Adult Children of Narcissists

Nora1978 wrote:She said: "One day when you were a little girl, he lifted you up in his arms and told us that you were evil and had the devil in you,"

She still tells that story. I wish I had the courage to ask her, why she let such a man near her daughter and why she sought him out to frighten me.

I look at my own precious kids and I can't imagine ever letting them feel such fear.

But...you know.. she was a fantastic mother and sacrificed all she had to raise us.

That's terrible.

I don't get how she was a fantastic mother? I really don't. She sounds like a terrible person.

"She loves to triangulate my sister and I. Luckily my sister and I, after wasting so many years disliking each other because of what my mom was telling us about each other, finally came together to compare notes, much to my mothers horror and she was still trying to tell my sister that I was jealous of her, and me that my sister was jealous of me, but once we compared and spoke to our therapists, we know now that we are ACONs."

Comparing notes several times as adults among my sibs made us realize that our undiagnosed NPD sister had been triangulating all of us. She sought to divide and break up her sibs, and the infighting while growing up was horrible. I'm thankful that I gently brought up several situations in which this sister's defense mechanisms, particularly the gaslighting, appeared repeatedly and asked who was telling the truth here? That's when we started comparing notes and understood that something didn't add up where she was concerned. It was an eye-opener.

Comparing notes is a such a common theme in this thread, no joke.

@svenne,

Fantastic mother? Sounded more like a sarcasm...

svenne wrote:But...you know.. she was a fantastic mother and sacrificed all she had to raise us.

that is what they tell you when they hurt you.
i am still not sure about anything.
is like some kind of twilight zone of hell. when someone hurts you and then he shifts his guilt and his shame into you and he feels like a noble person.
and you are a child and he is your parent and who are you going to trust and believe ,him or strangers. strangers are the enemies as he says.families has to stick together you are a traitor if you go with strangers.
is impossible for a child to not trust her father or parents. has no defence.
also you feel completely crazy and you are not sure about anything. what is the reality.

(i think i would had more emotional connection with someone who could admit what he did wrong,
there is no shame in making mistakes but there is shame in lacking empathy and putting your ego over everyone else like a coward .is more brave to face your mistakes than block any feeling of pain at the expense of others or your child)

realityhere wrote:@svenne,

Fantastic mother? Sounded more like a sarcasm...

Didn't get it... Makes sense though

"(i think i would had more emotional connection with someone who could admit what he did wrong,
there is no shame in making mistakes but there is shame in lacking empathy and putting your ego over everyone else like a coward .is more brave to face your mistakes than block any feeling of pain at the expense of others or your child)"

Hi julllia,

Shame is actually an emotion that some pwNPD do feel, when they become aware of their maladaptive behavior towards others. But for some pwNPD who are unaware, they repress it deeply and would never admit that they experience shame.

Shame plays a role in some pwNPD's early experiences as children when they suffer abuse whether in the form of actual physical/verbal abuse or neglect by a primary caregiver, usually a parent. They got blamed and shamed by none other than the parent who was supposed to be loving and supportive. As children, they repress the shame of being abused/blamed, and so shame comes full circle when as adults they in turn mistreat those who they perceive are reflecting badly on them, usually their own children. Their children in turn are made to feel they are responsible for polishing their parent's self-image. So, the apple sometimes doesn't fall far from the tree.

My mother was a wonderful and fantastic mother because she accepted me After I got pregnant at 14 and hurt her. Despite all her pain I caused her she stepped up and let me stay. This is her loving story of a mother in despair who saved her daughter, meanwhile I wouldn't have been in that situation had she not let a man sleep over while she was out teaching my cheating father a lessson by cheating herself. She never ever talks about my despair and pain, or how she didn't even know I was pregnant until I was 8 months because she didn't even look at or talk to me, unless it was about herself and her problems. After my son was born she made sure I lived my life to repay her, half my paychecks, my time if she needed it. If I went out and did something fun without her, she was suddenly sick or depressed. My entire life and all my success is because of her. As soon as I moved out and wasn't there to pay her bills and drive her around, I became "rich" and full of myself and cold and uncaring, not concerned with her suffering, after everything she did for me, just because I go on vacation without her, or to dinner with anyone or just have anything nice. I don't do anything for her. She says this to my sister or my dad or random people, but never to my face.

She is always reinventing herself and when she is jealous of something I did , she will say "the new me is going to not care and I am not going to not believe people when they say they are going to do something for me, because they always let me down. I always fall for it because I want to believe in people, but I am proven wrong all the time. The new me is not going to ask anyone for amything.

I am always on the other end of the phone thinking: who is she talking about? What the hell happened?
And it is something trivial, like my dad said he would take her to Home Depot and then had to work and she saw on fb that I went out with my mother in law.

It is crazy how people "hurt her" so much for just existing.

Thanks for sharing Nora. Your story really resonated with me on many levels. I'm the only child born to my parents and now they're retired, their selfish behaviour is peaking to an all new level and I'm currently undergoing a life transition after some major upheaval.

So many things to say and its quite hard to articulate the emotion one has when growing up with parents but forever feeling like an orphan.

I've come to realise only in these last few years exactly what I've been dealing with my entire life: A Narc Father & Co dependent Mother, who at the age of 73, is now so riddled with anxiety from years of critisim and gas lighting, she's displaying symptoms similar to that of a person living with dementia. She no longer retains short term memories, she's lost the ability to use a phone (and has NEVER used a mobile), microwave, TV remote etc. Her entire world revolves around my Dad and her two dogs who also walk all over her.

If not for my Father's excessive need to be constantly talking to people (only about himself), she'd be a recluse. She also doesn't understand what "anxiety" is despite doctors attempts to explain it. She's had panic attacks and puts it down to "being silly".

My Dad loves to tell people how spoilt I was as a kid.
His "go to" story is when he bought me a motorbike with his tac return one year. Granted, that was an unusually nice thing for him to do so its no wonder it sticks out to him. I only saw my Dad on weekends for the first 14 years as he worked nightshift. I now realise that was probably a blessing. I was put into daycare from the age of 6 weeks and went on to be a "latchkey kid", spending a lot of time alone, I was left to occupy myself and I spent my entire life in front of the TV.

Mum never cared for TV, she'd just sit in the chair behind me, not watching TV but just ..sitting there? We didnt really speak unless I was making conversation about the show I was watching. She never asked about my day or if I had homework...No discussions. Sometimes, I'd be watching TV and I'd hear a faint "Mmm" noise coming from her chair and I'd turn around, excitedly, to see what Mum was reacting to. Hoping she thought something was funny or interesting on the show I'd chosen. But it'd always turn out to be that she had fallen asleep and was just making a weird "sleep" noise. That always made me feel so alone.

My Mum left her husband and 4 kids to be with my Dad.
I've since learnt her husband was also a Narc.
My older siblings hated me when I was born, my sister being 18 at the time, accused me of "ignoring" her when I was aged 2 and decided I was a brat. I was extremely shy as a child and didn't interact well with adults or other kids At daycare and early school years, I simply observed other kids playing. I was in my head a lot and I was petrified of asking to go to the toilet so was often hiding my shame of "accidents".

When I was 5 or 6, a family friend of the neighbours next door took a shining to me. He seemed old to me at the time, in his 50's or 60's. I followed him around because he was the first adult to talk to me and ask me questions about myself. He'd do the odd "handyman" job around the neighbours house and one day he brought me a new bell for my bike. He later molested me in the neighbours lounge room, right in front of the front door. I can remember thinking in my 5 year old mind that what he was doing didn't feel 'right' but I was also embarrassed that my undies were likely 'dirty'.

I told my teenage brother what had happened and he told my parents. Their reaction was to tell me not to go near him again. He'd still visit next door regularly and whenever his van was parked out the front, I'd ride my bike past back and forth hoping he'd talk to me.
I guess I missed his friendship.
I never did speak to him again.


On my 28th birthday, my Parents took me to McDonalds for lunch. Dad told me very nonchalantly that I could have had brothers or sisters but they decided to abort. Mum wasn't too happy to discuss but Dad was excited to share this "secret". I made a conscious effort to act really casual and flippant as to not feed into my Dad's need to shock me. Out of their three pregnancies, I was the "lucky" one apparently. It was a twisted surprise to give someone on their birthday and since then I've always wondered if my overwhelming sense of loneliness was due to the fact that I wasn't meant to have been alone.

