Letter to express my feelings about Narcissistic Parenting (TW possible)

[Hope67]

Dear FOO,
This is a letter I won't be sending you - but I want to express some of my feelings, and I'm taking the structure of an article that Karyl McBride wrote entitled "How Narcissitic Parenting Affects Children" and I'm going to write my replies to the points - I think it will help me to get my feelings out.

* The child won't feel heard or seen
I relate so much to this - it's like I was there, but no one heard or saw me - unless I was doing something 'for you'. 

* The child's feelings and reality will not be acknowledged.
You couldn't allow me any feelings that didn't conform with the world view as you saw it - I felt like I had to shut down my feelings, and go into my own little world - you lied about so many aspects of our family life - and my own reality wasn't acknowledged - it was all about your own.  But you weren't even true to your own feelings - it was a warped and toxic environment.  Maybe we all dissociated and went into our own realities.  I don't know.  But I was a child, and I needed to have my feelings and reality acknowledged - so the fact it wasn't - it wasn't right.

* The child will be treated like an accessory to the parent, rather than a person.
Sometimes I felt as if you liked to 'show me off' in social situations - because I might have sounded cute or said cute things - and that was like showing off my cuteness - and I do remember those times - you allowed me to shine in those situations - but I didn't feel as if you regarded me as a person at all - it was like I was there - and you had other things that were more important.

*The child will not learn to identify or trust their own feelings and will grow up with crippling self-doubt.
I relate so much to this - I find it hard to know what I'm thinking or feeling, I am beginning to make progress in learning about these things - decades later - and I can make some decisions, but the longer I leave the decision making process, the harder it becomes, and then I procrastinate and end up feeling as if I'm stuck - unable to choose - and this can be in the most simplest of situations - which makes it quite debilitating.  It depends which of my fragmented parts is 'in control' at the time, though - as sometimes I can spontaneously 'choose' - and that feels liberating, when that happens.

* The child will be taught that how they look is more important than how they feel.
I used to feel that any blemish on my body was ugly - I used to pick at a mole on my leg because it wasn't perfectly shaped - I used to make it bleed.  I felt like I had to be perfect in how I looked, and I felt the pressure from you to be this way.  As if it mattered more how I looked, than how I felt or was.  Like I was a china doll in some ways.  Hollow, but perfect to look at. 

*The child will be fearful of being real, and will instead be taught that image is more important than authenticity
I value authenticity more than image - I am thankful that I feel this way - that I've been able to see beyond the perfection you wanted to portray, and see behind the horrible way you used to treat people - and still do.  But I do feel as if my experience of life isn't 'real' because I am often dissociated and experiencing some depersonalisation too.  So my self feels as if it's unreal sometimes. 

*The child will be taught to keep secrets to protect the parent and the family.
I did this constantly throughout my childhood and also into much of my adulthood - I preserved the perfect image you wanted to portray of us being a cohesive and loving family - close and respectful of one another.  But this was just NOT TRUE - we were toxic, dysfunctional, and the air was hard to breathe in the end.  That 'politeness' became a mask - as underneath there were masses of secrets.

*The child will not be encouraged to develop their own sense of self.
I tried - but each time I reached out, there would be times that you'd knock me back, or undermine my confidence, and get me back in the box that you wanted me to be in.  You didn't want me to develop a true sense of self - you couldn't allow that - because you needed me to be self-deprecating and be there to serve you, and your needs.  To the detriment of my own self.    Each of my inner selves have tried to develop - at different rates, but many of us are stuck, and consequently we don't have an integral sense of 'self' - we are many contrasting selves.  But what I will say is that we are beginning to understand and recognise each other, and we are banding together to hopefully integrate and learn to get along toghether.  We feel stronger in that process.

*The child will feel emotionally empty and not nurtured.
I can't remember you hugging me, or comforting me - I didn't feel nurtured - I felt like you were a wire mother - and that you were an abusive father - and yes, I felt a void emotionally - I tried to fill it - in various ways, but I never received nurturing care from you.

