Children of the Self-Absorbed
by Nina Brown, Ph.D.
http://www.amazon.ca/Children-Self-Absorbed-Grown-Ups-Getting-Narcissistic/dp/1572242310

"People who know and feel what happened to them in their childhood will never want to harm others."
Alice Miller

"Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime.”
Hebert Ward

 

Destructive Narcissistic Parents

Parents with a destructive narcissistic pattern will have behaviors and attitudes that are designed to preserve a self-image of perfection, entitlement, and superiority. For the child’s entire life the parent-child relationship was reversed, and the child, even after attaining adulthood, is expected to:- absorb parental projections- accept blame and criticism- automatically know what the parent wants or needs and give it to him/her- admire the parent and give unlimited attention- never offend the parent- understand that he/she is inferior to the parent and not react to demeaning comments - realize that the parent will always know what is best for the child.  Adult children of parents who have a destructive narcissistic pattern will continue to feel the impact of their parent’s behavior and attitudes and continue to suffer reactions that are as perplexing to them as they are distressing.

The DNP Illustrated Mark’s story below helps illustrate what can happen when adult children try to interact with parents who have a destructive narcissistic pattern.

Mark

When Mark, a thirty-year-old banker, hung up the phone he couldn’t help feeling very angry and hurt. The call was from his father’s secretary telling him that Mark’s father would be in town from Friday through Sunday and wanted Mark to have dinner with him on Friday. Mark felt stung and angry because his father had had his secretary call instead of picking up the phone himself. On top of that, even though it had been six months since they last had dinner together, his father expected Mark to change whatever plans he may have had to accommodate his dad.
As a matter of fact, Mark did have plans for that evening and he was really looking forward to attending a performance with a friend. Mark was also still upset that his father had been too busy to meet with him the last time he was in town and had only called Mark when he was ready to return home. Mark thought, “He ignores me for months and then expects me to drop everything and run to him whenever he beckons.” Not only was Mark angry, but he also felt ambivalent. He wanted both to have dinner with his father and to tell him to go to hell. Mark had many conflicting feelings, chief of which seemed to be hurt. There are many other examples of relationships and interactions with the destructive narcissistic parent.

Susan’s has to do with her mom.

Susan

Susan was a forty-five-year-old mother of two who managed a large corporate office. She and her husband were dressing to go to her parents’ house for her mother’s birthday party, and Susan was having trouble choosing an outfit. She had put on several different things, but discarded them all. Her husband became exasperated and told her to just pick something. He was a little confused and frustrated because generally Susan did not have trouble deciding on what to wear. It only seemed to happen when she had to go to her parents’ house.

Finally, Susan was dressed and the family left for the party. The children were the first out of the car and Susan trailed last. By the time she reached the door, the rest of her family was inside and her mother stood in the entrance waiting for her. As soon as Susan said, “Happy birthday, Mother,” her mother frowned and said, “My God, Susan, you look terrible. What on earth made you buy a dress like that? It makes you look like a hooker.” Susan felt like she’d been hit with a brick and had to resist the urge to take off running.

The experiences of Mark and Susan can only capture a small part of the feelings experienced when interacting with a parent who has a destructive narcissistic pattern. So much of what this parent does can be minimized by outsiders and excused as isolated events. Mark was angry and upset at the attitude of entitlement his father seems to have, along with an inability to appreciate the impact of his behavior and attitude on Mark. What might contribute to Mark’s reactions without him even being aware of it, is Mark’s father’s unconscious assumption that Mark is an extension of him (the father) and thus available whenever he wanted Mark.Susan couldn’t decide what to wear because she was anticipating demeaning and disparaging remarks from her mother, treatment she’d come to expect. Her mother never commented on her positive accomplishments, she only berated Susan for perceived failings. The anticipated put-down made Susan dithering and indecisive before every visit.Both Mark and Susan were reacting from a lifetime of interacting with their destructive narcissistic parents. As adults, even the most casual interaction with the parents can cause hurt, anger, and feelings of helplessness and impotence. No matter how these “adult children” try to fortify themselves, even anticipating interactions with the parent produces distress.

