. 

Here's a quote that covers quite a lot of what I have written about on here before:


> Narcissists use everyone around them to keep themselves inflated. Often they find flaws in others and criticize them fiercely, for this further distinguishes them from those who are defective. Children are ready targets: narcissists consider children flawed and lacking, and therefore most in need of severe "teaching" and correction.


This guy writes about adult children of narcissistic parents (in the essay _Little Voices_): 



> Unless asked direct questions, they simply can't think of anything to say. "What do you want?" (now, this week, this year, during your lifetime) is impossible for them to answer. Early in their childhood they stopped wanting because no one paid any attention to their wishes. Their place in life was to know what everyone else wanted--this is the only place they felt comfortable and unthreatened.


It was such a relief to me to read the above. I don't know what I want, or who I am most of the time. There's a disconnect within me. I, too, 'stopped wanting' because whatever I came up with was subject to relentless criticism, ridicule and dismissal. How do I start wanting again?

I want to 'make something of my life', but isn't wanting things - knowing what I want a prerequisite?


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## Polexia (Apr 22, 2014)

Swede said:


> Hmmm, I have mixed feelings and experiences, I guess. I think that people generally don't point out the obvious for many reasons. I know that I don't for one or several of these:
> - I don't like drama
> - I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings
> - I don't think it'll help
> ...


I know it might not have seemed like it but it was a honest question. I really wanted to know if it ever helps to point it out. 

As the child of a narcissist it is hard to point it out. You're already stuck in the situation and what possible consequences can such an action have? If you point out that a person is not flawless but in fact point out a psychiatric diagnosis...

It's not that I am not understanding the problematic and I wasn't thinking of children of people with BPD, narcissism, substance abuse etc but the people who might have pointed it out who are adults.


And yes, that a narcissist think of themselves as the smartest person in the room is one of the things that get to me as well. It also seems to be an important part of the fantasy world they live in. I'll make another post about my narcissistic mother. Get to get of a bus.


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## Milya (Jul 9, 2014)

Swede said:


> I think that a child will do whatever it takes to protect their self from the parents' disorder. An introvert child will likely become extremely introvert or at least that's what happened to me. From just being an introvert, I got to the point where I stopped communicating with my parents (and most other people) all together. That is an example of extreme introverted behavior, which has gotten to the point of unhealthy.
> 
> My extroverted little sister handled the situation differently; she became extremely social and she told me once that she needs to be with people because she is scared being alone with her thoughts.
> 
> I think that both of us took our individual personality traits and used them as a way to escape reality and protect ourselves.


I agree with this. The more I retreated into my shell the more outgoing my sister came to be. I still prefer staying home and not socialising all the time, and she just can't stay still and alone.


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

PolexiaSmallPox said:


> I know it might not have seemed like it but it was a honest question. I really wanted to know if it ever helps to point it out.
> 
> As the child of a narcissist it is hard to point it out. You're already stuck in the situation and what possible consequences can such an action have? If you point out that a person is not flawless but in fact point out a psychiatric diagnosis...
> 
> ...


I figured that it was a honest question and it is also a very interesting one - I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. 

I guess that what I am trying to say is that 
- There are different severity of narcissism; like most (all?) personality disorders it is a spectrum type disorder
- Personally, I also believe that there are different types of narcissism:
Developmental
For example, I think that my mothers narcissism was a learned/imprinted type behavior; her very exaggerated sense of self and her will to control everything and everyone around her is/was very likely a combination of lack of a normal baseline and a need to keep herself from becoming engulfed by her mother.
According to my mother, my grandmother's narcissism was likely generated as an escape from reality; her father left his wife and kids for another woman. Her mother immigrated from Denmark to Sweden and was treated poorly on the grounds of being a foreigner. She also lost her eyesight shortly after the move and could therefore not support her kids; the older siblings had to do that. My grandmother was the youngest and (supposedly) went from a well-off to a very poor and uncertain family situation. All the events that lead up to the status change were also connected deeply with a perception of shame; being left (both as a wife but also as a child), being mistreated as a foreigner, being too young to be useful, becoming poor. My grandmother's narcissism was likely a result of an exceptionally negative change in her life at a sensitive age. I think that she developed a pretty severe inferiority complex and she counter reacted by imagining that/behaving as if she was superior to everyone (as you say in regards to your mother - she created a 'fantasy world').
Physical
I also believe that some people might be born narcissists in that they have a physical brain damage already from start, either as a birth defect or a developmental defect from before birth. 
I also assume that it is possible to sustain a brain damage that will turn a person into a narcissist.

I don't think that even the professionals distinguish between the 'types' of narcissism (at least I haven't seen anything hinting at that while researching), but I would guess that depending on what the underlying cause for a specific case of narcissism is, the possibility to impact and the approach to treatment would vary.
We know that it is possible to retrain the brain, to build new pathways/synapses etc. However, we also know that the largest impact on retraining is the individual's own motivation. And as you say, when people never take personal responsibility, but want everyone else to change to accommodate, then the cause might be lost. I mean, most people can stop smoking, but only if they decide to quit.

Maybe in part why I have come to these conclusions is because some days I am terrified that I am a narcissist myself? And since some days I am terrified, maybe I try to convince myself that narcissism is treatable... 



In the example with my roommate in my last post, I wanted to illustrate that even if the narcissist does not change, it might at least be important for the other party to set down their foot/boundaries. 
And in that particular case it did help in that she realized that I wasn't as easily manipulated as she had lead herself to believe, which is why she backed off. 
I also think that for me to finally get to the stage in my life where I could just look a person in the eyes and calmly say 'no' was a pretty good sign that I had finally recovered enough to start becoming a healthy individual with more normal base-line and boundaries. I still remember that it felt really good.


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## Endless Rainbows (Oct 1, 2014)

Swede said:


> I figured that it was a honest question and it is also a very interesting one - I've spent a lot of time thinking about this.
> 
> I guess that what I am trying to say is that
> - There are different severity of narcissism; like most (all?) personality disorders it is a spectrum type disorder
> ...


Thanks for sharing that. Some great points. I relate to being deathly afraid about being a narcissist too growing up with a narcissistic father as children of narcissists have a higher propensity to be narcissists themselves. Modeling behavior?

I asked a psychiatrist friend that he would tell me if I was one or if he saw signs of it. I told him I could take it and I would rather know so I could counter some of these behaviors. He confidently reassured me I wasn't one which was a huge relief. If anything, I learned not to value myself and my greatest fear is unworthiness, that I am not enough, as nothing I could do could gain the approval of my father. So still scarred but not a narcissist thankfully.

