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| | From:  Redwine9547 (Original Message) | Sent: 17/08/2005 1:02 p.m. |
The Children of Narcissists Home Many say that narcissists' children are likely to marry narcissists. While I see where this idea comes from and have seen it happen myself, I have not observed any "co-dependence." That's a fancy word for being a glutton for punishment.
The truth is more complicated than that. Also, let us not forget that we are talking about normal people. Yes, they typically are meek, too patient, and have low self-esteem. But that does not make them sick in the head. They are also typically strong. Unlike the personality-disordered, they are not machines. They each respond to the influence of parental narcissism in his or her own way.
In fact, I bet research would find that the normal children of narcissists are more likely to never marry. This might depend on whether the narcissistic parent was father, mother, or both and on whether the child is a man or a woman.
I can hear those gears in your head grinding. Does this mean that they are likely to be homosexual? Considering all the Freudian permutations that could be at work, that doesn't seem far out to me. But I don't know of any homosexual children of narcissists. I know of one frigid narcissistic daughter of a narcissist, and I will bet the farm on another. But, I have seen nothing in the normal children of narcissists that hinted at anything but typical heterosexuality. Unless you subscribe to the bigoted myths that all married people are heterosexual, that all single people are frigid or homosexual, and that homosexuality is some mental disease.
There are, however, some other things it is pretty safe to say about the normal children of narcissists.
One is that they are likely to tolerate narcissists. When you grow up with things, you have no way of knowing that they are abnormal. You think that some people "are just like that." You're trained to tolerate it, because to do anything but is a sin. You're even brainwashed into thinking it's your fault. You have no way of knowing that everybody's home is not like yours, that you are growing up in a home headed by somebody who belongs in psyche ward.
If you are a Baby-Boomer, you didn't even get a clue from TV. You grew up watching Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver. Father's role reinforced your narcissistic father's superiority and infallibility by virtue of his age, size, and sex. But since TV fathers came from a different planet than yours, the threshold for suspension of your disbelief was much higher than for other people. Too high. So these shows were not at all realistic to you, and you were fully unaware that the family life portrayed on TV is pie-in-the-sky fiction, meant to idealize rather than portray family life. Therefore, even TV gave you no clue that other families were different, that your daddy sucked and that you had every right to what you craved. TV today is a little better at portraying normal family life, but not much.
Yet tolerance of narcissists is not knuckling under to them. Let's clear up the sloppy thinking that equates the two.
Nobody knows better than the normal children of narcissists that, to survive as a person, you must never let anyone own you. They protect their right to private ownership of themselves, because they know the consequences of letting others make their personal and private choices for them. Such as what to think, how to feel, what to say. They know that letting anybody treat your head as his property, to furnish as he pleases, is moral prostitution that destroys your integrity. They also know that, like any partier who takes over somebody else's house, he is probably going to trash it.
And so, though narcissists ballistically violate every right to privacy they see, thinking their own privacy extends to the outer limits of deep space, the normal children of narcissists are keenly aware of the borders of personal privacy and have fortified them. For example, one narcissist I know of ordered an employee to take the rest of the day off. This was a dirty trick that had successfully gotten other employees to falsely incriminate themselves by obeying the order. But when he tried to thus make up the mind of a narcissist's daughter, he hit a brick wall. She replied, "You can send me home if you want, and if you do I'll go. But you can't order me to take the day off. And I choose not to take the rest of the day off."
Note the willing obedience up to a sharply drawn line she would not let him cross. How do the children of narcissists get so clear about their boundaries and so solid in defense of them?
By surviving a childhood like the story of The Three Little Piggies and the Big Bad Wolf. Each little piggy's house is his person, the private property of his body and mind. Our deepest instincts compel us to not let the Big Bad Wolf just barge in as if he owns the place. Why? Because doing that to another's body is sexual rape, and doing that to another's mind is moral rape, and even little children feel violated by either act. But, unlike the other little piggies, the narcissist's child has learned that when you say no, the Big Bad Wolf huffs and puffs and tries to blow your little house down. So, this little piggy built his of brick.