* The child will learn not to trust others.
I wanted to trust others, but you always told me that people were 'not to be trusted' and you kept giving me these messages throughout - but there was a part of my spirit and being that wanted to see the good in people, and I still do - I believe there are good people out there, but sadly the people I should have been able to rely on - my FOO - they weren't the good ones, they were damaged and untrusting of society and you tried to extend that belief to me - there is a part of me that doesn't trust others, and keeps me separate in many ways, but I try to listen to the other parts which are more trusting and we like to give people the benefit of the doubt, and see how they will be.  So you've not knocked my ability to trust people out - I am thankful of that.

* The child will feel used and manipulated.
I didn't realise how my upbringing had affected me till many years later - I've struggled to understand different aspects of myself and why I've been how I've been, reacted how I've reacted etc, but it's only been in recent years that I've realised that my FOO have used and manipulated me - I am still coming to terms with this, still trying to understand - and it's a hard journey to negotiate.  But I 'see' more now - and I comprehend more things.

* The child will be there for the parent, rather than the other way around, as it should be.
Yes, I was consistently there for you - rather than the other way around.  I tried to make your lives happier, I tried to be the best daughter I could be - I tried to please you and placate you, and be who you needed me to be.  I did this thoughtout my childhood and into much of my adulthood, but thankfully I realised that my own life is important too - I needed to have a partner and a life of my own, and circumstances have led me to break away from you - to estrange myself from the previous enmeshment and dysfunctional toxicity of our relationship.  It's been so hard, taken quite a few years, but I'm beginning to finally 'break free' emotionally too - and my fragmented parts are beginning to support one another - now we recognise one another - and realise what had happened, and how we've managed to cope and come through all of this.

*The child's emotional development will be stunted.
Yes, and we have been stunted at different developmental ages and levels - but it doesn't mean that you can keep us frozen at those ages - because we are communicating with each other now, and gaining support as a 'family system' - Hope and all the Little Hopes - we are a team.  An ever growing family infact, and we'll never be lonely and isolated again - thanks to beginning to understand and love each other.  So we feel stronger.  Not all the time, but if one of us is suffering, then there are others who can put an arm around us, and give us sustained Hope.

*The child will feel criticized and judged, rather than accepted and loved.
This was how I felt during most of my childhood and also adulthood - like I was forever stepping on egg-shells, and trying to placate and please - I didn't feel accepted and I didn't feel loved.  This is very sad - and I grieve for those things.  But there are people in my life now who do accept me, and who love me, and who don't criticise or judge me - and that is so precious and gives me hope in life.

*The child will grow frustrated trying to seek love, approval, and attention to no avail.
I realise this - because I ended up turning to school and education to try to find a way in life - to succeed, to seek approval and attention from people around, and I did receive many acknowledgements of my abilities - and I achieved a lot - but it is a glossy finish that betrays the underlying sense of hollowness - there was a frustration in seeking love and approval, as it cannot ever replace the fact that my FOO couldn't provide me with those things - that nothing I could ever do would be 'good enough' for them, because essentially you didn't care for me, you couldn't - you had other things that were more meaningful - more important, and so that was how it was.

I'm only half-way through the list of items on Karyl McBride's list - and I can feel myself 'cutting off' - so I'll stop now, and maybe do another 'letter' another time. 

I have a feeling that I'll 'feel' things when I re-read this - as I don't seem to process things when I'm writing them, only when I re-read them, and then my inners react in different ways to what they read.  So I'll come back to it.

Hope 

[Hope67]

Second part of the list:

*The child will not have a role model for healthy emotional connections.
This is very true - there wasn't anyone to whom I could turn - who had emotional connections that were healthy.  Hence I could only try to learn from TV programmes, and seeing children interacting with their own parents - at school and in any other places I could see them.  Thankfully I did take notice of things around me, and very much scanned people's faces to see who was 'safe' and who was to be avoided.  I still do this - picking up 'energies' or 'facial signs and signals' - and taking those into account when interacting with people around me. 

