Narcissistic mothers and fathers are on endless rampages to make their children ultra perfect. No little child can meet the “standards” of these highly disturbed parents. Sometimes there is only one narcissistic mother or father—-Other children are thrown into the impossible role of having duo raging narcissistic moms and dads. I have had heard from many of these adult children and the horror stories of their childhoods, at times Hitchockian, are chilling–and this is an understatement. An example of this is parents who believe their children should be pure and abstinent, with many crazy parents who lock their children’s cock with devices meant for adult use in order to keep their little ones pure and perfect.
Everything on the surface appears to be in absolute order. In many of these homes one would not find a spot of dirt, dust, particle of food, mud, smudge, grit, grim–even a grain of cereal, sand, rice or a small thin sample of one human hair. And speaking of human–these children grow up in a tidy, sterile inhumane environment.
On the outside, narcissistic mothers and fathers are often regaled as sterling examples of individuals and parents in their communities and the wider world. They are feted for their accomplishments, creativity, professional excellence, their moral bona fides. These individuals wear many convincing masks that fool entire worlds of people, including psychotherapists, teachers, physicians, neighbors, friends, professional associates. They are beyond judgment because of the perfection of their impeccably masked false selves.
In a society that is breeding narcissism faster than we can imagine, these individuals are raised up to the highest places in their societal groups. No one would ever know that in private they create a chronic horrific living nightmare for their infants, young children and adult children.
One of the toughest problems with these cruel, treacherous narcissistic parents is that the child who speaks up about the reality of his or her hidden frightening world is severely punished, demeaned, humiliated and threatened. “No one believes me” —-that is what I am often told by the victims of the narcissistic parents. “They think I am crazy, weak, deluded.” After a while some children come to believe that something is intrinsically wrong with them. This is so painful—like constantly screaming into a cyclone and feeling yourself being ripped away into oblivion.
Narcissistic parents are not affectionate with their children unless it is in front of a camera for a family portrait or on display at social events or church. There is no real hugging, holding or being soothed. These arms are hard and cool, even cold. The parental eyes show no feeling, depth, warmth or compassion. They are blank, menacing, judging and at times deeply threatening. Parental abuses take place in the imprisonment of the family home. While the physical arrangement can be very attractive and neat to the extreme, the emotional and psychological environment is hard edged, apprehension charged, waiting for the footfall that will strike fear in a child’s entire nervous system. These children never feel safe—Why would they? They aren’t and can never let down. There is no emotional and psychological space for private reveries, pleasant daydreams, flights of fancy. Night time is a special horror to these children. Alone in their rooms they are doubly fearful. They know that no matter how desperate or even how ill they are, they cannot call out to mom or dad because either they will be completely ignored or if the parent comes, a great loud storm will appear rather than a comforting mom or dad. Left alone, the child whimpers and cries for the parent who will never come to them in the time of their greatest need. Their fears increase and some children develop phobias, symptoms of post traumatic stress, anxiety disorders. On the surface, of course, they must morph into mother and father’s perfect little darlings.
As the years go by, children of narcissistic parents suffer horribly. Some of them learn to conceal and protect their true feelings and to wall off their precious authentic original selves. Other kids get the message that in order to survive they must play the roles assigned to them: scapegoat, golden child, forgotten child, unwanted child, stupid child, crazy kid.
I have spoken and communicated with many adult children of narcissistic parents who have survived these endless wars on their psyches, bodies, minds and spirits. Listening to these survivors is profound. I am deeply moved beyond words by their grit, strength, courage, creativity, compassion, insight and deep humanity. Many find their own pathways to healing and recovery. This is a long journey with many detours, switchbacks and roads less taken. Here they are—Deep affection, gratitude and joy to those who are on this path each day, moment by moment.
Thank you, I won’t go into my story, but just want to say that at 64 all this is making sense. I quit speaking to my parents last August. With the validation I get from your blog, I’m conquring the guilt that comes with that.
Of course, the accounts described in this recent post vary in degrees per household. We all know that some parents are more strict than others about their behaviors, expectations, disciplines… but what becomes baffling is when the parents talk about being loving, insist their children grow up reflecting the humility of being thankful for all they have and for what has been provided, only for those same children to reach a time in their future when the family image falls apart and the children now see their parents in a frail perspective.