Note that this is true strength, backbone, integrity, moral purity. It is not the phony strength people of swollen self-esteem think they have. To the contrary, you find it in the modest. Note also that this is responsibility for oneself claimed, not avoided. In other words, the normal children of narcissists are often more grown up than many other people are.
Another thing it is safe to say about the children of narcissists is that, from birth, they have had their self-esteem relentlessly assailed. Abused feelings are tender, sensitive feelings. As easily injured as burned skin. That is just a fact of life, not a moral fault.
So, the children of narcissists are quite sensitive to criticism. It causes them real pain, because it inflames old wounds. To avoid this pain, they are conscientious and try hard to be liked. Since they aim to please, so long as you respect their boundaries, you can easily get them to do anything they do not think is wrong or foolish. Yet they have been trained to feel that something's wrong with them if some intolerant person just can't stand them being the way they are, looking the way they look, feeling the way they feel, or thinking what they think. All this manifests itself as low self-esteem and marks them as sensitive.
Vicious attacks on sensitive feelings and low self-esteem draw far more blood than they would otherwise. So, the normal children of narcissists might as well go around wearing a target with the word VULNERABLE emblazoned on it. On seeing it, every bully in town thinks, "There is somebody I can really hurt" = "somebody I can be really powerful on."
Thus, narcissistic abuse in the home dooms them to life as a target for every bully they encounter. This is one reason why the children of narcissists do marry narcissists �?not because they seek narcissistic mates, but because narcissists spot and target them as vulnerable prey. The wolf puts on sheep's clothing and sweeps her off her feet, idealizing her and showering her with affection. Till the honeymoon is over. Then Dr. Jekyll's mask comes off. She was no more likely to fall for this con artist than anybody else. Probably less likely, in fact. But narcissists target the kind of people the normal children of narcissists are.
Often a narcissistic parent targets one child, the most sensitive/vulnerable, to take the brunt of his vaunting abuse. Watching this puts the others through worse hell than his abuse of themselves does. It makes them hate bullying with such passion that they become protective. Hence, they often become altruists. They are unlikely to join everybody else in kissing up to a bully by sicking on whomever he is terrorizing them by making an example of. If the targeted child in their home takes it out on the rest of the world by becoming a narcissist himself, his brothers and sisters feel so sorry for him that they make excuses for him and take his abuse far too long.
Another thing it is safe to say about the children of narcissists is that they have a different view of marriage than other people. For example, the narcissistic son of a narcissistic mother may show no interest in marriage till she is about to die. Then he seeks a replacement for her. The narcissistic daughter of a narcissist may choose to remain single because she "wants no one to own her."
Of course, other factors that vary over time influence marital choices. For instance, half a century ago, being an "old maid" was almost unbearably shameful and made one a social outcast, excluded from social events and the community of friendships that married couples can take part in. It also meant that one would never make a decent living, achieve social stature, or own a home. Though equal rights and the high divorce rate has made society less hostile to the unmarried over time, to this day many employers don't want bachelors.
The normal children of narcissists are nonetheless more careful about marrying than other people are. They have seen nothing in marriage that anyone would want. They dream about "true love," and like most of us, find nothing that fits its description in the movies. They do very much want to avoid the suspicious and critical view society takes of the unmarried, and they want very much to fit in. They also want children. But, the daughters of a narcissistic father, for example, have seen nothing mirrored in their father's eyes for a man to love. So, they doubt professions of love and fear that a lover just wants a wife. They live in fear of a life like their mother's. This ambivalence and caution, through sheer lack of luck, sometimes lead to never finding somebody they trust enough to marry.
Sad? Yes, but not nearly as sad as women who need a man, who view themselves as worth only what they are worth to some man, and who surrender their self-respect to get one. The absence of cupidity is not a vice.
Yet another thing it is safe to say about the normal children of narcissists is that they have probably picked up bad habits in interacting with others. Outwardly, some of these bad habits appear narcissistic. Yet it is easy to tell the difference between a narcissist and a normal person. How? By simply asking him to stop it. The normal child of a narcissist will stop it. (A normal person who is not the child of a narcissist may not be so good about stopping it.) But a narcissist will do it all the more.
This section shows why you should not jump to conclusions about people. There are many more normal children of narcissists than narcissists. So, run that little test of asking him to stop it before you make any judgments.