You May Have a Similar Parent

Do you:
- dread interactions with a parent
- find ways to avoid them
- become easily frustrated and angry almost every time you talk with them
- leave their presence angry and churned up most every time you see them
- wish that they would disappear or that you never had to see or interact with them ever again?
Does a parent:
- constantly criticize you
- blame you for their discomfort
- make you responsible for their physical and/or emotional well-being
- expect you to admire them and give them constant attention
- insist that everything be done their way
- feel that you should anticipate their needs and desires and fulfill them
- become easily offended
- ignore, minimize, or discount your feelings
- make demeaning comments about you
- devalue your work or ideas
- micromanage or try to overcontrol you
- blame you or others for their errors?

If you answered “yes” to most of the behaviors and attitudes in the two lists, you may be the adult child of a parent with a destructive narcissistic pattern (DNP). You may also want to compare your behaviors and attitudes against the lists to see if you have incorporated any and are acting on them.How can you tell if one or both of your parents had a destructive narcissistic pattern? After all, even the most well-meaning parents were not perfect and made mistakes. Also, what you recall as an adult is influenced by the stage of childhood you were in when the event you’re recalling took place. You could be “stuck” at that level of development when remembering the particular event, causing you to react more strongly than otherwise. And, you may be dealing with incomplete information and understanding. All of these conditions combine to suggest that you cannot totally rely on what you remember and your interpretation of those events to decide if one or both of your parents had a destructive narcissistic pattern.

Two Means to Identification of the DNP

We will use two means to identify parental destructive narcissism: your behaviors, attitudes, and feelings as an adult and a pattern of consistent behaviors and attitudes of your parents.

The first focus is on you as an adult, because your sense of “self,” acceptance of self and others, ability to develop and maintain satisfying relationships, self-efficacy, self-confidence, and expectations of self and of others are all influenced by your perceptions of your childhood, parents, and family life. There are other influences that are important, like culture, personality, and genetics, but those listed may be basic and, because they are deep seated, may continue to impact your physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being.Another reason for focusing on you is that much of this book presents suggestions and techniques to help you cope with your parents as they are now. You, as an adult, may still be responding to your parents as you did when you were a child, and you want to begin to respond to them as an adult. Actually, what you probably really want is to stop feeling the way you do when they trigger unwanted and unpleasant feelings, or to make them stop behaving and having the attitudes that hurt you. This book can help you change the way you feel, but almost nothing can help you to change someone else. The book also presents some ways to identify developmental areas where you may have been stuck in childhood and strategies to grow and develop in these areas.

A way you can closely examine the consistent behaviors and attitudes displayed by your parent(s) is by completing the scales in the following two chapters. The list of questions earlier in this chapter can also be a guide. What you’re looking for is not only the way your parent(s) act toward you, but the behaviors and attitudes that seem to be an integral part of them and can be observed and felt in their other relationships. What you’re trying to discover is if there is a pattern of behavior that indicates destructive narcissism.

Narcissism—Who Needs It?

Narcissism is commonly defined many ways. It’s most often considered to be excessive self-love, when a person is self-absorbed in almost everything he or she does and says. This definition is certainly the basis for the diagnosis of pathological narcissism or for the narcissistic personality disorder. However, current thinking about narcissism has extended the definition to also describe self-love that is healthy, such as self-esteem. Narcissism is also considered by some to be a normal part of psychological growth and development, which expands our understanding of what is called “age-appropriate narcissism.” “Age appropriate” simply means that the person has healthy narcissism for his/her age. An example would be the way a child understands everything in terms of self and is expected to be self-absorbed. The same behavior and attitude in an adult would not be age-appropriate, healthy narcissism.Adults who do not have age-appropriate, healthy narcissism can exhibit other categories for narcissism such as:- stable narcissism- underdeveloped narcissism- a destructive narcissistic pattern- pathological narcissism.