What was thought to be love, can now be seen as “controling” with selfish motives. Certain punishments and disciplines can be viewed as unnecessary and unrelated to the cause, rather
seen as motivated by anger, resentment, jealousy, selfishness, or the insistence that such be maintained because that was the way they were treated in their family structure. In other words, those in authority are now showing resentment for having to trek through “mud puddles” and learn the hard way and “by golly” their children are going to have earn their way by walking through the same mud puddles!
Reality strikes again when the son or daughter goes off to a distant school, is put in a military academy, or studies at a university, only to discover that their parents don’t come see them or do they call as they promise. It is when the nighttime comes and the son or daughter feels abandoned — wondering where they went wrong or just wondering why no one seems to now care. This is when “gut-wrenching” tears can fall and one’s insides feel to be in knots.
The son or daughter discovers they aren’t really loved like they thought. The so-called “perfect family” is now showing that it has holes in its boat. What they may not know is that there may be a divorce brewing between their father and mother and they’re not considered to be in the typical circle of knowledge, anymore. As the uncertainty comes, so does the need to rely on beliefs that provide reality and identity. This is a time when some victims may turn to drugs or gangs, seek love in the wrong places, pursue intimacy or intimacies to fulfill the gaping love-gap. This now becomes a crucial time of life which causes one to react with wisdom and reason, or out of emotional bondage to become ensnared in other “false” relationships, only to repeat the vicious cycle of extreme highs and deep-rooted lows. This time can be the literal edge between life and death.
I was fortunate to have had a father-in-law at this crucial time who took me under his wing in a gentle fashion as to let me grow into manhood. He didn’t order or insist, but would tell me I could make my choice, which he did at one time, but that he figured the consequences wouldn’t be favorable for reasons he gave — but, I could do as I pleased. He allowed me to see where I was headed by my choices, but gave me the freedom to choose, without holding any grudges for my mistakes. I later learned that his father died when he was only twelve years old and he had to find ways to help support his mother. He was forced to learn about life a much harder way than I was, but he was gracious and insightful enough to offer me his guidance and wisdom that helped me see my life and past family with reality.
In summary, for those of you who feel abandoned, have been left to fend for yourselves without anyone you can depend on, I can only urge you to approach life with wisdom. There’s an old saying “What goes around comes around”. We can choose to do good or evil, but whatever we choose will produce consequences. Choosing to do good over evil typically returns in our favor rather than being detrimental. Treating others as we wish to be treated is the best advice I ever received, and I live by that “Golden Rule” every day — but, the freedom as was given to me, is a right given to us all, to make our own decisions. There is a God who loves us all and who outclasses any narcissist. It is written that God is the beginning of wisdom, understanding, and our true identity. May we all seek and find relief and happiness in our travels through our hope and faith. These words are offered as a testimony and a guide for others’, not intended as a sermon or proselytizing.
Thank you very, very, very much!
Oh, God, how sick and tired I am of narcissists. They invade our families, our community, and our politics. They are our world “leaders,” our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, actors, presidents, bosses, librarians, psychotherapists, and veterinarians. No need to catalogue; they are everywhere.
The agenda of the narcissist is to kill Christ, because the narcissist IS Christ, and, there must be no boys and girls before the narcissist. I believe the narcissist is born a narcissist, and that the parents, whether both or one is narcissist as well, are but accessories in the high crimes and misdemeanors of these pathetic souls.
What Linda writes this time brings back memories for me, from first to fourth grades, when I habitually cried myself to sleep because life seemed like the most cruel of satires. Only God can lead us out of this and it is our suffering that we must be grateful for, even to thanking the narcissists in our lives who have caused and cost us so much misery and time that we can not begin, at times, to fathom what it will take to pull the weeds of hatred and resentment from our hearts long enough to let them whither and die in the strength and light of the sun. But this is how it happens, and I promise everyone reading the words written about the pathology of the narcissist, whether your mother, father, president, candidate, husband, brother, sister, priest, pope, daughter or son (notice I don’t say dog or cat) that their weakness and perversion will never be able to overcome, contrary to what things appear to be for you now, the strength, truth, beauty, and ultimate reality of God and the way that points to his Truth. The needle of the compass points to the North and there is no force that can ever change that, and such is the Truth, the absolute and ultimate Truth of the real Church, not the diluted, lukewarm Christians who have one foot on the grave and the other on a banana peel, to see the light of day and to be so determined to heal and want that so badly that nothing ever again will get in their way.
