Can children of narcissistic parent ever recover?

Answer 1

Narcissism is the personality trait of selfishness taken to an extreme level, and like any personality trait, it can be slowly changed through great effort or at least blunted with behavior modification techniques. While it is possible for children of a narcissist to suffer some emotional issues due to their parent being much more involved with themselves than with their child, many children of narcissists find that emotional support from another parent, a grandparent, or through friendships.

Psychiatric professionals constantly marvel at the durability and adaptability of children. However, not all children are that adaptable and if you are someone who suffers emotional issues because one of your parents is a narcissist, then you absolutely can be helped. However, please don't believe that having parents who are narcissistic will automatically cause you to have issues. This may be a root cause of some of your problems, but people are complex, and if you are happy and well adjusted, then there is no reason to fix something that isn't broken.

However, often children of parents with a socially debilitating personality trait like this one will find that they are emotionally needy and/or that they share the very trait that caused them pain during their childhood. Personality traits are slow to change, and doing so most often requires therapy and commitment. Narcissism is extremely pervasive and most narcissists will not recognize it in themselves. They may seek treatment because they believe their parents have "messed them up" or they can see the negative results of their personality trait (poor relationships, immoral acts that cause guilt, etc.), but do not understand how their decisions are creating these situations.

Plus, you'll work on becoming more adaptable as "emotional agility" (Not allowing the behavior of others to impact you) is absolutely key to being mentally strong. Ultimately, this is what is important. While personalities are extremely difficult to change, learning to blunt them so that people do not make negatively impacting decisions is not nearly as difficult.

Answer 2

I'm a daughter of parents with narcissistic personality disorder. I'm 29 years old and am only now realizing the reality of my life so far. I have been in denial all these years all the while knowing something was seriously wrong. I just couldn't put my finger on it. I have been sucked dry, an empty shell of a person. but Now all the pieces are visible. A part of me feels I couldn't be more unlucky, more lonely. I wouldn't wish this state of affairs on ANYONE. But I know now there's nothing left for me but to move on. I see that clearly and for my own sanity I really have no other option. There's no working anything out with these people. They are more like black holes than human beings. To be around them to me feels literally like someone is suffocating me. the guilt i feel is that dibilitating. when I was little I used to have constant night terrors which i believe are actually subconscious panic attacks released in the dream state because of the overwhelming guilt one would feel expressing these reactions in waking life. And as I've become an adult i turned into the most painfully shy, awkward, withdrawn, nervous person you could possibly know which is the total opposite of who i realy am. I've tried for 29 years to make things better between us thinking it was my responsibility to make them better! And there had been so many people i went to for help who didn't take me seriously. All i really said was that i was severely depressed because that's all that i knew. They always told me to go out and make friends or told me i would get over it. but even the friends/boyfriends i had been making, my closest ones resembled my parents so much i went through a period of giving up on all relationships. a total recluse that lasted about 8 yrs and i am just coming out. I have one sibling too who is abusive towards me. you could say I was totally surrounded. that i was a hopeless case. I surely have said that so many times secretly to myself. I've surely regularly have prayed i would just die. With so many of my peers dying in car accidents or from cancer or whatever, young men with lives and potential I never understood why it wasn't me instead since i felt i had nothing to live for and i was a total failure. Its an all around ugly story.

But here is my hope.. I didn't turn out like them. Yes I'm scared. Yes I'm feeling utterly alone. Yes I am broke and broken. But also a spark is kindling inside of me with this revelation. I am proud to have gone through hell and back and come out the other side intact as the person that god made me, loving and nurturing. And I have resolved that the abuse ends with me. Tell yourself that over and over. It's an empowering statement.

Forgive and forget. DON'T ever go back. Your home awaits you. You do not need to sacrifice yourself for love. Love would never ask such a thing of you. God can help you. God can heal you. This does not come from a religious person trust me. It comes from a Survivor. It comes from the truth. Look at me and everything I've gone through and i am not bitter because I am happy that I am intact! Surely it is by the grace of god. Move forward and know that Love is in you and god will come through for you with strength and the right people and a better, happy future... granted I'm still looking for mine.

