Original content by Ashley Berges
What happens when you are raised by a narcissist or both parents are narcissists? What is the effect it has on your life as an adult?
The first impact is the indecision and second-guessing of yourself. As an adult that was a child of narcissistic parent, we are afraid of hurting someone by doing what is right for ourselves. We are trained to take care of the parents first. It is hard to consider your own needs because of the way we were brought up. We feel selfish and bad when we consider our needs. We get stuck because of indecision based on the fear of how it will impact other people. This all goes back to the idea as we were growing up our parent’s needs came first, not ours.
The second indication is gaslighting. When a narcissistic parent or parents are raising us, there is a tendency for them to gaslight us. We then internalize the gaslighting. This gaslighting causes us to doubt things we have seen, or what we have remembered.
As we were growing up our parents may have denied things that have happened, in the process of this denial they invalidate us, our truths, feelings, and the event. When we have learned to internalize this gaslighting, we might find ourselves in relationships now where we are being gaslit and internalizing that as well.
Another interesting thing about being raised by a narcissistic parent is that it can cause imposter syndrome. We can be the most educated and wisest person on the planet and still feel like an imposter when you are doing things. The imposter syndrome is that we do not feel like we deserve success. Being in an environment with narcissistic parents causes us to question, second guess, gaslight, walking on eggshells, which can all make us feel like we are not good enough.
Boundary setting feels impossible when narcissistic parents raise us. Setting boundaries as an adult may be almost impossible with narcissistic parents. Setting boundaries in other relationships may also be very difficult because of the way we were raised. We looked up to our parents as children, and if they did not have any boundaries with us and we were an extension of them, we were not taught about boundaries. Because of this when we try to put boundaries in place we feel bad and guilty for not giving in ad caring about their emotions. We keep giving until it hurts because that is what we have done our whole life.
Another effect is that we have focused on our parent’s needs our whole life. It was always about how we function around them and help them achieve their goals and emotions. As an adult when we find a relationship, often the other person has some similarities to our parents. It may feel as though we have married an extension of our parents.
Finding other people that are emotionally unavailable is another effect of having narcissistic parents. The reason for this is that the narcissistic parent was unavailable to us when we were growing up. When we had an issue or problem there was no one to nurture us, and we turned inside and turned the blame to ourselves. We internalized the blame.
We find other emotionally unavailable people because that is what we know. Unfortunately, this is unhealthy but it can be a slippery slope if you have been around an emotionally unavailable parent.
Insecure attachment and codependency are two more significant outcomes of growing up with narcissistic parents. The insecure attachment is because of the neglect that was involved. We become co-dependent in nature, which impacts us for the rest of our lives. It can also create someone super clingy and needy. We are trying to find the answers to the needs we have been seeking our entire lives.
On the flip side, we can be very independent, because we do not trust anybody. Our needs were not met as a child so we have a fear and create a wall. This is a product of being raised by someone who was not there and was emotionally absent.
Echoism is another effect of having narcissistic parents. An echoist fears being a narcissist, they do not want to be anything like their narcissistic parent. The echoist fears taking attention from the narcissist. This comes from being raised in a dynamic where a child wants to be as small as possible to avoid triggering the narcissistic parent. This may be something that we do in our current relationships, to avoid triggering our partners. This can be problematic, holding into our needs and wanting to avoid upsetting our partners in any way.
Being raised by a narcissistic parent or parents can cause us to focus on other people’s happiness and needs before our own. We are constantly trying to feed and help our partners rather than ourselves. Our needs come last which eventually causes resentment and anger.
Finally, when we are raised in this dynamic, we blame ourselves for certain outcomes. We blame ourselves for any problem because the other person is never to blame. The other person does not take responsibility and they do not apologize. As an adult, we must think about how often we are taking the blame for things that we have not done.
When a narcissistic parent or parents raise us, it affects our life. It affects us mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, and has long-lasting effects on us. As we begin to understand this, we can identify patterns in our life. We can begin to see choices that we have made based on being raised in this dynamic.
We can make changes, begin to speak up for ourselves, and begin to see where this has caused a breakdown in our life. When narcissistic parents raise us no one explained to us as children what was going on. It is important to recognize this and figure out what we can do as adults to get our needs met, to be more decisive, and more comfortable in our skin.
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