While not everyone realizes this, being raised by a narcissist, be it your mother or your father changes how you end up. I know, it’s not something we want to admit, but it is something we at some point have to come to terms with.
Children who have narcissistic parents usually get stuck in toxic patterns and in some cases struggle big time to break free from the grasp of their narcissistic parent. While letting go of this kind of thing and moving on to live a healthy normal life might sound simple, it’s not. Even after you think you’ve healed as much as you can and moved on, you may come to realize you’re still being affected in some ways.
Below, I am going to go over some ways that being raised by a narcissist changes a person. While not all of these things will apply to everyone if you were raised by a narcissist, I am sure you will resonate with some of them. Narcissistic parents are some of the worst you could possibly get stuck with. They refuse to allow you to be yourself, always feel the need to outdo you, leave you feeling trapped, and make you question whether or not they care at all.
10 Ways Being Raised By A Narcissist Changes A Person:
1. We find ourselves judging ourselves too deeply.
Because of how hard the narcissist in our life as we grew up would judge us, we too judge ourselves more than we should. We are always downplaying our accomplishments and making the worst out of the smallest things. Nothing is ever enough to make us feel like we’ve truly made it. The smallest mistakes leave us ready to beat ourselves up.
2. We do not know how to address our own emotions properly.
Those who experience a narcissistic parent usually struggle with their own emotions. They don’t know how to process things and as a result bottle more than they should. We as those exact people usually are quite reserved and refuse to let others see us down and out.
3. We never feel like any achievements we accomplish are ‘good enough.’
When you grow up with a narcissistic parent you never hear the words ‘good job’ or other things of the sort. Nothing you do is ever good enough, and we all grow up thinking this which leaves it burned into our minds. We are constantly trying to do more and be more, even without realizing it.
4. We don’t have much luck in letting others in.
Because we have gone through so much trying to let the narcissistic parent closest to us in, we don’t want to try with anyone else. They have hurt us to the point where opening up is not very much possible without a lot of work. This meaning we need to search within and do a lot of healing to get where we need to be.
5. We go out of our way to avoid confrontation.
Instead of being the kind of person who can handle confrontation, because of the things we went through growing up we avoid it like the plague. We don’t like to be talked down to, but we also don’t like having to stand up for ourselves. There is no real middle ground for us.
6. We don’t care if we’re letting our own needs fall through the cracks to please others.
We are very much people pleasers. We go out of our way to make sure everyone in our lives is as happy as possible, and usually that means our needs fall behind. We don’t care if we’re struggling as long as others are happy and content.
7. We have some seemingly toxic means of self-soothing.
Instead of using the proper means of coping we opt for the more toxic ones. We might drink, do drugs, shop when we don’t have money for it and other things of the sort. Sure, not all people with toxic parents do this, but if you’re facing an extreme narcissist usually you’ll do whatever it takes to get by emotionally, which for many means turning to some kind of unhealthy coping mechanism.
8. We don’t trust others easily and find it hard to share ‘personal things.’
Because we experienced so much toxicity at such a young age, we usually don’t like to share personal things with others. The narcissist in our lives usually used that kind of thing against us, and we don’t want to fall victim to that again. We do all we can to avoid those who put a smile on their face but still have bad intentions in their hearts.
9. We don’t know what it’s like to have a healthy relationship.
Having a healthy relationship is not something we know much about. Because we grew up seeing the things we did, our definition of love is quite skewed. We because of this struggle to fight and break free from a toxic romantic cycle that could end up becoming our truth.
10. We’re very much disconnected from who we truly are.
Because the narcissist in our lives would not let us be who we wanted to be and tried so hard to turn us into whomever he or she wanted us to be, we are quite disconnected. We don’t really know what we want or who we are. We have a lot of soul-searching to do even now.