These behaviors persist through young adulthood. They gradually disappear after the child leaves home, as he gets used to normal people and how things work in the real world.
For example, the child of a narcissist may impolitely enter a room talking to interrupt the extant conversation. He hasn't been taught that this is bad manners. To the contrary, his (dominant) narcissistic parent did that twenty times a day. Also, he has found it so hard to get attention that he feels he must hijack it.
The difference between him and a narcissist, however, is easily demonstrated. If you ask him to stop it, he takes the message deeply to heart. In fact, you will find yourself trying to make him feel less bad about it. His behavior will change. A narcissist's never does. To contrary, if you ask a narcissist to stop doing something, he does it all the more.
Again for example, the only humor he was exposed in his unhappy home was the unfunniness of sarcasm. Life with a narcissist left even his normal parent with nothing to laugh about, except �?you guessed it �?sarcasm. But again, if you ask him to stop it, he takes the message deeply to heart. Again you find yourself trying to make him feel less bad about it. Again his behavior changes. Whereas a narcissist's never does.
When the child of a narcissist leaves home, it takes a while for his own, natural sense of humor to germinate and grow in a new environment that is not hostile to it. The good news is that, by the time they reach their thirties, the normal children of narcissists often display a sense of humor more witty and charming than that of most other people. Perhaps because they themselves appreciate it so much.
Again for example, the child of a narcissist may not accept praise or compliments gracefully. He is unused to them! Like anything extraordinary in our world, this extraordinary event throws him off balance. He has never learned to simply say, "Thank you."
Like a narcissist, he may protest that he doesn't deserve it. But his reason for doing so is the opposite of a narcissist's. It's not because he feels it would humiliate him to say "Thank you." It's because this praise or compliment conflicts with a long history of judgments against him as being inadequate. He may suspect flattery. This goes with what I said above about the daughters of male narcissists doubting professions of love.
Here again, the difference between him and a narcissist is easily demonstrated. If the other party takes the bull by the horns in the direct approach and responds with, "Why don't you just say 'Thank you?'" or "I am not flattering you. I really mean it" the child of a narcissist ponders his behavior and changes it. A narcissist never does.
The normal parent can do much to ease her child's adaptation to the real world by watching for such behaviors and teaching him to cope with these situations in interactions with normal people. It is as easy as saying, "When somebody compliments you, just say 'Thank you.'"
From www.operationdoubles.com
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dear red, WARNING: explicit/may cause some sort of triggering? oh wow! where to begin?! first off, let me say that i'm at 36 unmarried... it didn't really cross my mind actually, in younger years, even as friends and family and strangers round the globe were doing it, i never wanted to do it, really... and children, especially babies, i'm cold to them, still, but not as much as i've known... however, i could have a house and yard full of every conceivable type of four legged creatures ! i once saw my brother, who 15 months younger acting very very cold towards a little two year old who only wanted to sit upon my brothers lap...he basically looked at the child blank-expression, and ignored him... i saw that in Both of us then! not that i'd harmed anyone or anything, nor had he far as i knew (he and i are estranged, not my choice, i've tried-- tired of making all the efforts!) took me a long time to figure out why everyone loved babies but me? i suppose it's because i never got that kind of nuturing, and didn't know how to give it either?? today, i'm fond of children so long as they're not TOO high pitched squealing because i have anxiety and that more than anything throws me! the aforementioned used to disturb me quite a bit, children and babies are everywhere... and i found myself abnormal for many years... this to me is not abnormal-- i've been experimental with both sexes and in between-- literally... and non.biological men... (Transgendered)... i also used to cut myself, until i discovered BDSM *especially D/s* but i was told by my therapist that i needed to stop the cutting by finding something *equally as intense* and i sure had! i mean, it was always there, submission, but i just expanded my limits... bdsm isn't harmful when it's consensual or i'm not *victimised* the beauty/pull of it was that what i did allowed me to *get out of my head* the same as cutting... but the benefits were such much more positive!  