Narcissism is kind of treatable but it would have to be a very self-aware narcissist and most do not care that they have this problem unless it was severely affecting their relationships. My father never sought treatment and would have told you that nothing was wrong with him. He was, at least, a relatively harmless narcissist and not overly brutal in his later years.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

Because a picture is worth 1000 words.


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## Texas (Mar 24, 2013)

Swede said:


> I think that a child will do whatever it takes to protect their self from the parents' disorder. An introvert child will likely become extremely introvert or at least that's what happened to me. From just being an introvert, I got to the point where I stopped communicating with my parents (and most other people) all together. That is an example of extreme introverted behavior, which has gotten to the point of unhealthy.
> 
> My extroverted little sister handled the situation differently; she became extremely social and she told me once that she needs to be with people because she is scared being alone with her thoughts.
> 
> I think that both of us took our individual personality traits and used them as a way to escape reality and protect ourselves.


My brother (ESFJ) never managed to marry or have kids, which is sad because at one point he really wanted them. I think he just had too many issues with women to get past and never quite did it. He's very outgoing and social, but lives alone. 

He told me he spent so much time with his friends when he was younger, and always liked watching the Cosby show, because they taught him how 'normal' people lived. 

I just hung out in my room and read.


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## Sharpnel (Aug 3, 2014)

Swede said:


> We were specifically interested in hearing from people growing up under similar circumstances and how you think that your parent’s narcissism impacted who you are today.
> For example:
> - When did you first understand that your parent is/was a narcissist?
> - Do you believe that the experience impacted the type you became (MBTI, enneagram, etc).
> ...


Narcissistic people don't just abuse _actively (verbal or physical with immediate results)_, but just as much by ignoring (a.k.a neglect).

Well, I'll give this a try. 

*
When did you first understand that your parent is/was a narcissist?*
I realized there was something off in both of my parents by the time I hit 8 years old, or around that time. 

*Something to keep in mind:* My family from my mother's side is_ plagued _with neurological disorders. Like. ALL of them. AD(H)D, Asperger's, Schizophrenia, Bipolar, OCD, the list goes on. From my father's side, there are some serious schizoid, obsessive and paranoid traits going on (also my grandmother is delusional).

I understood that parents usually walked or took their kids to school, together, or single parents even, but our father was_ always_ missing. I had to walk to school with my siblings alone—usually through busy streets. Day after day waking up early and taking the elevator down on our own, because my father left early and didn't want us not eating breakfast. He worked three jobs, so I always rationalized that with his sense of duty to us to provide us with a ceiling and food, at least. But he would feel overwhelmed and distressed, and because he is asocial, he had nowhere to blow the steams. My older brother was the scapegoat. My father is a covert narcissist, now that I know the terms. He is very controlling and dislikes people going against him. He put us down a lot when we acted silly, made mistakes, or showed some type of weakness. He was strict on my brothers, because they were always wrecking havoc and being disobedient. 

My mother is a special case. I didn't grow up with my mother, because she left us, so I am sort of fortunate. I am certain she suffered (and still does) from various disorders (neurological at the very least). You have to understand she has OCD, probably some autistic traits and ADHD (my family tells me she was hyperactive and _easily_ frustrated). I realized there was something off with her when I borderline died at the jaws of our family dog. She was upstairs chatting in AOL. I had to fucking crawl _from the garden_ to the _living room_, with my head split open and bleeding torrents. There was obviously something off with my parents. Dude. Not to mention when my mother stopped loving us, and instead of discussing it with my father, she proceeded to cheat on him and chat with that other guy in AOL while my father busted his ass at work. She got caught, obviously. And that's when the ordeal started.

I don't know. They were both highly intelligent (both skilled at numbers and predictions, owned a company at the early age of 2X, earned a 6 figure salary) and they sucked at basic human things. They did blame each other for their failures, which is red flag #1 for narcissism.

They both put us down, even when they got separated. Although my older brother was given the early IQ test proving to be a genius, they_ still _fucking called him a retard. Why? They just did. My father and mother apparently hated us being absent-minded and creative. I don't know why else you'd call your own children stupid all the time. No compliments whenever we did something right, but always pointing out the perceived flaws. Red flag #2 for narcissism.

I can talk about this all day. It is _way_ too funny.

Recap, both parents were absent. 

*Do you believe that the experience impacted the type you became (MBTI, enneagram, etc).*
I suppose. Me growing up with my father definitely showed me the power of perseverance and hard work. He does seem ISTJ. He has very little emotions and almost no friends. He just lives for work. And work. And more work. 

I am persistent, to say the least. However, my hectic upbringing, erratic and unpredictable like evicted one day and electricity and water cut for days, pushed me to be a planner and careful with where I head toward—it also made me resilient to receiving presents and choosing expensive things. Everything had to be projected into the future. 

I believe that due to the unintentional neglect from our father's part, my brothers and I became more *intangible*. My older brother, the genius, is INTP, and my younger brother is INTJ. Both pursue science as careers. They are visionary, they want to invent and create a breakthrough in human progress, you know. They don't want to work as a slave forever, like my father did—sadly. And I? Well, I am in the middle. I am versatile, I'd say, INTJ/INFJ/ISFJ. My goal is to create harmony and progress.

We don't content ourselves with a paycheck. We have a visceral need for amounting to something larger than life. I think that is why my MBTI is what it is.​
I think it is fairly common for children to run the opposite way of their parents when they are showing an undesirable trait, for example, my father neglecting us in order to work (even though he was doing it with the intention of providing us with something comfortable).

And my mother, obviously irresponsible. 

So I am what they are not, and also what they are. I was gifted enough to pick their desirable traits, and dump the undesirable ones into the trash bin (joining them with my core personality, of course). My father, stern and critical, was _also_ a softie, believe it or not. And I liked that kindness he was able to express for those he "loved". We can't really go hard on him for working all his life to drown the sorrow of being dumped by his wife and raising three daredevils on his own.

I can't really say for my mother. I didn't grow up with her, and my memories of her is that of someone who abandoned three children to run away with a guy she met on the internet. Like I said before, irresponsible. She probably felt the responsibility was too much, and instead of coping, she left. Also can't be too hard on immature adults. I'm not a harsh person.

And that is the difference between me and her, I actually face the challenges. I even welcome challenges. Sometimes a little bit too much so that I am over-encumbered by them.

