No conscience

If you lacked empathy, what could you do? And lacking empathy means you do not feel bad for others, there is no guilt or remorse, no shame or embarrassment. It means you don’t get upset at anything you do, other people’s pain or distress does not affect you.

If you never felt bad about anything you did, then you could potentially do anything—abuse, take advantage of, inflict pain on others—and never lose sleep over it. For those who do have empathy, who do have a conscience, this idea is an alien one. But if you are an adult child dealing with narcissistic parents, it’s vital for you to understand and accept this.

Narcissistic parents have a long-lasting and often devastating effect on their child

That big ego

The huge sense of self-importance and entitlement, means that the narcissists put themselves first. Their wants, their needs, their desires are much more important than those of other people. In fact, they consider themselves special and superior and as such they believe they deserve favourable treatment from everyone.

They will typically make themselves the centre of attention. Think of Bette Midler in the movie Beaches where, after talking at length about herself, she says, “That’s enough about me. Let’s talk about you. What do you think about me?”

Narcissists will charm and entertain people with stories about themselves which indicate how good they are, how successful they are, how intelligent and beautiful they are and, if the attention drifts away from themselves, they will bring it back or lose interest in the group altogether.

They also want others to acknowledge how great they are. They want compliments and adoration and will even force people into saying nice things about them. This desire for constant recognition is called narcissistic supply and a narcissist cannot get enough of it.

Recognising that a parent is a narcissist is the first step in recovering from such an abusive childhood

Any threat to their ego or anything that the narcissist even considers a threat to their dominance may be met with narcissistic rage. This is a sudden bout of anger that may be out of proportion to what was said. However, these sudden and unexpected outbursts have the effect of ‘training’ the recipients how to speak and behave around the narcissist, i.e., criticism or objections will elicit rage and unpleasantness from the narcissist and compliments mean that such fury and nastiness can be avoided. This is often used as a simple punishment and reward system for controlling people.

If your spouse or boss is a narcissist, you can find ways to escape the wrath of their fury. But children have little protection from narcissists and narcissistic parents have a long-lasting and often devastating effect on their child.

The narcissistic family

There is no one ‘stereotypical’ narcissistic family. Some narcissistic parents are so busy in their own lives that they have no time for their children and the children are effectively raised by outsiders. Others micromanage their children’s lives, organising every moment, making every decision for the children—even into adulthood!—pushing them very hard to succeed so that the narcissist can take credit for their achievements. Some parents prevent their children from maturing, so the child believes they cannot survive without the parent. Others make their children believe that they have to look after the parents emotionally, physically and financially. These children do housework from a young age, pay the house bills as soon as they can work and even act as therapist to the parent.

Recognising that a parent is a narcissist is the first step in recovering from such an abusive childhood. The next step is a process of education in narcissism and the nature of the very controlling techniques and tactics that narcissists use to manipulate their victims. This step is best done with an expert in this field.

Narcissists use a combination of techniques to create dependency in their victims

Important things to understand

Why emotions were suppressed

The adult will now have many strong emotions about the family, but their emotions will have been very heavily controlled by the narcissistic parent and simply reliving and expressing these emotions is not enough to relieve the situation. They need to learn how and why emotions were suppressed so that they can make sense of their childhood.

The dependency aspect

Narcissists use a combination of techniques to create dependency in their victims. For example, alternating compliments and criticism, especially when it is unpredictable, will create dependency very quickly. Another tactic is to not allow children any privacy. For example, having to reveal all thoughts and feelings to the narcissist, or not being allowed to close the bedroom door, means that the personality of the child is not allowed to separate from the narcissistic parent.

This tactic is used in high control groups such as cults to create a very dependent bond between the members and the group, where the member loses his or her individuality and blends with the group in a destructive manner. Saying that such a child/adult is co-dependent is actually blaming the victim and does the victim an injustice.

The adult children dealing with narcissistic parents need to keep in mind that there is no cure for narcissism

As part of the dependency, the narcissistic parent will heavily influence the child’s decisions and will typically not allow the child to make their own choices.

Simply moving away from the family is not enough either… it doesn’t mean that the person’s personality develops naturally and they start making their own decisions. It takes work on the part of the victim to learn how they were controlled and how to take back control.

The risk of abuse

One common consequence of dealing with narcissistic parents is that the children often end up being abused in their own intimate relationships. Narcissists are very controlling creatures and will be able to tell when they meet someone who has been controlled by a narcissist before. The victim of narcissistic parents is therefore an easy target for a narcissist they meet later in life. The adult child of a narcissist does NOT seek out abusers as life partners. The narcissist seeks out easy prey. This is another example of how the victims get blamed for something that is not their fault.

The adult children dealing with narcissistic parents need to keep in mind that there is no cure for narcissism. A narcissist never changes. So, your narcissistic parents will not change. [They are superior beings, after all. And they are not the one with the problem, it’s everybody else. They see no need to change!]