I hope I've been able to help someone out there. God knows this site has helped me enormously just to shed some of the guilt I feel. so Thank you and god bless :)

Who wrote this? It kept reading this because it mimicked my life to a tee! God Bless you. And, you are right, God is the only one to give you strength through recovery and health.

Can Children of Narcissistic Parents ever Recover?

YES, you can recover from NPD Parents! First of all you need to learn about recovery and what recovery really is. There is 12 step recovery and then there is therapy and then there is Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) or Meridian Tapping for emotional relief. And, there is now the 'recovery model' in the mental health field. Alanon is also a great place to get support.

There are stages to your recovery: First you realize something is wrong and you go about searching for answers. Then you discover what NPD is and it is a devastating stage to go through as it is like losing a parent that never existed in the first place.

Seek support from someone who will listen and validate you and not deny your reality. It is extremely hard to find someone who can supportively listen to someone talk negatively about a parent to the extent of never wanting to speak to your parent ever again. This is shocking to people who had loving parents. Thus, your reality is invalidated which causes further injury, emotional abandonment and rejection.

Then one may look further to either find a therapist who "gets it" or to seek your own kind - to see if there are any other adult children of NPD parent groups.

The sad yet good news is that there are many of us out there and they are forming online support groups more and more. Just do a Google search on what you are looking for, like "narcissistic parent forums or groups" or something like that and do some research. If you found your way here, you know enough to do some searches.

In support groups of other ACON's you will find support and MOST IMPORTANTLY - VALIDATION. It is the one major thing we did not have growing up. We had no voice, we had no boundaries, we had no loving care and our reality was invalidated so much we were left not knowing what to believe, even our own gut intuition. Thus we had to guess at what normal is.

Then the next stage of recovery once you have found your group or "tribe". It is the stage of just being able to finally talk about it, hear how others are talking about it, hear how others are dealing with it, etc. etc. This is a bittersweet stage but it can bring a sense of a new freedom and renewed hope. You get what you never had - support, validation, listening. It's like the family you never had. You may not like everyone but you know they "get it" and that forms a special bond that helps repair the fact that you had a mother/father who could not bond.

When you start to get the feeling that you are starting to get tired of hearing all the venting and complaining and realizing that the focus is still on the NPD person, past or present you may be one of the lucky ones to look for further recovery.

There is more than just being validated and seeing how wicked and bad the NPD is. That is when you begin to look at you. This can be done in therapy and or via 12 Step, say Alanon or Codependency type recovery or Adult Children type of recovery. It's not really enough, but close enough until we create groups specifically for adult children of NPD parents.

In some support groups, some of them don't really "get it" either because their focus is on Alcoholism of course and most people in society don't even know what a Personality Disorder is. But if you take the Pro-Active suggestions for SELFCARE you will be recovering. You will be recovering yourself and your self-neglect behaviors that you internalized from having a parent that programmed you to love them but not yourself.

That is why Self-Care is extremely important - I can't emphasize this enough. Why? Because when you take care of yourself and all your needs (1.) you are providing what you did not get as a child and (2.) you are experiencing what you did not get as a child. There is a healing magic in that experience.

OK, back to recovery. There is also The Recovery Model which is relatively new and it's in the Mental Health field and it's about Wellness. So you can search for WRAP - Wellness Recovery Action Plans. Basically it's about self-care to stay well and knowing your triggers and red-flags and having wellness/healthy strategies in dealing with them and with life in new ways. This is great because you are creating your own individualized recovery program. Your recovery can include going to 12 step or other support type meetings - support for emotional abuse, childhood abuse, relationship abuse, etc. etc. Your recovery can include working the 12 Steps which is really about taking a look at yourself and stop blaming the NPD for all your problems which in turn helps empower you to make changes to be more in control of your life and your reactions and not feel like a helpless victim anymore.

Once in Recovery, a lot of emotions come up naturally. The best, easiest, painless, fastest way I have found - and I've been looking for a good 20 years now - is EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques). They don't call it Emotional Freedom for nothing. It truly helps relieve you of distressful, intense feelings and the body sensations that go along with them when you are triggered and upset. It is way better and faster than EMDR. All those fears and anxieties, all the regrets and resentments, the rage, the deep sadness and pain, all the stuff you put up with, all the sick dysfunctional relationships you wasted your love and energy and time on - ALL of these things can be "Tapped" on with EFT.