*How did it impact your relationships as an adult?*
Well, this one is fairly interesting.
Having two parents that disappointed you from very early on in life is hard not to translate it onto other people. When you almost die* twice* because of adult neglect, you sure as heck distrust adults. 100%. No buts, no ifs, you do. I did not trust a _single_ adult for the entirety of my childhood. I played the adult role because I believed that the adults that surrounded us were *complete and utter morons*, and someone had to be in charge. It wasn't rare to see me running errands and making sure things ran smoothly by my own hands. I was hyper-vigilant and paranoid from a very young age. I never enjoyed my childhood because I was focused in making things right (and also due to some severe paranoid delusions).

I don't distrust people inherently, but I don't take their word as sacred either. It's like, "prove me you're worthy of my time and loyalty". You must do what you say you will do, otherwise you are a waste of my time to interact with. I have a hard time delegating tasks to others because of this. People who don't demonstrate passion and the know-how of procedures will never gain my faith in finishing a part of a project, and I will most likely headbutt you aside and finish the task on my own.

So, to recap, thanks to the *irresponsible and manipulative *adults in my life, I don't trust people thoroughly. That is basically the major stone in the road personality-wise.

My asociality and general lack of care are part of my negative symptoms, which I can't really control. 

All in all, I am a hopeless romantic at heart with a knack for harmony and holistic human progress. Very unlike my parents, honestly. :V

*Did you resolve your personal issues that stemmed from growing up with a narcissist parent and if you feel you have, how?*
Haha, good joke. No. Of course not, lol. Thanks to that hectic upbringing, I am suffering collateral neurological disorders that aren't curable and only keep progressing into the impending disconnect with reality (thanks for the genes, mom), which are a constant reminder that I missed 14 years of my life. 

Now, I *don't* _*hate*_ them, if that's somehow "resolving the issue". I resolved that they were inept at the time, immature adults that had no clue as to what they were doing as parents, thus, there is _no case in blaming_. My father at least tried the only way he knew how, which was working hard day in day out. And my mother tried calling us and keeping in touch with us even though it was once in a blue moon. Sometimes my father will make a covert hate remark about my mother, so, yeah, the wounds are still open in my family.

They both took huge blows to their egos. So, they are narcissists. One is covert, and the other one flaunts it. They probably don't even notice it on their own. I have made my father open his eyes to his controlling and rageaholic behavior recently. Hopefully, he won't repeat his mistake with his new family (he's remarrying after 14 years, isn't that progress?).

I forgave them because there is no going back, lol. No point in staying mad, no point in hating, no point in blaming unless we get something in return. And since I know I won't get my sanity back, well, let's just stay what we are: a broken family with benefits. 

*What were/are your personal coping mechanisms?*
My maladaptive behaviors. Oh boy. 
When I was a child, many:

Retreating into fantasy and isolated.
Rationalizing my parents' behavior to others (my father missed every single parent-teacher conference, for example).
Running away (physically and mentally). At times I felt strong urges to just escape to a classmate's house and live with them instead.
Taking care of my brothers. I was explained that my fear for losing control was due to the neglect of both parents. There was no model of order and the fear of death was so prominent (paired with paranoid delusions) that I became a surrogate mother to my brothers to cope with the lack of role model. I became what I wished my parents were, basically.
Took blame for others. Self-explanatory. I was a complete martyr. I figured if I was "the one who did it", my father wouldn't hit my brothers. He obviously didn't hit me because I was his "princess". Still am a martyr, a teensy bit.
Redirected my anxiety into drawing, writing and music. This goes with dissociating, honestly.
Extremely aggressive. Would hit and break things. Easily overwhelmed. Can't really blame myself, autistic without help to understand why I was so different from everyone else.
Became a sort of "psychic" to my father's outrages. I learned his behavior and whenever he went batshit on my brothers (he used to throw things at them, or used the belt), I'd try to reason with him. Yes, I bargained with my own father, lol.
Perfect child. I became the best in everything, because that way they would take me seriously. Seriousness = Weight in word = They listen to me.

And all this because of *neglect*. 
Neglect and indifference aren't one and the same, just throwing that out there.

Today, I keep retreating into fantasy because my work consists of me doing that. Art requires you to delve into your paracosm (and I had a lot of time to create my own world, all right). I also have the bad habit of rationalizing people's misbehavior. I believe in good and that people don't do things on purpose. But well, that isn't reality, now, is it?

I am still a perfect child because that's all I know. I guess in that aspect I am like my father. We are hard workers without a reason to be.

*What are the positive things that have come from the way you grew up?*
Good question. I have no idea.
I attribute my good qualities to my own development as a human being and not to my past. Although, due to the way I grew up, constantly on the edge, I did earn a valuable skill. Compassion.

Because I shared so much with my brothers, I learned not to attach myself to _things_ but instead to experiences. I learned to be considerate and compassionate. I learned that because I went through something bad doesn't mean I should let others go through that as well.


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## Texas (Mar 24, 2013)

Sharpnel said:


> Narcissistic people don't just abuse _actively (verbal or physical with immediate results)_, but just as much by ignoring (a.k.a neglect).


This is a key point, as well as your Red Flags 1 & 2. My mom took care of us because it would _look bad _not to... always very, very concerned with appearances. She seemed to not actually care so much, as maybe studied what caring looked like, and then tried to recreate it.

Your red flags: I am married to a person who is very similar to my mom. I've only recently (and very late) come to understand just how much. He's a nice guy, actually a caring person (rather than role-playing the part) but he does have a tendency to Red Flag 1&2, which in hindsight probably made me feel comfortable with him. Classic textbook psych stuff, really.

Anyway, thank you for sharing your story.


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## conscius (Apr 20, 2010)

I missed this thread, kind of not in the place you would look for. Since this is subforum where explicit sex talk is allowed, I imagine only that stuff is covered, not PG rated relationship. So I made a post a while back in psych forum:

http://personalitycafe.com/general-psychology/382914-children-narcissistic-parents-thread.html

But I just found this thread today...sheesh.


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## Metalize (Dec 18, 2014)

I feel it's almost insulting to be this concise on such a detailed thread, but...

Enneagram Type 6.


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## Wellsy (Oct 24, 2011)

Just a general question, how has your experience impacted your ability to be vulnerable with people?


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

Wellsy said:


> Just a general question, how has your experience impacted your ability to be vulnerable with people?


That is a pretty interesting question. 

