Narcissistic parents - does it ever get easier?

[Lottapianos]

My parents are both narcissists. I phoned them this evening and they told me the family dog died this week. They said she died in her sleep, on the same day she was born 14 years ago. She had no pain, was running around the garden happy as a clam the day before, they buried her in the garden blahblahblahblah......

I feel utterly devastated. Not because I loved the dog, although she was a sweet little thing. They treated her like shit her whole life - kept her in an outside shed, rarely walked her, didn't take her for all her injections, never bathed her. My mum actually told me years ago that she wished the dog would be run over so they didn't have to deal with her anymore. And now they are acting like she was a treasured family pet and it's such a sad loss.

I'm heartbroken because at times like this it brings home to me how deeply disordered they are emotionally, and how they live in a world full of denial, where facts are twisted and mis-remembered to make things easier for them. I feel like I don't have parents and have been sobbing for hours. I feel so empty

What it should 'bring home' is that parents are as fallible as any other human being.... not that you don't have parents. We all have faults and idiosyncrasies, like it or not. The dog story may be the tip of the iceberg or it could be a one-off. Either way you're an independent adult and not a child. You can therefore take your parents' behaviour and treat it as a personal tragedy as you are doing... or you can treat it as their personal quirk that's unlikely to change and which you don't allow to adversely affect your life.

i'm sorry about the dog. and i'm sorry for how your parents make you feel. it's very difficult isn't it.

can you cut contact with them? it doesn't really get easier, ime, until you do that.

the alternative is a lot of good, supportive, compassionate therapy with a focus on gaining coping and distancing skills. it's a hard path to walk but if you feel your relationship with your parents is worth the investment, it's worth it.

for me, i didn't feel it was worth it, so did no-contact instead. works for me and my family. it really is a huge relief.

Thanks oikopolis and I feared that would be the answer - it really doesn't get easier. I see a wonderful psychotherapist and she is helping me more than I can say. I guess when you grow up with weirdness and emotional abuse (in my case), it becomes 'normal' but still somehow not quite right. Then when you start to become more aware of their behaviour, sometimes you see so clearly how bizarre they are and it hurts. It hurts like hell I have seriously reduced contact but don't want to go for no contact. I may change my mind, we'll see.

Lot, can you share a bit your struggles, and what the psychotherapist says?

How do you know they a both narcissists, and what pushed you into therapy? I would love to hear your thoughts and your views.

I don't know how old you are, are you married yet?

it gets easier but only after you cut the cord and deal with a few months of backlash... after that, plain sailing.

Abitwobbly, I've been seeing a therapist for about 2 years now. I had done some internet research into neglectful/abusive parents and kept coming across narcissism. Something about it made sense to me but I had never heard of it and in typical EA survivor fashion, thought that couldn't possibly apply to my mum and that I was definitely over reacting!

In one of my therapy sessions, something came up about my parents having a lack of empathy. I mentioned to my therapist that I had read that this is one of the indicators of a narcissistic personality (among many others) and did she think this could apply to my mum. She said 'actually I would put both of your parents in that category'. It was a total thunderbolt moment - suddenly my mum's behaviour made some sort of sense, and I realised that my dad's behaviour is just as destructive as my mum's. Having looked even further into NPD, I can see how well it describes both my parents, and it has been massively helpful to me in feeling like less of a freak and a troublemaker. i see that the problem, the disorder, lies with them, and all I'm doing is trying to make sense of it. It also helped me to see myself as a separate person from my parents - something I continue to struggle with. I literallly have difficulty knowing what feelings are mine and what feelings are theirs. It's very unsettling and very painful but I'm getting there.

I'm 32, not married and have no plans to be, but have a wonderful DP who is hugely supportive through all this.

Feel free to PM me if you want more details or want to discuss this further

i think the pain you're feeling is the grief of separation. the grief is normal (most people feel it at certain points in childhood, and then in a biggish way in the teen years), but because your parents aren't normal, they don't offer you any comfort and perspective to help you deal with it and internalize it. this makes it feel worse. you probably tried not to feel it too much when you were a child, because you realised it would be "unsafe" to attempt to deal with those feelings (since you had no support, and asking for support might result in rejection or humiliation).

added to that, all of us have a "parent voice" that we internalize from our parents, it's part of our identity. we'll use that internal "parent" to help guide us when we have kids, or in your case to soothe yourself during a hard time.

but when your parents are abnormal, that means the "parent" that you internalize is equally abnormal. so if your parents never soothed you for example, that means you may need, quite literally, to learn how to do it from scratch. to teach yourself healthy things.
which can also magnify the pain during a difficult time. you've got to scramble up an emotional learning curve at a time when you need comfort and support.