An important decision to be made is how much time you are willing to spend with a narcissistic parent. There are all sorts of cultural values called into play here because of how one should treat their parents and so on. But understanding the nature of narcissism and how they control and manipulate people is vital to making an informed decision and taking action in order to put an end to the abuse that has been suffered at the hands of a narcissistic parent.

It’s not your fault!

If you are an adult child dealing with narcissistic parents, remember that it is not your fault. This is difficult for the victims to understand because narcissists never take the blame for anything, but it is vital to get to the point of understanding this fully in order to completely recover from the damage done by narcissistic parents.

The post Reversing the damage caused by a narcissistic parent appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

As you will see from the cases in point that follow, familial love such as love between mother and child, or platonic friendship, or even love for a pet, are also just as vulnerable to such a mix-up. In fact, oftentimes true love is insulated with a sheathing of selfish obsession, which is neither healthy for the self, nor for others. A gentle uncovering is needed to reveal healthy, happy love. This is why it becomes important to be able to discern what love truly is and what it is not.

What is genuine love

Love is about nurturing and helping the loved one grow. When we feel genuine love towards another, we are concerned about the wellbeing of the loved one. In feeling so, we are willing to let go of our own wants and desires. When we love someone, we want to ensure that s/he becomes emotionally independent, self-reliant and possesses a healthy self-respect. We want our beloved to be able to think as an individual, and be strong enough to experience life’s ups and downs without getting bogged down.

Sometimes, this requires difficult decisions on our part. Like when we know that someone we love is making a mistake, we allow him or her to do so, knowing fully well that making mistakes are part of growing up and overprotecting impedes the development of the person.

Love frees, obsession cages

When we are obsessed, we lose objectivity and want a dependency-relationship. This dependency could be one-way or two-way; either way, it turns out to be a cage.

We have all known, or heard about, individuals who threaten to commit suicide if they don’t get their object of love. Fervent statements such as, “I can’t live without my boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife,” are usually the result of obsession, not love.

In The Road Less Traveled, M Scott Peck defines dependency as the inability to function adequately without the certainty that one is actively being cared for by another. He differentiates “dependency” from “dependency needs, or feelings” which, he reckons, is normal. All of us like to be cared for, but it is only when such desires begin to rule us and dictate the quality of our lives that we become “dependent.”

Obsession is a neurosis and it is detrimental to our wellbeing. In acting obsessively we hinder our growth and that of our loved one. When a mother doesn’t let her teenage son leave the city/country for higher studies because she is “afraid” that he won’t be able to take care of himself, is she demonstrating love or dependency? Certainly her concern comes across as love, but it might actually be dependency. She probably likes to be needed by her son because she feels worthwhile that way. If she lets him go away, she might be making him take his first step towards independence—he may, thereafter, not need her.

Love, on the other hand, encourages risk-taking and independence. In the above example, if the mother genuinely loves her son, she would risk her own feelings of concern for her son in lieu of his growth towards self-reliance. Any relationship comes bundled with the risk of loss. People who love genuinely acknowledge and accept this fact.

Love gives, obsession depletes

When we are obsessed, which is in contrast to true love, we care little for anything else except self. What does this mean? An obsessed person is concerned only about his own feelings, and consequently all his acts are motivated by a desire to meet his own expectations. Therefore, even when s/he’s acting generously towards his/her beloved, the motivation is selfish. For example, an obsessed man showers his girlfriend with gifts, because that makes her happy, and she thinks he’s so caring and loving which, in turn, delights him. The intention then is to purchase delight for oneself in return for a gift.

On the other hand, a man who loves his girlfriend genuinely doesn’t care about his own feelings. He simply wants to give. The loving man may also feel delighted, but his act of giving is not motivated by a desire for feeling good himself, but for the sake of giving alone.

Obsession controls, love lets go

An obsessed person is insecure and his/her actions are dominated by fear. As a result s/he’s always trying to control behaviours and emotions of the one s/he loves. S/he wants to know where you are going, what you’re doing/thinking/dreaming. S/he may also dictate how you should dress, what you ought to eat, how you should part your hair, what career you should opt for, and so on. The key word here is “dictate”. The one who loves may only suggest what s/he thinks is in your best interests, whereas the obsessed will only insist. The loving individual respects you and your choice, but the one who is obsessed doesn’t trust you.

Is it love?

True fulfilment can only be possible in true love. Obsession is a self-defeating phenomenon. It is a no-win trap that only causes harm. The trouble is that it is often difficult to draw the line between love and obsession. Thankfully, there is a simple test to figure out the difference.

When confused, ask yourself what is your deepest thought. If it’s selfless, it is love. Ironically, you can’t love someone truly unless you love yourself. For how can you give away what you don’t have?

Loving yourself should not be confused with narcissism, which is obsession with oneself, and just as harmful. Loving oneself is about being secure in the knowledge that you are worthy and have an important role to play in this world, and so do others. Those who love themselves genuinely have no desire to control anyone, because they are in control of themselves.

Yes, loving the self and others unconditionally is not easy. It requires hard work and mindful practice. But, the result is worth the endeavour, you will agree.

The post Is It Love or Obsession? appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.