I guess that the answer for me is that it is relative in that I have an extremely high bar for how much humiliation I can take before it's gone too far.* I guess the limits were pushed pretty far during my childhood - I had to adjust or I would just have been a big ball of shame.
I also have a very different view of shame than many others have and I do tend to share pretty intimate information, if I think that I can help another person. For example, when I went through the painful years of infertility, which is still an issue connected to shame, I had no problems telling people about it, even though it was incredibly painful and frustrating. I felt that they might be able to learn from my experiences and then at least my pain would be worth something (which is also why I started this thread, I guess). 
TBH, I think it might also be some kind of dis-attachment mechanism, in that I can convert painful experiences into lessons or value to others; it's like I'm watching myself from the outside and see my life as some sort of experiment.

So, I don't have a problem being 'vulnerable' with others (relatively speaking), as long as I don't feel that they are unreliable and will use the information to hurt me or people who are close to me. I don't serve myself up or knowingly invite abuse.
As for many other people who have experienced a lot of methodical humiliation, I have in the past been way more comfortable with criticism and humiliation than with compliments and encouragement. For many years, I felt that getting support was an extremely uncomfortable and humiliating experience and it usually lead to a very quick, physical reaction (generally crying, which is something that I never really do). Now I just take the compliment, say thanks, and discard it. 

So, getting close to people who seem to love me and admire me is scary - that makes me vulnerable in that rejection or getting discarded proves that I'm not good enough or worth loving and that is of course a fear, because it would reinforce the notion of being worthless from my childhood. I still don't see myself as worth loving, so creating intimate friendships makes me extremely vulnerable (which ties back into not taking compliments seriously). Practically, I know that I am a 'catch', as in I have a good job, but intimately, not so much.
This often leads to me shutting down friendships that could really be valuable and important to me.

Another thing is that, even though I am married to a caring and reliable man, I still see myself as/act as if I am 100% independent. My base philosophy is that I am all alone in life, because too much trust always leads to disappointment. I tend to close down when I am vulnerable; I stop communicating, I don't ask for advice, I don't ask for help, because I learned as a child that when I asked for help, I would get turned down and generally either being treated as an inconvenience, further humiliated, or downright told that I was a lier and that I always felt sorry for myself. Especially psychological support was nonexistent, but also practical support at many times. So, I am way more comfortable being the supporter than being the supported.

I guess that the bottom line is that people view me as a very strong person, while in many ways I am not. But I would assume that is true for a lot of people? I don't know.


*Once the line has been crossed, I react strongly and most often irreversibly. I don't often react with grief, but it's generally fury - it gives me strength to push through. I think that is a pretty typical INTJ trait.
I do recognize that I do sometimes tend to take way more crap from people I care about than what I ought to, but I assume most people do, but I am getting better about that.


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## foodcourtfrenzy (Aug 14, 2014)

Swede said:


> Another thing is that, even though I am married to a caring and reliable man, I still see myself as/act as if I am 100% independent. My base philosophy is that I am all alone in life, because too much trust always leads to disappointment. I tend to close down when I am vulnerable; I stop communicating, I don't ask for advice, I don't ask for help, because I learned as a child that when I asked for help, I would get turned down and generally either being treated as an inconvenience, further humiliated, or downright told that I was a lier and that I always felt sorry for myself. Especially psychological support was nonexistent, but also practical support at many times. So, I am way more comfortable being the supporter than being the supported.


Out of curiosity -- does this bother your husband? I was in a similar situation recently and it drove me crazy. I empathized given the background of the underlying issue and all, but it just felt like a certain necessary element of intimacy was missing. I couldn't do it.


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

foodcourtfrenzy said:


> Out of curiosity -- does this bother your husband? I was in a similar situation recently and it drove me crazy. I empathized given the background of the underlying issue and all, but it just felt like a certain necessary element of intimacy was missing. I couldn't do it.


No, it doesn't bother him at all. It's one of those interesting scenarios in which I am not certain whether I am too damaged to function normally with others or if I am subconsciously seeking out/recreating relationships that are mimicking childhood neglect.

Without talking too much about my husband, I can say that one of the things he told me early on that really attracted him to me is that I am "low maintenance". I took that as a compliment, which it was obviously meant to be.
The problem with that type of statement is that it can mean anything from "you don't expect expensive and elaborate expressions of love" to "you don't need anything". I took it to mean the former, while I think that - at least over time - it has evolved to the latter in his mind.
"Asking for help" can be anything from asking someone to not leave their trash all around the house or rinse out the dish rag after you are done, to a balanced co-parenting, or to help when you are extremely sick and feel alone and overwhelmed. All of them are different types of request for help, with different urgency levels. 
What I have noticed is that chances are that if you don't get help with the 'simple' stuff, you ought not expect help with the difficult stuff either. (Unless the help comes from someone who wants to feel important or who likes drama.)

I have asked my husband for help plenty of times (all the different examples above), but he generally opts to ignore - not in a malicious or deliberate way, but nonetheless hurtful.
Some of those times, I get frustrated and pissed and I refuse to give up what I need - this is how nagging starts, btw. 
Some of those times, my trust in him got deeply damaged, which resulted in a decrease in the value that I see in our relationship. It also lead me to question myself (see second sentence in this post). The result here is that I shut down, which is a pretty typical INTJ response in regards to hurt. And then I rationalize; "We are all alone in the end. You can only trust yourself when it really comes down to it. Don't expect too much, or you will always be disappointed. Alone is strong. Independent is good.", etc. But at the same time, I am aware that I am probably kidding myself, but I don't know how to resolve the issue. Which is also an incredibly frustrating feeling to an INTJ; a problem without a solution... XD


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## HellCat (Jan 17, 2013)

@_Swede_ I am sorry you are going through that with your husband but the only way not to end up fertilizing the pain, resentment and trauma of being neglected in your past, in your marriage. The triggering,. is to tell him flat out. In a way that is not accusatory but forthright nonetheless, or you will find that you no longer want to even be around him.

I tell mine every time something happens that scares me, triggers me, whether it is related to him or not. Usually not, but nevertheless I am honest about my traumatic reaction and the panic "I am being triggered here, it makes me want to disappear or never trust you and shut down emotionally forever."

If he can't respond with love and understanding, He doesn't deserve you or your devotion to the marriage.

It only hurts you in the end not to be honest now. Because this kind of stress is bad for your spirit and affects your mind, health, emotions.


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## HellCat (Jan 17, 2013)

I have been struggling with being pregnant realizing while I have a great family who lives on the property here in the deep south, despite their flaws. 

That my children will never meet my biological parents. Because grandpa is a psychopath and an actual cult leader up north and grandma is a narc bitch I sadly cannot get through an hour conversation without her insulting me for being disinterested in socializing, eccentric, and so on. Then I trigger and block her for a year or more. Then I unblock her, try a conversation, end up triggered. The cycle goes on. My mother once told me I existed only to be a plaything for men to stare at. 
That was one of her nicer rants. 