I never had to do chores. No curfews or rules. No responsibilites or expectations to live up to. When I got my period, I hid it for months and months, making do with what pads I could find in cupboards or construct from various materials just so I didn't have to approach my Mum. Its not as if she was mean. She was..a stranger.
I left school 14, worked full-time and went on to live a very independent lifestyle, asking nothing of my parents.
Empty and unsure of who I was, I turned to drugs and alcohol and lived as a high functioning addict. My parents moved back and forth from Australia to U.K and I saw them once every few months. Never spoke on the phone.
I partied up until my late 20's, married a fellow drug addict and maintained a $100k+ paying job in the Banking & Finance Industry (Complete opposite of who I am and what I believe in).

At the age of 32, after 10 years with the same employer,
I commenced a same sex relationship with a peer at my work who also happened to be sleeping with my boss's boss's boss. My husband found out and begged me to stop but I was in love with this person, who for the first time in my life, was able to understand and validate some of my deepest, darkest thoughts.

$#%^ hit the fan.
My life spiraled out of control and nothing has been the same since. During this time, I've done a lot of self healing and made attempts to reach out to my parents for support. I wrote an email once, pouring my heart out to them, hoping to get back some love only to get a one sentence response back saying "That's a long email"

Its pretty obvious that my only purpose for existing in this world, according to them, is to care for them in their old age. Its a strange feeling to know that but its a relief to be able to pinpoint what the dreaded, lonely feeling has been all my life. Its so hard to put into words the pain suffered from a non-event trauma rather than being able to detail a specific event, such as verbal or physical abuse.

I've got a long way yet before I'll be healthy. I'm still dealing with addiction, financial loss, a pending divorce and isolation from friends & family, not to mention my Dad who now calls me daily to tell me about all the stress and misery in his life, which is of course the complete opposite of his life. He has millions in the bank, just bought a brand new caravan, BMW and beach house.... Lol! I like to think though that even a normal person would need a bottle of wine to listen to that much #######4.

Good luck to all you peeps dealing with these crazy people. We might be hurt and suffering but at least we know what empathy feels like x

@myheadfelloff,

You may find more of the support you're looking for on the Friends & Significant Others forum. This is a forum for people who have, or suspect they have, narcissistic personality disorder.

Myheadfelloff wrote:Good luck to all you peeps dealing with these crazy people. We might be hurt and suffering but at least we know what empathy feels like x

A few of us are those crazy people, and we're sorting through our own issues.

Good luck to you.

I always feel weird when I read this topic since I'm a child of a narcissist too yet I can't relate to the experience of others that much. My father was treating my mother horribly and exploited everyone around us, all of us had to walk on eggshell around him so he wouldn't yell or throw things.

But. I feel like he was always fair to me (as fair as he could be), was not controlling in any way, always letting me make my own decisions, always payed for best schools, travels. I always knew how and when to speak to him and when it's best to keep silent and just stay away. I do think my parent's dysfunctional relationship scarred me for life and one part of me despises him for treating my mother the way he did, but if I only look at the relationship my father had with me, I can't really complain like most of people here. He was often not present, not engaged and cold, yes, but not toxic nor controlling (towards me), maybe I could be considered a "golden child". I don't know if my perception of him is a bit twisted. I do however have the need to keep my distance with him today, our contact is minimal, but I can't forget all the good things he's done.

Does anyone else have a similar experience with a narcissistic parent? Are all narcissistic parents controlling?

i have the similar problem. they weren't mean to me the way others describe. like in an obvious evil way. but they made me feel very unsafe . it took me too long to understand what lack of empathy means because of it. i also match the symptoms of children of narcissists . the abuse was not so obvious to me. maybe i believed the blame shift and was brainwashed in a way. maybe they were more kind than others that is why i didn't become myself completely narcissistic and hateful.
i know i felt unsafe and the blame shift. but what gives me bigger proof is the symptoms i have seem like i have been abused than actually remembering clear.
i remember for example i didn't want my father but i have no clue why consciously. for years i thought it was my fault.i wanted to avoid him for some unexplained reason i didn't get.but now i realized how he didn't have intimacy and what it means etc
i also lived with my aunt . i do not know who was worse from both. one had different negatives and different positives. i think i prefer my father because he was less annoying and gave me money but he left me to my aunt every once in a while when he screw up

edit : he wasn't controlling in annoying way. he was more in brainwashing way.he didn't felt controlling. maybe he was more aspd a little or overt more.my aunt was more bpd/npd.very annoying and contoling