Think of adult narcissism as existing on a continuum ranging from pathological (not healthy) to healthy. The other categories will fall along the continuum, with stable narcissism closest to healthy narcissism and the destructively narcissistic pattern closest to pathological narcissism. Adults need healthy narcissism to have strong self-esteem and in order to form and maintain meaningful relationships. Healthy narcissism is an ideal but achievable state. This book focuses on some strategies that can assist in building healthy narcissism or, at the very least, developing some aspect of any underdeveloped narcissism that may be lingering. In other words, I’ll be helping you move toward the healthy side of the narcissist continuum and away from those patches of underdeveloped narcissism that may be keeping you stuck in old, childhood ways of reacting.

Healthy Adult Narcissism

It may be best to begin with a description of healthy adult narcissism. This description is based on Kohut’s (1977) description of healthy adult narcissism in his book, The Restoration of the Self, and proposed stages of narcissism development related to age. Viewing narcissism in this way takes away a stigma of it being a “bad” thing to have.

Kohut described adults with healthy narcissism as: ! having empathy ! having a sense of humor ! being creative.In my book on destructive narcissism (1998), it seemed appropriate to add: ! an ability to delay gratification ! assumption of responsibility to self and to others ! a capacity to develop and maintain meaningful and satisfying relationships ! a deep and broad range of emotional expressiveness ! firm and clear boundaries.

Empathy

Empathy is the ability to sense and feel what the other person is experiencing. It’s not sympathy or simply understanding, but being able to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and feel what they would feel in a specific situation. Often, what the other person is feeling is discomfort of some kind, and we generally tend to shy away from discomfort or intense emotions. The ability to open yourself up and allow yourself to feel the discomfort and/or intense emotions experienced by another person should be accompanied with strong boundaries so that you do not get overwhelmed or incorporated into the emotions. In other words, you have to be able to feel but also be able to pull yourself back from the feelings, accepting that these are the other person’s feelings, not yours.

Many people can be sympathetic, but that’s really not the same as empathy. You can feel for the other person, be sorry that they are experiencing discomfort, but still have some detachment so that you do not end up feeling as they do. Some may even understand how the person feels and why they feel as they do without having either sympathy or empathy. Their feelings are even more detached.

Emotional Insulation Just as insulation in a house helps to prevent heat or cooling from escaping or getting in, emotional insulation can help keep projective identifications from getting in. You are setting up a barrier so that others’ emotions do not trigger or intensify your corresponding emotions. For example, anger is projected on you, you already have some anger and if you don’t take steps to prevent it, the projected anger will intensify your own anger. Emotional insulation can prevent this from happening. Another example could be when anger is projected on you but you’re not angry at all. Emotional insulation could prevent the other person from using the projected anger to manipulate you into becoming angry.

Emotional insulation should be carefully developed because if it becomes a habit and employed unconsciously you will find that you’re blocking some feelings you may want to experience. Unconscious emotional insulation can also reduce your ability to be empathic. You will find it more helpful to consciously employ emotional insulation when you need it – especially in interactions with a destructive narcissistic parent. Another point to remember is that you should always keep the emotional insulation in place when interacting with the destructive narcissistic parent. They tend to employ projection and projective identification at any moment and without warning. If you do not keep the insulation in place, you will find that they can easily breach your defenses.

Monica dreaded interactions with her father as she seemed to always end up arguing with him and staying churned up and upset long afterward. Her stomach always hurt after even the shortest interaction with her father.

Monica knew that she would have to interact with her father at the family’s holiday dinner. After arriving at the house, she sat in her car and quickly concentrated on her breathing, trying to make it deep and even. She closed her eyes and visualized her emotional insulation, which was a shiny six-foot-tall steel shield. She visualized it for ten seconds.

When Monica left after dinner, her stomach did not hurt. She wasn’t upset and had managed not to get angry with her father, although he said some of the same hurtful things he usually said. On this occasion, every time he spoke to her she ‘felt’ the shield between them. No projective identifications got through to her this time.

"Life Span" Artist Tom Sierak
Graphics by Sweet Design