My grandma let it slip I was pregnant and she was worried about the traveling I do and my mother reassured her. The nicest thing my mother ever said about me, "I hope she manages to fly without any complications the whole time"

I am lucky to have very accepting, loving, generous so much so they seem like they belong in a book, film, future (in less than two weeks) inlaws. 

My future husband told them my story, because I told him in a novel you don't give a damn about a character without some kind of exposition. It worked. They heard my story and were determined to adopt me and so happy I am marrying him.

Sometimes we get really blessed after a Dickensian childhood.


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## John Coltrane (May 11, 2013)

LeoCat said:


> I am lucky to have very accepting, loving, generous so much so they seem like they belong in a book, film, future (in less than two weeks) inlaws.
> 
> My future husband told them my story, because I told him in a novel you don't give a damn about a character without some kind of exposition. It worked. They heard my story and were determined to adopt me and so happy I am marrying him.
> 
> Sometimes we get really blessed after a Dickensian childhood.


The final sentence really resounded with me, when you find a way out of the tunnel of abuse that your previous life was it's almost unbelievable to find yourself surrounded with pleasant people, so much so the seem they belong in fiction. Wishing you all the best.


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

John Coltrane said:


> The final sentence really resounded with me, when you find a way out of the tunnel of abuse that your previous life was it's almost unbelievable to find yourself surrounded with pleasant people, so much so they seem they belong in fiction. Wishing you all the best.


And sometimes hardships make us appreciate the small things so much more!


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## sunyata7 (May 2, 2015)

I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone dealing with a traumatic childhood due to a narcissistic/mentally ill parent. I heard someone I know talking about it, and I knew it would be a great book for me. It was one of the few books I read that made me feel like I was reading my own thoughts.

Amazon.com: Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation (Relational Perspectives Book Series) (9780415510257): Daniel Shaw: Books

It's a bit expensive though. I would hate to be responsible for someone's wasted money if it didn't help them.

I wish I could write my own story here, but my own childhood is too confusing. I could definitely write an account of it, but the way my personality expresses information is to be extremely exacting, and thus I'd write a long story that not only stated the details of my childhood, but also why I am expressing it the way I am, why I am confused even about what I write, and how I can probably never be certain of what happened to me outside of the fact that PTSD symptoms, dissociation, and a near-constant mental throbbing were part of my daily experience for most of my life until recently. My parents were not all bad, they were complex people, and their personalities were no less the result of their environment and upbringing than mine. So it's hard to identify strongly with "abuse victim" when there was little-to-no physical violence or tangible neglect. (The degree to which my subjective sense of identity and feeling were neglected is an entirely different story). I may have just written unintelligible sentences but am not going to check.


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## EndsOfTheEarth (Mar 14, 2015)

I only realised my parent was narcissistic this year. As a scapegoat child when I moved away from home I was basically forgotten as my parent focused all her energy on the golden children. It was only when I was forced to have some regular contact with her in the last few years that all the alarm bells went off. I had finally had enough separation to see her actions for what they were. And I realised also that my most recent romantic relationship and also my work environment mirror that dynamic perfectly. 

I actually think being a scapegoat is easier, because the parent allows you to disappear from the family without so much as noticing. In fact their not noticing is very much a planned thing, they wouldn't want you to think you are a part of the family or wanted or anything. But if you disappear long enough you do eventually get these little txt msgs and phone calls, not to see how you are, but as a way of shaking the chain to make sure you're still reactive.


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## Lotus8 (Feb 18, 2017)

Enxu said:


> Indeed, it is the least a mother can do, because SHE chose to give birth to you, not you. Its unfortunate to see how many parents share the mentality that because I gave birth to you, I have the right to do whatever I want with you. Its this entitlement mentality that propagates abuse.


This really hits home for me. Its so culturally ingrained in us that we MUST be grateful to our parents, but our mothers especially because they birthed us--as if this is only effort a mother should have to make to be called a decent parent. Its really hard to hear people say to me that I should be more grateful to my mother because of the latter; I honestly think some ppl don't realize that having terrific memories of your parents is not a truth universally known. Giving birth to a child just does not designate you automatically mother of the year. Sorry if this sounds like a rant--perhaps it is? :bored:


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## changos (Nov 21, 2011)

Lotus8 said:


> This really hits home for me. Its so culturally ingrained in us that we MUST be grateful to our parents, but our mothers especially because they birthed us--as if this is only effort a mother should have to make to be called a decent parent.


True



Lotus8 said:


> I honestly think some ppl don't realize that having terrific memories of your parents is not a truth universally known. Giving birth to a child just does not designate you automatically mother of the year. Sorry if this sounds like a rant--perhaps it is? :bored:


One can spend years with eyes closed. I was to some degree, but mostly I was thinking "poor mother, she suffered" and my vulnerability allowing some stuff was about being considered and not hurting her. Why? sadly in their teachings protecting yourself hurts them, and so every attempt you make to deal together on a cooperative basis and mutual understanding... ends up with the other party trying to force you to erase any healthy boundaries. Any dynamic you try to apply... "hurts them", even saying "please don't call me that way" is turned against you. As I read in some places... sadly all contact becomes dangerous and many paths end up on staying away, really away.

What confuses me and surprises me the most, is seeing in my family how some people can criticize their parents for something, and guess what? they are doing it too!!! (with their own children). Talking is useless but there are times when you see in their faces they notice you are right and they are lying to themselves, and then you watch how they decide to close their eyes again and deny everything.

I've seen people who are aware of this abuses, in fact THEY were the abused ones, and happily they are NOT doing this to others. Sadly some have a hard time considering having children. Me? I fit those two scenarios, but I'm happy that most of my personal model is based on my grandparents, not my mother.


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## Nadakan (Apr 6, 2017)

I believe both my Mother and Father have strong traits of Narcissism, and my Father is probably textbook. I've suspected my Mother being a narcissist but not in the classic way we know them to be. Instead she is passive to people with power, secretly wishing that she was powerful in the same way. Therefore she associates herself proudly with such folk. She feels that the only company she should be in is those of intellectuals and classical writers, and she has always chosen relationships with men who have a lot of money and status in the world. My father is the more classic case - overbearing, very controlling, violent, bullying, one-track mind, little to no empathy, harbours grandiose fantasies (he always wanted to be a famous superstar), and extreme self-absorbtion. 