EFT is where you Tap on acupuncture points while feeling the distressful feeling (it also includes some eye-movements) - you don't even have to get all the way into the feeling, you don't have to have a breakdown or breakthrough or whatever, and you don't even need to analyze or figure it out and all that. All you have to do is tap and your body relaxes, the emotion subsides and your brain then naturally processes the issue and you feel like it's behind you now.

You can learn EFT for FREE at www.EFTUniverse.com where there is a FREE manual of how to learn it - it's really very easy, you just memorize about 12 tapping spots, and the site has hundreds of pages of examples and tips all free. So why not use it on NPD Parent Recovery issues? You can use it on anything.

You can also search YouTube for videos showing you how to use EFT, and tap along.

So that brings us to the final stage of recovery which is basically getting a life and living it for the rest of your life. It is about creating your life the way you want it, self-care, learning how to socialize with the good people, learning what to do with your triggers and issues, learning what you enjoy in your life, taking actions that are positive and have positive experiences and results for you. And therein lies the recovery life - you do things that give you a positive experience. Notice I said DO things - you don't wait until you "feel like it" or until you are recovered or healed enough or until your depression goes away or whatever, you are pro-active and you take action and you "Just do it", like Nike says.

You can Tap you can read spiritual and recovery material, you can pray, you can work the 12 Steps, you can devise a WRAP, you can go to therapy, you can read books on your disorders, you can express yourself in groups or in journals, but until you begin to IMPLEMENT healthy actions into your life not much can or will change for you. Why? Well, what the heck do you think you are recovering? You are recovering your life and yourself.

It's more than what you are recovering from; it's what you are recovering to. What are you moving toward? What action can you take today that will make you feel good, valued, special, loved, healthy, well? What are you even like when you are well or happy? What actions do you have to take every day to stay well? Ditto for every week or month or once in awhile? Because if you did not take these actions what would happen?

You would relapse, whatever relapse means to you. You can relapse into old behaviors, old ways of thinking, depressions, fears, addictions, isolating, etc. You know how you've been dealing with the affects of NPD - the best way you could given that you had no knowledge or resources. But now you do have knowledge and resources and though you were not in any way responsible for what happened to you, you are responsible for yourself and your life and your recovery now and for the rest of your life. So you might as well make the best of it.

Recovery is the reward for all your hard work my friends. Recovery is more than the absence of pain, it is the new freedom and joy of life that you never even knew you could ever have. It's new friends, its peace and serenity; it's what you make it and many surprises along the way as well. Life will not always be great, no one said you are exempt from further traumas, tragedies, illnesses, hurts, losses, etc. life is still life, the good and the bad - but - you don't have to trudge it alone and you have tools now to help you get through.

Then when you are there, you will turn and look and see how far you have come and you will see and know that there are so many more out there still suffering that you may want to share your recovery with others so that they too have a shot at this thing.

Lastly, one huge aspect of NPD recovery for adult children is the topic of relationships. It's not bad enough we had NPD parents, but guess what? We get to have all the fun of marrying them and working for them and having them as best friends and the like until we have hit our bottom so to speak and take a look at why we are always victim to them, attracting them or attracted to them in some unconscious way.

This is a big part of the recovery process, too much to write about here, but it includes taking a look at what you were thinking when you first met the N's in your life, and challenging beliefs you have about yourself (I'm too damaged, Healthy people are boring, I can fix him, I'll be rewarded for all my sacrifice, I can get approval from her, and finally I will be alright then.)

When this survival plan does not work it is a devastating place to be in. You've tried your upmost best, given all of yourself and all of your prime years, your energy, time and money into trying to make these relationships work. Of course you did, you were programmed from the cradle to do so. It's ok that you did this, but now it's time to take a look at it and learn about choices you have, learn new ways of being in the world, new ways of relating to others, etc.

And the reward is real, supportive and loving relationships in your life. Don't be surprised if this takes a bit of getting used to. You're not used to love and support. But my friends, you deserve it. You have been giving it your whole life - just imagine someone like yourself giving that love to you.