Famous author Franz Kafka's father had NPD, who knew? I always related to his book "The Trial" and now I understand why. The book is about Josef K who was arrested, prosecuted and killed without ever being told the nature of his crime. On the surface it's a book about totalitarian regimes, but in retrospect draws heavily on the' Kafkaesque' trauma inflicted by his father.
This is evident In
a letter to his father which paints a clear picture of the trauma inflicted by his NPD behaviour. For example, one time when Franz repeatedly asked for water at bedtime, his father angrily scooped him up out of his bed and left him outside on the balcony. The trauma of this act stayed with Kafka:
"Even years afterwards I suffered from the tormenting fancy that the huge man, my father, the ultimate authority, would come almost for no reason at all and take me out of bed in the night and carry me out onto the [balcony], and that meant I was a mere nothing for him."
This is exactly the primal fear instilled in children when they grow up with a parent who has NPD; you are "a mere nothing" and subject to the power of those who have authority over you. In the end of "The Trial" the main character is killed without knowing why and this is the fear of children who have a parent with NPD - death because we are
mere nothings.
Deep, lasting trauma.