Forget the evil doings of the narcissists in your life. Our political arena is so filled with narcissism that we are headed toward the apocalypse if we fail to take responsibility for ourselves, and fail to love ourselves enough to set boundaries in healthy ways. Highly recommended: “Boundaries” by Henry Cloud.
As a child, from the first through the end of third grades, I cried myself to sleep every night, without fail. I remember one night my mother coming into the room. Her exact words: “You crazy sonofabitch. You’re keeping everybody in the house up.” Yet this was the same mother who stood by while her husband beat the daylights out of her little girls, who couldn’t get out of bed to bring her little girl to the potty in the middle of the night and instead trusted her sick husband to do the job—who had been abused herself as a child so had no idea what it meant to protect an inner child from the ravages of the narcissist who is always on the prowl for his or her gratification and validation of evil.
After she died, my father took up with the most hideous of narcissists who, as Linda points out, hides behind the rock of “church secretary” and, who has so exploited her own children that her own daughter has tried committing suicide four times. These are the people, like our politicians, who seem to have the world on a string, yet their misery now and then surfaces, and sooner or later, justice is served. Why else do we think that our modern culture is doing all it can to kill Christianity and our ability to use our imaginations? So we can allow them to be the supreme beings and have complete rule and authority over our lives? This is what we are paying tuition for, dear folks, and this is what we are electing into public office, because we have been duped into believing that humans, not God, are the saviors.
Yes, as Stan says, there is indeed a God who loves us all, but WE yield to GOD. God does not yield to us. Anyone involved with a narcissist, no matter who they are, has no choice but to separate as soon as possible and to find connection to God. Otherwise you are prisoner until you find out who God truly is, and God is not your abuser. The abuser poses as God, as your savior—-oh, you, codependent, too broken, frail, to see the truth just yet, so addicted to your misery that you sell out over and over again until the day comes that it is more painful to stay addicted than it is to yield to God. Then and only then will you begin to see the light and know what it is to heal. Frightening though it is, you will be provided for, and that is the promise that we, collectively, are too cowardly and arrogant to honor. So we dwell in misery allowing Satan and his legion of narcissists to destroy our lives.
There are a couple of issues I can not find a salve for. I left home at sixteen after torture, sexual abuse, isolation, deprivation, punishment with silence and sadistic inhumane beatings, punishments, psychological tortures, food withholding. I was the scapegoat to an old “plantation owner” and I was her hated slave to be flogged, burned, beaten, scarred, abandoned, disowned, told that she wished I’d never been born. She bragged about how as a two year old she taught me not to bite by biting me until I bled. She killed off my father at 49 and a stepfather with her indefatigable capacity to soul rape so efficiently.
I’ve learned mindfulness in the 70s and sitting meditation/yoga. They are wonderful coping mechanisms to calm the mind. They were and are the best tools out there.
I’ve learned enough through 40 years of therapy, self help, philosophy, psychiatry, and recovery to have been high functioning most of the time throughout my career. But there are two issues no one has efficiently discussed.
When one has a narcissistic mother she does not have the capacity to give you that primary, all important mother child unconditional love bond. That is something you can never replace or recover from, at least I haven’t yet. An infant needs affection, touching, warmth, safety, attention, deep unconditional love. Neural pathways are not developed, normal timy brain processes are dwarfed. Without those primal needs the true damage is almost unfathomable, irreparable. I am one of thirty percent of Complex PTSD sufferers that continue to suffer debilitating symptoms fifty percent of the time despite therapies and medications available to date.
How do you replace this hole? How does one reconcile not being loved at birth? I have a recurring dissociation and flashback where I can see my infant self rejected by my mother and her tossing me into a black trash bag.The last words she spoke to me after I tried seriously to kill myself and turned to her for comfort/love were I am embarrassed by you, i don’t respect you, I am not proud of you, you are controversial, I don’t like you and you have always been a bad girl. I did not go to her bedside four months later when she died.
For forty five years i have been practicing mindfulness, loving kindness, buddhist philosophy, yoga, meditation, using creativity and writing. But I can not fill that hole where the safety and self-empowering unconditional love should be. Only a mother can give you that developmental necessity to grow healthy synapse and neural connections.
How is this healed if all the prescribed methods have been used for forty years and only diminished the suffering, not healed? I know about the inner child and the inner adult backward and forward. Does anyone have an answer for this specific open wound?
I can’t stop the flashbacks and emotional breakdowns after sixty one years and forty five years of therapy. I want to zap it out of me. It is persistent and debilitating. i am exhausted with it. I am actually on full disability because I’ve become so low functioning.