I ended up living in my own little world as a result of the turmoil. I learnt a lot of traits from them, but I like to think that because I'm very intentionally and purposefully self-aware, that I will not totally go down that road. 

Yes, their treatment has impacted me in every way. I am almost always anxious and in my head, I find socializing difficult, and I am a lone wolf. I have got into relationships with people who have extreme depression because those are the people I felt most connected with. Still do to an extent. 

I decided to sever ties with my Mother. It has been about 4 years now and I am happier without her in my life. The same goes for my Father. I needed to sever ties in order to really feel the difference without their verbal and physical influences around me which were very strong and triggering. At this point, I would be happy not to speak to them again. I do not hate them, but I have no care to know them anymore.


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## onmyown23 (Apr 25, 2017)

I can't really add anything meaningful to this thread, but I wanted to say that all of your posts here are very interesting and made me think. Thank you all.


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## changos (Nov 21, 2011)

Nadakan said:


> I decided to sever ties with my Mother. It has been about 4 years now and I am happier without her in my life. The same goes for my Father. I needed to sever ties in order to really feel the difference without their verbal and physical influences around me which were very strong and triggering. At this point, I would be happy not to speak to them again. I do not hate them, but I have no care to know them anymore.


In most cases is not easy and it hurts, but it hurts less than staying in touch. Glad that you broke the circle.


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## atamagasuita (May 15, 2016)

I became stronger


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## Elephantality (Jan 20, 2017)

- When did you first understand that your parent is/was a narcissist?

A year or so ago. I knew before then, just not the word to define her. I realized she pretended to listen. She was very strict, and uncaring of my own needs. Both my parents have been dedicated to us in the terms of working for us and having a better future, cooking, etc. Yet, devoid of any emotional support or openness. 

- Do you believe that the experience impacted the type you became (MBTI, enneagram, etc).

Yes, I do. My mother used to always call me stupid, so I thought, then I'll become smarter to prove her wrong. It was sort of a spite thing. I'm a type 9 because I hate how my mom is strict and stubborn to the point I had to beg to go to a friends place. *BEG* 

- How did it impact your relationships as an adult?

I am not sure it really did. I feel like I coped pretty well with it, eventually. What happened as a result is that I would open up about my parents whenever under the influence. Usually, I keep it inside. I do not want to be my parents, at all. Yet I haven't had many girlfriends to really see if I have somehow become them. That is indeed a fear. 

- Did you resolve your personal issues that stemmed from growing up with a narcissist parent and if you feel you have, how?

No, I have not. I feel that I made the choices I did in my life to make up for the way was raised. For example, I was a loner by force, so I felt I need to get a lot of experience interacting in college to increase my social skills. I'm now finding myself. I always aim to improve, it is all I can do. I do not know why I am so overly positive, but I just am.

-----

Now, what I do is I try to ignore what my parents say. I continue to be myself. I cannot be myself with them. My mother and father would never accept my true self. So I must hide. I will never show myself. This is because I do want their love, and I do love them. They are my parents, and all I have. I will not turn my back on them, no matter how toxic and negative they can be. My mother constantly repeats the same issue over and over again. The only thing she has a legitimate concern with is school and work at the moment. That, I can as a rational person, understand the problem. I need to fix those, and I am working on those. Anything else, I ignore. Get a hair cut? I'll get one if I feel like it. I am indeed a type 9, and am open with many people. Yet I'm not going to cut my hair and accept that when it ins't me, when I have accepted that all my life. Each time it was always the same. "Please cut your hair for me." If I don't cut my hair it's "You're doing this to punish me, aren't you?" Usually, I'm not as open to someone who tries to control and belittle me at the same time. I am not comfortable with being a puppet to my mother. Yet, I might cut my hair in the future for my own reasons. I want to keep the peace and avoid discomfort. Yet, my mother will continue to ask that question regardless, so my best bet is to just ignore it. 

When it comes to things like finding work, she can get extreme. "Hey I expect you to find a job as soon as possible." I am like "Yeah no, I'll get it as soon as they call, I'm doing all I can on my own side." For example, I'm waiting on a call for a YMCA member service rep position. I'll be applying to others soon as well.


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## vhaydenlv (May 3, 2017)

I don't know about narcissism but my mother probably influenced my type. She had borderline personality disorder and probably was an INFJ. I don't remember well how I was as a kid, but i'm fairly sure I became a INFJ the moment I started assuming the role of her savior around the age of 12. It got definitive when she tried to kill herself in 2008, i was 16. Add to that an abusive boyfriend (he was the stereotypical ENTP gone bad) and my mom effectively ending herself in 2015, I quickly became a crippled INFJ getting typed INFP because C-PTSD keeps me from using my J.


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## drmiller100 (Dec 3, 2011)

I posted earlier in this thread. My mom is BPD. it can be trying growing up. I was into my 40's before I figured out coping mechanisms to accept it all and separate my problems from her's.


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## strawberryLola (Sep 19, 2010)

vhaydenlv said:


> I don't know about narcissism but my mother probably influenced my type. She had borderline personality disorder and probably was an INFJ. I don't remember well how I was as a kid, but i'm fairly sure I became a INFJ the moment I started assuming the role of her savior around the age of 12. It got definitive when she tried to kill herself in 2008, i was 16. Add to that an abusive boyfriend (he was the stereotypical ENTP gone bad) and my mom effectively ending herself in 2015, I quickly became a crippled INFJ getting typed INFP because C-PTSD keeps me from using my J.


My heart goes out to you. The trauma of losing your mom through suicide and watching her suffer through abusive relationships, and you consequently, as a survivor makes you a stronger person than you know.


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## dasos (May 6, 2017)

My stepdad was verbally and physically abusive, not sexually. He yelled at me alot, strangled me a few times, and treated me like a burden. Never built me up. He had mental issues and was a military vet and drank alot coming home from his discharge. I did eventually beat the crap out of him though. However, I have an extremely low self esteem now and i don't really feel man enough for anything. 

I guess i just need to realize i'm a grown man now and I'm no longer that little kid that he took his anger out on all those years.


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## Polexia (Apr 22, 2014)

dasos said:


> My stepdad was verbally and physically abusive, not sexually. He yelled at me alot, strangled me a few times, and treated me like a burden. Never built me up. He had mental issues and was a military vet and drank alot coming home from his discharge. I did eventually beat the crap out of him though. However, I have an extremely low self esteem now and i don't really feel man enough for anything.
> 
> I guess i just need to realize i'm a grown man now and I'm no longer that little kid that he took his anger out on all those years.