* The child will not learn appropriate boundaries for relationships.
I have learned this the hard way through my life - some of my earlier partnerships and relationships have been very unbalanced - I have been trying to please people, to the detriment of my own needs and wants and likes.   This has got better as life has progressed though.  My current partner, and I, we are well matched and I do think the connection is healthy and we have appropriate boundaries.  Although I recognise I crave some co-dependency with him, but somehow that feels 'safer' than with past partners/relationships.

* The child will not learn healthy self-care, but instead will be at risk of becoming co-dependent (taking care of others to the exclusion of taking care of self)
I have definitely not looked after myself well enough - neglecting some self-care - from time to time this has been better or worse, but I am getting better at this.  I have tended to look to the needs of others through my life, rather than my own, but I am attempting to re-dress this balance.  But during my childhood, I was always looking to you - my FOO - and trying to do your bidding, trying to please you - trying to appease you - and hoping to be the daughter you wanted me to be.  But I was also scared and frightened of you - and feared that I would be cast out of the family, which is what I thought had happened to my sibling.  I never knew what had happened to her, but now I know - and it makes me feel so angry that I couldn't see the truth.  But it was hidden from me, and you colluded to hide it.

* The child will have difficulty with the necessary individuation from the parents as he or she grows older.
I was enmeshed with you both until my early 40's - literally - I couldn't breathe without getting your permission - that's how it felt.  Like you watched my every move, even when we weren't living in the same geographical place, you still had such a strong power over me.  Cutting the cord - finally done - thank goodness.  A chance to be free - but I still carry emotional baggage - and I am hoping to process and de-clutter this baggage - both literally and metaphorically - and that process has started - yes, it is happening - better late than never!  This is good to write this - I am glad to be doing this process.  It is helpful.

* The child will be taught to seek external validation versus internal validation
This is a bitter pill to swallow - realising that I have been seeking external validation to try to make myself feel better, when what I needed was internal validation - and that is so difficult to achieve without the foundations of a loving, nurturing family.  I grieve for this absence, and it is something that makes me feel very sad.  One of my inner selves wails in anguish and upset - constantly crying, and bemoaning the lack of self-esteem and I don't think she sees a way out from that - but we are comforting her, and hopefully she will realise that time has moved on, and we are all safe now - we no longer need to seek external validation - because we are 'enough' - that is what we tell her.

* The child will get a mixed and crazy-making message of "do well to make me proud as an extension of the parent, but don't do too well and outshine me."
This makes such sense - so many times I worked so hard to try to make you proud of me, and yet somehow - it didn't seem to 'matter' to you - and then you'd make me feel 'small' by a critical comment, just the stern look - something subtle but piercing.  The malignant shaming you would use - the sarcasm and the things that are so subtle and yet so powerful in their significance - hard to put this into words - it is benign but deadly.  That's how it feels.  I've experienced it often.  But I will not listen to you anymore, and you cannot hurt me anymore - only if I let you - and I won't be allowing you near me or my inner selves.

* The child, if outshining the parent, may experience jealousy from the parent.
You actually mentioned this - at times when I was experiencing something positive - you'd tell me how it wasn't like that for you - it was like you wanted me to suffer, because at some levels you had also suffered - but that's not a healthy way to treat your child.  There are examples of things you did, to make me less attractive - because I think you didn't like it when I began to blossom into a young woman, and was getting some attention from other people - I think you purposefully tried to make me less attractive - I won't say what you did, but it hurts that you did that.  Both of you did things you should never have done - you caused me many hurts - emotionally and in other ways. 

*The child is not taught to give credit to self when deserved.

I am getting better at doing this, as time goes on, but I rarely did this - whilst a child, or through a lot of my adult life - except that there's a conflict between my inners on this, as there are some of us who are happy and proud of things, and others who are very negative about it - so if I ever felt proud of something, there would be plenty of inner voices putting me down, and telling me how awful I was to be proud of something.  So it's a conflicting thing, but I do try to look for the positives in my own achievements, as well as in the achievements of other people.  I feel glad I am able to do this.