I know I did not ask or deserve what happened to me. None of us did. I spent my adult life facing trauma and dysfunction and relearning behavior that would not pass on what i had experienced.
I’ve heard of trials using MDMA have been very successful for relieving the deep suffering that I and others experience as a consequence of narcissistic parent/mother. I feel like it’s my last hope. Unless someone can address the way to file that hole of not being loved. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Comfort,
MDMA will take you on a detour that may be too expensive. We need to do whatever it takes to care for ourselves in a way that is healthy and for our highest good. Look for ecstasy that is enduring and authentic. It is not unusual to be willing to try anything to “zap” the pain out of us once and for all, but it doesn’t seem to work that way.
Our culture throws rotten tomatoes at God, Christianity, Jesus Christ—because we do not live in a culture that encourages our ability to wonder, and to use our imagination to fathom the supernatural, and what it means to carry our cross, which is not something we grasp overnight. Perhaps we don’t even grasp all of it in a lifetime unless we become saints, but having the focus of the mysteries surrounding the life of Christ put our suffering in proper perspective.
I personally believe that we are blessed when we can no longer bear the suffering.Things get better, little by little, even when things seem to be getting worse as long as we have the determination to “keep the Faith.” It is very simple, but not easy. We keep reminding ourselves of what it means to have no other gods before God. Think of all that we allow to become gods, whether our finances, our pain, our abusers, our memories, our longings and desires, our addictions, etc.
If there is anything that will zap the pain and restore the emptiness inside, God is the answer. What have you got to lose by giving God a chance? Be willing to surrender all of your pain to God, which is the gift he asks of you. Is anything more important than your joy? Then why let anything get in the way of your healing?
Comfort,
I concur with you wholeheartedly and have the same experience myself. My feeling is that it’s never going to heal completely. This doesn’t mean we can’t have a good life, or that we are absolved from the responsibility to try to have a good life. It sounds like you’ve done everything right in your healing, and no — it’s not your fault that this horrible deficit persists.
I was raised in the Christian tradition but also know that in the absence of loving parents, there is not likely going to be a personal, healing relationship with a loving God. Sorry to all those who feel a need to evangelize, but that primary experience of unconditional love from a parent is also a necessary precursor to being able to personally relate to a loving God. We can still believe in God, and many of us do, but it’s too much of a jump for us to the “Jesus is the answer to everything” bandwagon. If God were really so loving and so powerful, why the hell didn’t God save us from the hell of our childhood. As I personally have aged, I have come to believe that God is still good, but God can’t do all the good that needs to be done, hence the suffering that remains in our world. God can’t, or surely God would have prevented what we suffered as children. Just my opinion.
So for me personally the answer lies more in trying to experience good, and do good for myself and others, every day. By good, I mean things that are beautiful, thoughtful, kind, generous, sometimes even extravagant. I try to treat myself and others as I should have been treated all along. And, it still hurts that I don’t seem to have that psychic gear on my gearshift that corresponds to “secure, positive self-image from loving parents”. It’s never going to be there. I have to drive my car without it, and hope that life will still be good enough.
I wish you the best, Comfort, and please know that there are many others who feel as you do, and struggle with that particular hole in our souls. I hope that God will be with you in a tangible way, in love that you find in your path. But if not, I hope you stay on the path anyway and treat yourself as you should have always been treated.
to comfort…. i understand the hole and the emptiness….i am there with a mother as well… a mother who has all the money all the power and no heart… i have been learning more about why i am who i am and what just happened to me for the last 60 years … my mother now has dementia and it is even worse.. she makes joan crawford look like a rank amateur…. so i do know your pain… day by day … i really believe i will never fully heal until she is dead…all i can tell you is you are not alone.. maybe you can take some comfort in that… take care
Comfort,
I too had an “absent mother” due to a chronic illness, that wasn’t her fault. I know the empty feeling that you are experiencing for I too always felt invisible and neglected by my family of origin. While my Dad was a kind and gentle man, he had 4 children and a sick wife to attend to, and knew not how to be demonstrative with hugs/kisses/and affirming words. Sometimes, on rare occasions, he would compliment me, but mostly, I had only myself, to depend on.
After leaving home at age 18, my healing came, in un-expected ways…..by forming friendships with older women, who served as my mentors. While they didn’t completely fill my void, they certainly patched a few cracks.