i am rambling here but i'm doing it in hopes that you identify something from what i'm saying, and that you perhaps gain some comfort from knowing that millions of adult children of Ns experience similar feelings. and they get through them, and thrive at the end. i can't promise that this ^ is exactly how you feel, but it's certainly how i felt and i have friends who've experienced the same.

the pain is important. if you avoid it, you can't learn from it. i know that's cold comfort right now, but it will make sense in a few months when you've started to heal a bit in this area.

have some good long cries, drink sweet tea and cuddle OH. ask for support and take it. it will get better. x

Thank you so much oikopolis. It helps so much to know that other people are going through the same, or have been through it and survived! I actually said to my DP yesterday that I feel like I don't have any parents in an emotional sense, just two black holes where they should be. I get nothing positive from them, no support, but they think they are the most wonderful parents in the world This whole episode with the dog just reminds me how very surface they are, and how they try to adjust reality to fit in with the way they want to see things.

Your description of the 'parent voice' also makes so much sense to me. It really helps to know that other people have this too, albeit in a more healthy way! I've been made to feel my whole life like I'm not allowed to have feelings, and am a freak and a troublemaker for going against my parents. It's so very lonely at times but your words have really helped so thank you again

"I literallly have difficulty knowing what feelings are mine and what feelings are theirs. It's very unsettling and very painful but I'm getting there."

Bravo. THIS is the key. When you learn to own yourself and you own feelings, you will have triumphed.

But the difficulty is being around them. I remember it was like being sucked back into a spider's web of paralysis, where I would stop thinking. Then I would argue with myself and say 'you are just imagining things, they aren't so bad'.

I eventually like a lot of people here stopped contact.

The only other thing I can say to you, is you must give up ALL hope that they will ever hear or see you, or that they will change. They really, really are like this.

'I remember it was like being sucked back into a spider's web of paralysis, where I would stop thinking'

Oh how I can relate to that! I live in a different country and see them about 3 times a year, which is half as often as I used to see them. I have reduced phone contact to about once a month which I'm ok with. They rarely contact me and in the past 4 years, they have come to visit me once - I live in UK, they live in Ireland so hardly a round the world trip and both parents are fit and healthy. They just seem to see it as my job to play the 'good daughter' and do all the work in our relationship. I have felt less overwhelmed and less guilty since I reduced contact so it's working for me.

Thank you so much for your advice Abitwobblynow. I know they will never change and I'm letting go of the hope that things will get better - that's what hurts so much

PS my IC said: 'I have never heard a narcissist parent they are anything other than wonderful parents'.

I can imagine that's true Abitwobblynow! My dad in particular just loves to blather on about how very important me and my siblings are to them, how very precious we are to them. It's such utter tripe - it's just his idealised vision of himself as Father of the Year. When it comes to actually being there for us, dealing with us as adults, as complex messy demanding people sometimes, he can't do it.

Lot, my parents barely knew what year school I was in, let alone what the syllabus was, whether I was doing my homework, whether I needed help with my homework.
I was the kid who passionately wanted to go to boarding school. I instinctively KNEW that I needed the structure and routine that would give, rather than fending for myself (and failing) amongst two people so self-absorbed that they didn't notice that I needed new clothes because the old ones were too small, let alone whether I was happy. (And screamed at me at how much I cost them when I plucked up the courage to ask). Hell, they couldn't even be bothered when I was injured.

It is very hard to explain the abuse that occurs in this neglect. It is silent, and nobody notices.
Steve Biddulph (an australian) says that he has seen children thrive and happy in households that would be described as abusive (very strict, beatings etc.) He said that the key factor is the rules never change and the kids know where they are. My father's speciality was to ignore us, then give us endless pompous, pious lectures when our immaturity/lack of judgement got us into difficulties.

In a narcissist household, you are damned. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't. And the absolute worst thing about it, is you carry that timidity, passivity and not believing in yourself like a great shell on your back, right the way through life.

So well done for going into therapy and unlearning your invisibility.

Abitwobblynow, I'm so sorry to hear about your childhood and I hope you're proud of yourself for coming through it. I agree with your point about consistency - even if the rules are horrible, you know where you are if there are rules in place. My parents always have been terribly inconsistent so I have never known what to do to please them, nothing has ever been enough for them. Something that is not acceptable today could be acceptable and even expected tomorrow. It leaves you feeling very confused and scared.

So now I'm working on pleasing myself instead because at least I know what I want! So far it's been very rewarding