someone reading this may find the first paragraph more normal, and the second more abnormal -- we are all differently wired, and it's amazing! the wiring from the abuse which i've been dealt, makes me very open minded, used to extremes, curious, et cetera, and always the paradoxical too! when i read your post red, i began to get a little bit of anger bubbling up inside-- my parents have been abusive of late, and it's a big ordeal at the moment... legal... but i found in the post you left for us, one thing: children of npd don't get choices to be their best, and who they might have been otherwise... not to say children of npd's are unsuccessful, but even when they have it all... something is missing, right?... btw, i do not believe that money= success; i'm as poor as a monkey, and likely to be that way for the remainder of my life, but being poor doesn't mean i'm unintelligent, not worthy of love, a fair trial (parents), any less creative or inspired/inspiring, et cetera! i believe that mood disorders are genetic and environmental, but if any of us suffer from BPD (i used to have that dx as i was a cutter), or other more treatable, personality disorders-- we're not born with that... our family, lovely creatures they are, MADE us that way! that's the hardest part to swallow! my mom goes on everyday in HER world, totally oblivious of my nightmare life! is npd the same as psychopath? i saw the psycho in her, and just wondered because it fits... her behaviour, no matter how MAD she was with me (distorded misconceptions of my being/doing wrong), it never justified sending an email inferring Murder (towards me)... or any of the other way out in the water Antics... so we all must suffer at their lack of insight as children... we may not grasp it for a long long while (my case), and when we do, we can find what was missing-- peace, and some happiness... best, NMohio-- ps... i do realise my writing/posts can be difficult to follow... i'm sorry, i'm not the best at internet posting OR IMs! jumping around too much- topic-wise... |
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Hi Nightmareinohio Very interesting. I am not English so sometimes I just paste something interesting. My father is a big N and mother immature. Have been in therapy for more than 18 months. I am emotionally very cold and married the wrong husband in that regards. We have been married for 17 years. His mother is a N. They say you marry your mother. I am totally not like her exept that I had very little emotion. My husband is caring and has toooooo much emotion. I struggled a lot with my first child. My husband helped me a lot. When she turned 3 I had a change of heart and was also more mature to handle her. I had her when I was 26 and the second one when I was 28. My therapist said he could not believe that I ever married. My brother has a lot of N traits and we are also not as close as we used to be. I think he forgot about me and luckily I have not so much emotions so I can handle it very well. I struggle a lot with intimacy problems and have to drink some redwine to numb myself. Ha Looks like we have a lot in commen. Thanks Red |
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 dear red, thank you for the link!! i was there for the longest! great perspective on all of this!  made a lot of sense... i appreciate you including that for me in your post, very much  best, NMohio |
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"I have not observed any "co-dependence." That's a fancy word for being a glutton for punishment." You lost me right here, as I believe that codependance is what we suffer from the most, and I believe the majority of people are codependant to a certian degree. And I don't believe its a fancy word for being a glutton for punishment. Then the writer goes on to describe coming from a codependant family. Hmmmm..... And, if I am a N-Magnet, that means I AM codependant to the N process. The boudaries the writer talks about could be called "Walls". Walls are made when we are hurt. Victims make walls, or strict boundaries stemming from a lack of trust. Some thoughts... I did marry a narcassist after growing up in an N family. I also work a strong 12 step program that addresses my codependance. I used to drink to calm my nerves due to relationships. I don't anymore. I'm not sure, but the writer may be in some form of denial.
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Kitcat I never saw this, but I agree. I am counterdependent which is also a form of codependency. I got this from operationdoubles.com. Thanks for your reply Red |
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| | (1 recommendation so far) | Message 8 of 9 in Discussion |
| | From: Perseus | Sent: 16/06/2008 12:29 p.m. |
A Choleric personality is created. Except this has not quite happened to me. Too much violence, I suspect. |
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A narcissistic daughter of a narcissist would remain single because she didnot want to be owned. I must say- that rubbed me up the wrong way. I have chosen to remain single because of that fact. I stick by it and I am happy. But I AM NO NARCISSIST. Raging N father only PROVED to me by the way he treated me was that I was never ever ever in my adult life going to be objectified and have my boundaries stamped on again. By anyone. So far, remaining unattached and seriously unavailable has kept me safe- I've had some close calls with other N's who tried to prey- but it didn't work. It's not for everyone, but it works for me. |
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