* The child will ultimately suffer from some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and/or anxiety in adulthood.

At different times, I've felt like I've been suffering from different things - but I do recognise the symptoms of complex PTSD in me - and relate very much to those.  I have also had times when I experienced significant anxiety and a time when I wondered if I was depressed - the medical people prescribed me anti-depressants at that time, but I didn't think the medication helped me.  Thankfully I managed to get off the medication - although it was difficult, and now I cope by relying on self-help information and the books I've read most recently have been incredibly helpful - basically Pete Walkers' book; Janina Fisher's book; and Mary Brattons' book - not to mention Van der Kolk - who has also been really helpful.  Plus this forum - so amazing.  Kizzie and everyone - so validating and supportive.  (I want to list everyone now - but I won't....  I'd be here all day long, listing all the helpful people here)...

* The child will grow up believing he or she is unworthy and unlovable, because if my parent can't love me, who will?'

This is something I don't think I've allowed myself to face - because it would be horrible to believe that nobody would love me, and I believe whole-heartedly that my partner loves me unconditionally - and so that has given me lots of hope and comfort.


Talking of which, he has just come in the room - so I am going to stop writing now, and finish off this list later - there are only a few more items on the list.  I want to finish it...

Hope 

[Hope67]

Ok - the final part:

*The child is often shamed and humiliated by a narcissistic parent and will grow up with poor self-esteem
Yes, I was shamed and humiliated at times - and often in quite manipulative and 'subtle' ways - it was what I've seen people refer to as 'covert' - i.e. hidden from public view, but very much there - and I know my self-esteem has been affected by it.  However, again, I feel like there are different parts of me - which feel different things in regard to this - i.e. there's parts which believe that they 'can' achieve things - because evidence has shown that I can, and people's feedback (external validation) has been extremely validating - i.e. they have said I am good at things - but then there are other parts of me that feel I'm a 'failure' and 'not good at things' - or that the things I've done well at, they tell me I should be ashamed - and that it's 'never going to be good enough' - and I think those parts stand in my way sometimes, and 'self-sabotage' - just stopping me from achieving some things that I'd like to achieve - so that is an interesting mix really. 

* The child often will become either a high achiever or a self-saboteur, or both.
This makes sense of what I wrote in the item above - I have been 'both' - I have been a high achiever and also a self-saboteur, and that is where I feel the conflict. 

* The child will need trauma recovery and will have to re-parent themselves in adulthood.
Thankfully I am already on the road to recovery - I really do feel that - I am learning what my needs are, and how to re-parent myself - and how to recognise the levels that each of my fragmented inners are at - and how to help us all to move forward and accept one another - and re-parent ourselves to become hopefully an integrated adult - who can achieve a sense of balance and harmony.

I've finished Karyl McBride's list - and it was a good structure.  I started this as a letter to experess my feelings, but I think it's ended up as a process to think about the points - and that's been helpful.  I'm glad I did this today - I wanted to 'finish' something - and I went through the list.

I will hope to re-read these later - and process what emotions come up - when my inners read it - because I know they will react - and let me know which bits they relate to.

If you have read this, thank you - and if you want to comment, I hope you will - from either your reaction, or personal perspective, or whatever you wish to comment on.  I think it's a useful list to contemplate - and I enjoyed working through it - it felt validating to my personal experience, and that is very meaningful.

Hope 

[Libby183]

Hi Hope.

Reading Karyl McBrides summaries, and your comments makes me think that we must both have had a "classic" childhood with narcissistic parents and suffered "classic"  lifelong difficulties. When my experience and your experience (and many others here)  aligns so precisely with the literature on the topic,  I just can't help but question my therapist's assertion that narcissistic abuse does not exist.

Thank you,  yet again,  for validating my experience and I hope that working through the list helped you explore your feelings.

Hugs to you.

Libby.

