Extreme self absorbance and even narcissism in parents?

[james perry]

Would you consider one or both of your parents particularly "extremely self absorbed" or even narcissistic?

 

[JoyChaos]

no. i considering my parents ND. My father probably is the one who might of passed on autism to me as he has with his other daughter and his grandson. and my mom i want to say she was perhaps OCD, but im really not sure. its only speculation. but them being narcs. no. emotionally abusive sure, but not a full blown narc

 

[ksheehan88]

I don't know on my paternal side, the sperm-donor left when I was two.

Not from my maternal side though.

 

[tree]

 

[Gracey]

Not particularly, they were very young and I think struggled trying to get this parenting thing correct.
If I’m honest I suspect they got overwhelmed some of the time.

I have watched a self absorbed single mother play the victim over the course of 20 years.
I have, over the years, contacted the authorities, had them dumped at my house occasionally, threatened to knock the crap out of her if she laid another hand on them, it’s like the woman has no shame or idea.
And no intention of getting any.

 

[Zoie]

I don't know anymore.
I want to say yes, but I'm starting to realize everyone is a lot more self-absorbed than I'd ever imagined.

I used to believe my parents were both narcissists. I flat-out told them this, and attempted to cut ties with them. But the guilt and loneliness (and love?) eventually brought about my inevitable, shame-faced return.

As someone who took a special interest in personality disorders and child-parent psychology, I can say I've certainly read a lot which validates the suspicion/fear that my parents are truly toxic people. At the same time, I no longer believe it's so cut-and-dry. They likely did the best they could, and I am also blessed with a lot of positive, healthy childhood memories. They tried to understand me and failed to do so, and it hurt their egos in the process. As an adult, I can now empathize with them on this - the sense of having failed a loved one is shame-triggering, as well as enraging at its worst.

My mom was (still is) self-absorbed and shallow. She is emotionally manipulative; it is purely her nature to lash out and/or try to control others when her fear of being unloved is triggered. Unfortunately, it seems I've followed in her footsteps to some degree. (My short history of romance is the best indicator of this. I am controlling and fear-driven in my relationships, and also extremely insecure. I find myself defaulting to emotionally-manipulative behaviors like it's out of my control. I'm either very secure and dismissive of others, or I'm very insecure and suddenly dependent on others to meet my needs... That's a generalization, but I'm trying to paint the picture here.)

She's struggled with morbid obesity and compulsive eating for most of her life - which I believe stems from her anxiety-ridden childhood. Her mother (my beloved grandmother - funny how that works...) is judgmental, vain, self-absorbed, and controlling. I'm sure she was MUCH worse in her youth, and my mother testifies to that. My mother put on a lot of weight and my grandmother attempted to shame her into losing it. For years. I'm sure displays of unconditional love were scarce for the latter half of my mother's childhood.

Hmm... Now that I think about it, I feel the same. Deep down, it's hard for me to feel lovable or loved when I spent the first half of my childhood (year 0-9) being raised by a depressed, single mother whose anxiety negatively impacted my developing perspective of the world and self. (She is the one who taught me to judge others by appearance, because they will surely be judging you by your appearance. She also taught me food is a reward and a sin; it is better to be with anybody than to be alone; love is unconditional forgiveness for a person's faults; and so on...) I was certainly very loved, and I'm fortunate to have been raised by my grandparents and extended family as well during those early years. So it's not like I was completely neglected.

The later years (year 10-19) were painful. My mother found a husband, and he was a great step-father. However, after a couple years, my father and I became enemies. My mother was constantly breaking down in tears, during mild arguments which she would deliberately escalate as a means of testing the other person's willingness to love her. When my parents fought, I saw only: my mother is crying and my father is yelling. I would get angry and try to get involved, naively seeing my mother as the victim. She would inappropriately accept my comfort and simultaneously remove herself from the situation by defending my father, who was now fighting with me.

My mother and I had always fought. Actually, that's not quite a fair way to put it - in reality, she was emotionally abusive to me. And she used me to manipulate my father into staying in an unhappy marriage, throwing away his self and attempting to conform to my mother's needs in order to hold onto the piece of himself that he truly loved: being a father.

My father came from an abusive home with unloving parents. He admitted after divorcing my mother, that the reason he stayed was because of me and my sister. I finally understand him... I wish I could've fulfilled his wish better. I wish we hadn't spent so many years fighting and in therapy, growing apart rather than together...

It's funny, I used to think my father was "the abusive one". I now realize that he was closer to a victim all along, and he and I suffered equally when we loved each other but did not know why we felt hated by the other.

My goddamn mother... Ugh. This turned into a diary entry, but whatever - it's super therapeutic and I hope someone reads it and relates, or something to make it valuable. Lol.

P.S. It's worth mentioning: blaming others for my present suffering may be validating - as it validates my painful feelings of anger and hurt - but has only served to perpetuate my suffering, by delaying the process of acceptance, and limiting my ability to forgive. Blaming my parents feels "right"; I can make sense of my feelings in this way. However, it also feels wrong - and not just because I am guilty for blaming them but because I genuinely love them and miss them. I regret hurting them, and I mourn my past actions which led to our current estrangement.

My recommendation is: if it is AT ALL POSSIBLE for you to forgive your parents, then do it. The only alternative is blaming them and living an existence in which you carry unresolved pain deep within your psyche. And yeah - it's true, some people have to do this. People whose parents were so consistently, insidiously abusive, for so long, that it destroyed the possibility of an authentic child-parent relationship and made it impossible for the child to love themselves without severing the toxic tie. However, I sense this is not the case for most children who question the personalities of their parents...

If you can accept your feelings, you are giving them permission to go. And if you forgive your parents, you are giving yourself permission to move on. (Ideally, they would apologize to you - i.e. seek your forgiveness - and that would be the end of it. They would fess up to everything and you would suddenly have all the validation you ever needed. Bu-uuuuut this probably won't happen. It's never so cut-and-dry.)

Once you've given your feelings permission to go, and given yourself permission to move on... then I think this is when a person is finally free to live.

Free to live, unburdened by the past or their parent's mistakes. Free to grow, no longer the hurt child begging to be loved.