Sorry to hear that. Sounds like a really rough childhood. He sounds like he should be dropped in a dark pit somewhere. (If not physically, then figuratively). 

It takes time to build oneself up, it's worth the work though. 

Just the other day I had a moment where my mom said something horrible to me in a FaceTime call. (She was aiming to hurt me, stooped to a new low. Probably wanted to FaceTime so she could see my reaction). 

After the call I started to calculating my moves as if she does have power over me. As if I need to act a certain way to minimize damage done to myself. The way I used to when I lived in her house and before my younger siblings moved out. (So she wouldn't deny me access to them or them access to me). But then I realized: hey! She doesn't have that power unless I give it to her. I'm a grown woman. With my own life. I don't need her. I don't actually need her for anything. I live far enough away for her to never visit. I live far enough away to control our relationship to an extent I'm comfortable with. 

I hope you are able to build your self esteem though and to distance yourself from him and the pain of the past. (Not the way he has with drinking, but with processing it and coming to terms with the past in a way that is helpful to you). And that you take the power back and hold it for yourself. Building self esteem is a process, but you can absolutely do it.


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## dasos (May 6, 2017)

Thanks, I have my a good job, I'm in good shape, and I got a car so I guess I am pretty independent. Just gotta start my own business and I'm good to go.


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## Polexia (Apr 22, 2014)

dasos said:


> Thanks, I have my a good job, I'm in good shape, and I got a car so I guess I am pretty independent. Just gotta start my own business and I'm good to go.


That's good to hear!  

Personally, I find reminding myself that I'm not dependent on her helpful. Especially during periods where my self esteem is shitty. A low self esteem usually clouds things. Turns positives into negatives or overshadow the positive. 

But being independent, having a good job, being in good shape and having a car are all positives.


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## Krayfish (Nov 3, 2015)

*- When did you first understand that your parent is/was a narcissist?*
I figured it out late in middle school after researching it thoroughly and receiving confirmation from my mom that he was indeed a narcissist (or rather the explanation I provided with her resonated with the situation. He's never actually been "diagnosed" with NPD, but it's pretty easy to spot). I didn't have to deal with sexual abuse or physical abuse, more verbal. Also most of this wasn't centered on me, but rather the rest of my family (I'm sort of dense though, so maybe I'm wrong)

*- Do you believe that the experience impacted the type you became (MBTI, enneagram, etc).*
Possibly? Definitely with enneagram it had a huge effect because when I was younger I didn't understand the behavior my father was exhibiting and it was that behavior which lead me to do as much research as I have (enneagram type 5). 593 is known for being "tactful" and I'm sure there's a reason that's my tritype. It was really difficult to identify as ENFP because he is also an ENFP (heavy Ne-Te loop he has). I bet I'm a feeler because I had to help my mother throughout my childhood with her depression because his narcissism was so overwhelming (I don't know if I'd be as open minded or understanding of other feelings if not for that)

*- How did it impact your relationships as an adult?*
I'm still on the verge of adulthood, so this doesn't really apply, but it has definitely effected my friendships. I have difficulty forming relationships in general, and don't generally hold strong attachments with others I went to a psychologist for a short period of time (because of anxiety) and she suggested that the reason that I was so withholding from others or developed my social anxiety was because I was constantly trying to be tactful and distant around him, and it kind of just translated into a natural facade.

*- Did you resolve your personal issues that stemmed from growing up with a narcissist parent and is you feel you have, how?*
I'm working on it. I find that as long as you are aware of the problem, you can take steps to fix/resolve it. I still sort of suck with people and relationships are difficult, but by pushing myself into the open, I'm slowly developing as a person.

-* What were/are your personal coping mechanisms?*
Research. I'm the person who cannot deal with things if I can not explain them in a logical manner. I'm fine with the unknown and even unpredictability as long as I can logicalize it. Research helps, whether it is looking up his history to see why he is the way he is or looking up NPD to understand how it manifests.
Also, talking with him sometimes helps (which sounds weird). I figured out recently that his behavior stemmed from him being raised in a large family with attentive parents and another disorder which pushed him away from others and made him angry thirsty for attention. By giving him positive attention (ie. Listening to his ideas and pretending to care), he becomes far less aggressive and a bit easier to deal with.
Helping my mom with her depression also helps because it boosts my ego and makes me feel like I'm at least making a difference

*- What are the positive things that have come from the way you grew up?*
I'm good with others emotions
I'm strong, dissatatched, and pretty good with criticism/mean people
I'm good with bringing down angry people, assertive, and not too bad with conflict


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## drmiller100 (Dec 3, 2011)

Krayfish said:


> *- *
> -* What were/are your personal coping mechanisms?*
> Research. I'm the person who cannot deal with things if I can not explain them in a logical manner. I'm fine with the unknown and even unpredictability as long as I can logicalize it. Research helps,



fwiw, enneagram predicts a 5 will try to gain control of their world by understanding it. by researching it. 

This to me reads as a classic 5 response.


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## O_o (Oct 22, 2011)

Oh, this is an interesting thread. My father is narcissistic and oppositional. I'd love to read Ivanka Trump's response to this, lol. 

Physical: 
* *




It influenced me physically in ways; I've always been below normal in weight and, while never anorexic, I certainly fidget over how I look physically, including how I dress myself. I've been around 100 pounds since I was 15 years old (now 23) and it never fluctuates; if it did, he'd definitely be first to let me know. He gives my mom a hard time about it constantly. Alas, he still jokes about my bad posture, but I'd rather deal with that than jokes about looking "piggy".



Perks: 
* *




I think it's made me hypersensitive to irritation in others. I think I'm pretty decent at calming people down and mediating situations when I need to because that's typically been my role at home.



Coping and personality 
* *




When you look at my surroundings, I appear to have a lot of things in place; clean home, clean car, never used any drugs, nothing on my record, straight A's most of the time, Ivy league for grad school, I'm usually mellow and happy at home. And I am happy and fairly resilient, honestly. But I'm quick to focus on inadequacy and feeling like I need to do 'more'- I might be good academically, but I don't cook enough (dad has teased about it- though for him, 'intelligence' is king), I don't work enough, I should be doing this or that. That voice, which used to be external when I was younger, has been internalized and I don't need him for that role anymore. If I'm not as good at something, I focus on it to the point where I wonder whether I'm handicapped completely. It's a battle of strong feelings of competence and incompetence. I do believe that it has influenced my enneagram to a degree.