[Hope67]

Hi Libby,
Thank you for your reply and comments here - I agree that we must both have had a "classic" childhood with narcissistic parents and suffered "classic" lifelong difficulties - the alignment with the literature on the topic, for our experience, it's definitely suggesting that 'narcissistic abuse' exists, and we've lived it and experienced it.  Your therapist didn't relate to it, and asserted that it didn't exist, which makes me wonder if she just hadn't been aware of the literature on that subject - but to just dismiss it like she did - without looking into it and exploring it - suggests her mind was 'closed' rather than open.  I realise I sound judgemental and critical of her - and of course she's not here to speak for herself, but I know she left you feeling worse in some ways, and I guess I feel that's unfair on you.  You deserved someone who would have listened to you, and tried to understand and work with you, rather than dismissing things.

to you, Libby.

I did find it helpful to work through the list and it has helped me explore my feelings, but I feel as if it wasn't enabling me to truly 'reach' my feelings - because I think I was intellectualising rather than 'feeling' them - and now I feel as if the doors to my explorative side have 'closed' - as if they don't want me to 'go there' for a while - so I'm going to respect that, and keep with the status quo for a while, before exploring further - as I guess I fear being over-whelmed - each point on that list, it feels as if I could explore each single one for say a 'month' at a time - if that makes sense - there are so many things within each - that I'd want to process and explore. 

Hope 

[Luke57]

Hope, WOW!!! Thank you for writing that letter. It rings so true for my life. I related to all the points you made. Some of the specific circumstances were different due to the gender roles we were born into or in some cases may have had forced on us, but the general points were right on the mark. As I read through it I had all kinds of emotions coming up - I guess all my parts were able to feel validated for what they had been through. I cried as I read it. I know that was my little 4 year-old who felt so discarded and abandoned when he desperately needed true love and acceptance. He was always punished or ridiculed for his emotions so he never was able to cry. This has been very therapeutic for me and all my parts.


I was brought up by a very narcissistic M and a classically co-dependent F, whose main job was to please his wife. I know narcissistic abuse exists because I was the recipient of all kinds of abuse from my M - physical, sexual and emotional abuse. I'm right there with you in your evaluation of Libby's T.


And, Hope, it is always heart-warming to hear that you have such a healthy relationship with your partner, especially after hearing about all the rotten messages you were exposed to as a child. In my words I would say, "I'm grateful that the Universe has blessed you with that opportunity." Also, I hope it doesn't feel intrusive with me responding to so many of your posts. Its just that I come across them, sometimes days after you've made them, and it seems like you're telling bits and pieces of my life story better than I ever could. 

Luke 

[Hope67]

Hi  Luke,
I am so glad that you found my letter helpful - I would say more, but it's late at night, and I am sleepy - but I just wanted to thank you for all that you've said.  I appreciate very much all that you've said, and  to you.  Also sending the little 4-year old you a comforting hug - if that's ok.
I remember when I first joined this forum, I could hardly 'say' anything, but over time, I have found my confidence has grown, as the forum has been so supportive and encouraging, and I think I am healing for having the chance to talk about things, and share experiences with like-minded people - such as yourself - and I am so thankful for that.
I need to sleep now - as it's very late.  Night night.
Hope 

[Luke57]

Hi Hope,

Thanks for the hug for my 4 year-old. He needs all he can get. I try to envision myself holding him on his most difficult days when he felt so worthless and unloved. I remind him of how strong and brave he is to survive all he has.

From your journal, sounds like you've been getting a lot done for yourself. I'm glad to hear that and I hope you're getting plenty of good rest. Also good to hear you're getting some relief from those difficult cravings. 

Luke

[Hope67]

Hi Luke, Just seen your reply here - and thank you.  I read something your wrote the other day, and I wanted to send you a hug again - because you had written some things that you had been through, and I very much thought you were brave to write, and I hope it helped you to do so.  You have been through such a lot - and I just want to say that I hope you are ok. 
I am so glad that you are trying to envision holding your 4-year old self on those most difficult days and reminding him of how strong and brave he is to survive all he has - I think he is very brave.
I appreciate your reply to me here, and thank you.  You welcomed me back in my Journal - and that was nice to see you - and I'd like to wish you the best for the days ahead.
Hope