Recently, (in November) my father passed away. My mother has been gone for 10 years now. Having both parents gone is very sobering and sad, to say the least. The mantle has been passed to me, I am now the matriarch of the family and am now considered a “mature adult”. since I am no longer someone’s “kid”.
In a parodoxical way, this is what happens to narcissist’s children…..they have no (or maybe 1 parent) that is there for them. That “lost” feeling is always present…..especially during special celebrations and holidays, when you see your peers receiving ongoing love/ help/support from their parents.
My advice to you is to join a Church and to reach out to older women in your immediate circle. You would be surprised at how many parents get neglected/ignored by their own children, these days. We live in a culture where being a “victim” serves adult children well, especially if they don’t want to work on their relationships with their parents. Sometimes, their absence is warranted….especially if you come to realize that they, themselves are narcissistics whom drove their own children away.
The biggest “salve” has been my husband, my rock. I choose to put him first, above any of my siblings/and family of origin after reading a statement that really made me think about my priorities! The saying went something like this: INVEST most of your time/talents/love into the person(s) that matter the most! Everyone else, give out of your excess….if there is any excess, left!
So many times, we go to empty wells in our family of origin, hoping there will be fresh, inviting water for us, only to find sparse drops or contaminated water! Instead of going to wells that we know are polluted (or limited), go to a well that always yields a good return. This “refreshing well” could be a close friend/neighbor/church member, if you don’t have a spouse or significant other, who is your well!
Lastly, don’t MAKE ROOM in your heart for people who have never bothered to take up residence there (by their own choice)! Just because a family member is “blood” or an “in-law”, doesn’t quarantee that they will have your best interest in mind!!!! Often times, jealousy, competition, selfishness, and old habits PREVENT them from loving you un-conditionally and WITHOUT selfish motives!
Once, I took hold of this truth……I am able to compartmentalize who gets my pearls and who gets my pennies!
I hope my response helps~
I finally broke free of NM and GC brother. I left my NM standing outside the hospital before her knee surgery, and I don’t care. She was is prime needy/manipulative mode, and I snapped. I dropped her suitcase and walked away. Very symbolic as well as cathartic. I crave peace and sanity.I cannot accept her behavior any longer. I was not allowed to be myself. I was not allowed to be a child. My GC brother is willing to endure anything in order ti inherit her house. I am not
Amen
Amen, thank you I wanted to reply that the only answer lies in Christ, we will be empty for eternity without Him its the truth you cannot avoid it!
We speak from walking the same path and through the experience and lessons, through the heartache, pain, loss of identity, void, drugs and confusion! God truly is that fulfilment you seek.
I know this man. He is the father of my children. The professionals blame the child stating “she’s manipulative”. How do I help her? Who will listen? Who will care?
My only thoughts would be to strive for self acceptance and self love as you are now. However you are, it is good enough. Focus on what you have and your strengths and don’t dwell on your deficits and what can never be changed. I suspect you have changed and grown tremendously. Let that be good enough. Now give your love to the world in whatever unique form that takes. Do things you love. Find things you are passionate about. There are a million options. Find people or groups that you are united with in a common cause. Live your life and share all the love you have in you despite your childhood.
I have worked hard to learn to self-love. Its a lonely place, but I think I have managed it. Now, I am in my fifties and can truthfully say it is only now that I am beginning to ‘miss’ what I never had and I don’t like that feeling. Having emerged from my third breakdown, one that profoundly changed me and brought me to zero tolerance of being manipulated – I sent the GC an email today telling him I respect him and wish him well but ‘enough already’ on contacting me when directed by the NM (he congratulated me on getting a place in uni to do my masters – news I received two months ago) – NM was horrible about it, but I didn’t react and that drives her crazy so now she has begun a new campaign to reel me in. The GC responded with ‘You’ve had a difficult time, I hope you find the peace you need. I don’t know what you are talking about’. I have had thoughts about what I will do when the NM dies – that I won’t attend her funeral. I thought I was being mean and unChristian. But reading everyone’s post here, I feel better. Has anyone here had a relationship that was micro-managed via the NM? and did you successfully go NC with FOO? Thanks. Feeling really isolated and not heard right now.
Thankyou for that..I totally agree…Sha
A Little Lost….Yes, narcissists will use any means possible (including siblings/friends/acquaintances/bosses; etc.) to reel you back in to their grip. One such NM, called her daughter’s place of employment, gave a sob story, and got her new address!!! They are very crafty in how they hunt down their prey.
