This is a question that clients often ask me. Having suffered for decades under the regime of a narcissistic parent, they discover, sometimes almost halfway through their lifetime, that their parent has had narcissist personality disorder (NPD) all along.
With the realization that the parent has NPD comes relief, shock, rage and sorrow. It is never easy to learn that one’s mother or father has the condition. This is especially true when the parent is the mother, as the mother is characteristically seen as the principal source of love and nurturance.
Of course, there is no true love and nurturance when one’s mother is a narcissist. Quite the opposite. And no-one comes away from experiencing life with a narcissistic parent without an array of emotional wounds and scars. This is completely normal and nothing to be ashamed of.
These scars are laid down in early childhood but it possible for a person with such a parent to not realize just how emotionally damaged they are until they reach adulthood and try to establish some independence from the NPD parent. This is one of the times when trouble starts between narcissistic parent and adult child.
Anther common time is when the adult child of a narcissistic parent becomes a parent themselves. Watching how their own parents relates (or fails to relate adequately) to the new infant can often brings back poignant memories of ones own emotionally impoverished childhood. Again, this is a time when realization and arguments break out between mother and daughter or father and son, or the corresponding relationships pairings.
So why does it take so long for the victims of narcissist to work out what is wrong? I must emphasize that it is not the fault of the adult child of the NPD parent. It is possible for a person to live out their entire lifetime, (and many have), without realizing that there is something profoundly wrong with their parent. What happens is that the parent has convinced the child and later, the adult child, that there is something profoundly wrong with them. This is how narcissists operate and they are often very successful at what they do, often convincing their children that they are at fault for everything that goes wrong in the parent’s life, that they are no good and that no matter what they do they can never please the parent or even “get it right”.
In our next article, we will discuss how narcissists achieve this.
Contact Beth McHugh for further assistance regarding this issue. You can also join a discussion on this particular topic by contacting Beth McHugh via her website
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