Relationships: 
* *




Possibly. My parents really love each other actually, they are perfectly happy and I've seen nothing but that. My mom is one sturdy woman who takes few things too seriously. But manipulation is a huge tool in my home and that took me a long time to recognize. I've been called emotionally manipulative in two of my relationships and, while both of them mentioned it not appearing malicious, it makes me uncomfortable because I don't notice much of it or when I'm doing it. 

Another influence may have been on my 'taste'; I cannot stand narcissism in men, it triggers a strong anger in me and I'll do anything to basically make you feel like cum if I sense too much of it. I've been attracted to a lot of men who are on the impersonal and intellectual side. I've liked two guys who had Aspergers. I find myself more comfortable with that. I don't treat my SO in any special way (it typically looks like we're just close friends on the outside). I'm uncomfortable with someone who I feel like "needs me" or loved me WAY too much; needs more intimacy, more texting, more x or y. You could go a week without talking to me for whatever reason and I'd be peach about it but I'd get pretty intimidated if, say, my SO sat me down and said "can you be more affectionate with me?" lol.


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## changos (Nov 21, 2011)

Krayfish said:


> *- How did it impact your relationships as an adult?*
> I'm still on the verge of adulthood, so this doesn't really apply, but it has definitely effected my friendships. I have difficulty forming relationships in general, and don't generally hold strong attachments with others I went to a psychologist for a short period of time (because of anxiety) and she suggested that the reason that I was so withholding from others or developed my social anxiety was because I was constantly trying to be tactful and distant around him, and it kind of just translated into a natural facade.


I can relate to that. Sometimes it takes time for us to see the consequences, and even so it will take more time to see the whole picture, it can take several repetitions until the dynamics become truly evident to us.



Krayfish said:


> -* What were/are your personal coping mechanisms?*
> Research. I'm the person who cannot deal with things if I can not explain them in a logical manner. I'm fine with the unknown and even unpredictability as long as I can logicalize it. Research helps, whether it is looking up his history to see why he is the way he is or looking up NPD to understand how it manifests.


I have researched a lot, also tried to explain people around me the problem (sure involving the protagonists) fact is most people (99%?) don't understand it/don't want to understand it/don't want to deal with it. I thought explaining my family what was happening was going to help... it only made things worse, they deny everything and when they don't deny it they are just hearing (not listening) with a defiant face expression.

I learned: understanding the situation helps (me), understanding where it begins helps (me), it is useful to identify the problem and walking away from it. This is me sharing: One of the worse problems I have faced is how my family expected me (and pushed me) to deal with anything and everything, sure with the things they were avoiding so it became my responsibility. The result is, when they have a problem (not MY problem) if I don't do a thing about it they tell me I'm running away from problems. The thing with narcissistic people is you slowly (very---slowly) learn the safest spot is just away from them. You can't talk to them, you can't reason with them, it is their way or their way.

After the many lessons learned, one in particular hurts me: wasted time. Wasted time researching more than neccessary, wasted time trying to explain in kind ways. Usually with narcissistic people... if there is any kind of problem: it will be projected on you, smashed on you and pushed on you, even if you are not the source of the problem.


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## Belzy (Aug 12, 2013)

It has impacted me _quite_ a lot,

And I am pretty sure it plays an essential role in me scoring 100% on both Perceiving and Turbulent, despite being INFJ.

And I actually think me being INFJ has made me even more vulnerable to narsisstic behavior, so the other way around I'd say... I am a highly sensitive person anyway, so that's no help either with having such parent.

Perhaps later I will answer the questions.

Basicly, it has messed me up big time.


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## kaleidoscope (Jan 19, 2012)

Saw this today, curious what people in this thread think: 

_You can't really define what "love" is for other people. Damn sometimes you can't even be sure you know what it is. Do you really love this guy/girl or do you just feel comfortable around them and are grateful for the way they make you feel? It's hard to define, and I'm sure N-parents, some of them at least, genuinely believe they love their children. They just use a different language to express it, - and they are incapable of seeing things outside of their own perspective. That's when the main difference becomes visible imo: normal people understand that your world doesn't revolve around them, and that your view of a situation might be different. N-types are incapable of seeing anything but themselves.

_
_Example: an N-mother sees her child crying just hours after she got her an expensive birthday gift which she's been saving for at the expense of her own needs and wants - a really selfless, gracious, loving gesture, and of course she expects the child to be grateful and happy. She really doesn't expect anything in return - but seeing as her child is upset - maybe for completely unrelated reason, maybe her tummy hurts, maybe she saw a sad cartoon or something - that's when the glitch happens. N-mother is completely convinced that the reason for her child's tears is directly related to her being unappreciative and selfish and spoiled, they expect a persistent direct connection between their good deeds and the constant acknowledgment, praise and immediate anticipatory fulfillment of their expectations. In short, you don't have the right to be unhappy, disagreeable or inconvenient in light of all the sacrifice they make for you - and the root of lies in their inability to see other people as real complex human beings with their own experiences and an independent way of thinking, something that is not a direct extension of themselves. You are not a person, you are a stage piece - a set of required functions and predictable traits to accommodate their view of themselves, to play into their fantasy of whatever "perfect life/child/spouse/etc." they have on that particular day. If the perfect idea changes tomorrow, and you're still trying to catch up - the precedents are completely forgotten and you're in the wrong again for not being able to accommodate their immediate expectations.

_
_We fall into a destructive pattern to try and defend ourselves and be the voice of reason, because we believe there is indeed a misunderstanding, and try to communicate - any normal person reacts this way to insane unreasonable accusations - but they don't hear the words, for them there's only two possibilities: you're either perfectly "good" <whatever> they want you to be at the moment, or you're against them and there's not one redeeming quality, no extenuating circumstances, nothing you can do to make them see the real situation. It's impossible because they do not experience reality - they live whatever reality is inside their heads, and there is NO way to penetrate this, to create a point of communication which will allow them to listen on your wavelength. They just don't get it, there's only their opinion or the wrong opinion - and "wrong" for someone as self-centered as a narc means intentionally malicious, personal, conniving, foul, yadayada, - and you're the main enemy._
_They don't do things for you, they do things to show how much they're doing for you - and yes they will sacrifice and go out of their way when it benefits their view of themselves. But it won't change the fact that they will never forgive you for having things in your life you care about that's not them. As long as you're around them you're not your own person, you're just a hostage to their moods, and their moods are their reality - you cannot win, you cannot make them understand you, and you cannot teach yourself to accept it and live with it because it's like teaching yourself to live without oxygen, - normal people with normal brains cannot survive that sort of thing without completely shutting down or finding a way to divert the narc's "attention" to somebody else. (and that's how enabler parents happen btw)_


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