Your GC, brother could NEVER possibly understand (or know where your are coming from) because he has probably received better treatment, than you have!!! Golden Children do however receive pain/shame, when they don’t live up to the narcissist parent’s expectations or explicit requests!
I read something in the Bible the other day that hit me like a ton of bricks!!!! Luke 4:14-30 tells about when Jesus went back to his home town (Nazareth) to preach and how the townspeople became angry with him and wanted to kill him by throwing him off a cliff! Even his own brothers rejected him! Jesus was able to avoid death by disappearing, into the crowd.
We also, can avoid “psychological death” by disappearing from people who want to harm us! Small children and animals can sense who is loving/kind/helpful/good versus those who are hateful/mean/evil/harmful! Trusting your “inner child” and purposefully removing yourself from harmful people (relatives included) is not only wise, but necessary for self-perseverance!
You can always wish them “well” from a distance and pray for them, that God would pierce their heart(s) with truth and conviction! Other than that, there is nothing else you can do expect to live you life by your own convictions and standards!!!! Children come through parents, not “to them” to be used/abused and mistreated!!!! Narcissistic parents regard their children as extensions of themselves, never allowing their child(ren) their own identity!!! Anything good that you get for yourself, they will be waiting anxiously to rob it from you in the form of shame/blame/pain/disdain/or manipulation!
Remember this: Their wretched behavior has NOTHING to do with you!!!! They are equal opportunity offenders! If they can’t wrangle your in their clutches, they will find other victims! They continually need victims to provide them RESOURCES for their warped appetites and satisfaction!
Dear Comfort, my heart goes out to you as tears run down my face in reading your story. I too once felt that open dark empty hole in the center of my being; nothing could ever fill it…no man, lover, boyfriend, or spouse; a successful career; no drugs, alcohol, shopping, or food. I do know the answer to your question on how to fill that hole, to completely fill it even until it runs over like Niagara Falls!!! I will tell you the truth and there’s only one true truth and it is Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior. You just believe in Him, say yes to Him and He will fill you with His amazing, miraculous, never ending, unconditional, everlasting love!!! His love will fill you up and overflow out of you and onto those around you! There are not enough words nor the best description to describe His love. That is the true answer to your question. Jesus Christ is the son of God, and came down to earth to save it, not to condemn it. He suffered greatly and was hung on a cross to die for all of our sins. In 3 days, He rose from the dead and now sits at the right hand of our Father, God the Father. He paid the price for our sins. The penalty for sin is death, and Jesus paid that price for all humanity. So your sins are already forgiven because of what Jesus did. All you need to do is believe in Jesus and say yes to Him. He’s waiting to hear from you; He will not force Himself on you; He gave you free will to make your own decision, to follow Him or to follow Satin. Another fact, or truth is that right now if you are not saved (do not believe in Christ) you are already following or serving the devil. You can ask Jesus right now to be your Lord and Savior, He accepts you as you are right now, just say yes to Him. He will hear you and fill you with His Holy Spirit and you will be saved. You will feel His indescribable love. Make your decision for Christ now, because when you die, it will be too late and you will end up spending eternity in hell separated from God. So get your one way ticket to heaven now, just surrender yourself to Him and pray this prayer now: “Jesus, I come before you now, a sinner, I believe that you died on the cross for my sins, and I ask you to be my Lord and Savior. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.” I pray that you just gave yourself to Christ:) Get yourself a holy bible and I suggest to start reading in the book of John which tells about Jesus. May the Lord bless you.
Thank you for the sensible critique. Me & myneighbor were just preparing to do a tiny research about this.We got a book from our local library in spite of this I think I learned better from this post.I’m very glad to see such fissa-cltrs info being shared freely out there.
Sometimesmwhen I read things like this, I am struck with a fear that you are describing me…being raised by a narcissist, I do have some qualities, and sincee I raised my 2 children by myself after divorcing my narrisistic husband, I did run my household with a very controlling manner, I think it was all I felt I could control, I do have a tendency to try to control certain things because so much of my life is out of control. ? My house was kept clean and organized, I worked as a Hotel manager working an average of 70 hrs a week, the only way I could keep on top of things was to have some sort of order….and I fear the damage I may have done to my children. I did love them and cuddle them, and always touched them a lot. Hugs out of nowhere, and laughing and playing with them…so I know I wasnt a true control frek, but still….