The parent needs to feel and be in control at all times. Many times, the parent will manipulate the situation, and in doing so always retains the focus or spotlight on themselves and avoids being held accountable. This is because the narcissistic parent likes to play favourites. The child that most reflects the narcissistic parent will take the role of the golden child, and the child who doesn’t resemble the parent is seen as a disappointment and becomes the scapegoat the one who is their own individual. Gaslighting is a psychological tactic based on manipulation, where someone makes you feel crazy or causes you to doubt your own reality of events and sanity. In order to survive, one must be on mother or father’s good side and avoid being on their bad side, which can see siblings take the mother or father’s side and even join in the verbal abuse and gaslighting. In fact, it is not uncommon for difficulties and conflicts to arise between siblings. Very often, the narcissistic parent will play their children off against the other. The parent can, at times, have a child whose role is the scapegoat, and another whose role is seen as the golden child. The results are likely to produce scarring'. This will then contribute to the child experiencing self-doubt and not being able to trust their own judgement and feelings - therefore the child often suffers from crippling self-doubt, wondering what it is that they have done to deserve such treatment.Īs Jonice Webb stated, 'a parent without empathy is like a surgeon operating with dull tools in poor lighting. They will use guilt trips and gaslighting to turn the attention away from having to hold themselves accountable, and so the child’s feelings and reality are not acknowledged. It will be all about them and nobody else narcissistic parents lack empathy and cannot attune to their children’s emotional needs. The parent will get angry at being criticised rather than take it as an opportunity to look within themselves and change any hurtful or unhealthy behaviour. The child will often feel invisible, not seen or heard, because the parent will dismiss, invalidate and ignore the child’s emotions and feelings and, in many cases, all will go back to the parent and how this makes them feel. Considering this, the child can come to adopt the false belief that they are unlovable or unworthy, because if someone close to us (such as a parent who is meant to love, value and protect us) proves incapable of doing so, then who will? This can then lead to trust issues with the child, and in later adult life not knowing who to trust, but also not trusting themselves. This can lead to the child feeling used, for they are seen more like an accessory to the parent rather than seen as a human being. This leads to children not feeling valued, and when they do feel valued it is not because of who they are but rather because of what they do. They tend to deny accusations and even shift the blame and guilt onto you. So, not only do they never hold themselves accountable, but they also may never offer an apology, or a genuine one, at least. The parent feels that, as a parent, they are entitled to control you, and also believe that they can never do wrong or be wrong. They react in extreme ways to being criticised, and this can lead them to even severely punish their children either verbally, physically, or psychologically. Narcissistic parents view their own children as a threat and as competition. Many other times, the child who rebels by having their own identity and refusing to be controlled is verbally abused and mistreated in other ways. As a child growing up with a parent like this, one is loved on conditions - that is, as long as the child meets the parent’s needs, continues to adore and idolise the parent, and act as an extension of the parent and not their self, then all is good.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |