My parents weren't narcissists but both my step parents were abusive and one might have been a narcissist. I was abused by him as a boy but even so I don't think I suffered like a child with a narc mother would have gone through. I had times I could escape because he didn't really fool anyone, even my mum, she just thought she was stuck with him I suppose. But having some blood bond with someone who abuses you and projects all their negative emotions and behaviour onto you and you belivevng you are obliged to put up with it, until that day when it hits you what has been happening - Its the one part of a bullying experience I have not been able to process. Even bullying at school can be escaped sometimes. Narcissistic abuse by someone you live with or are related to is the worst.
It is. I feel complex emotions including rage and frustration and betrayal. I feel like a victim to a system of abusive behaviors that I did not ask for, did nothing to deserve and tried my best to heal.
hermestrimegistus
Specialist
- Sep 16, 2023
- 341
I'm not entirely sure either of my parents are textbook narcs but I was told by one of them that they had us (their kids) as a form of entertainment. Which is, like, probably very narcissistic. Self absorbed to the point where he thinks no matter where he is that he is the entertainer and that people are graced to interact with him. But on the flip side is somewhat self loathing in a fake-humble, performative way that is clearly trying to paint him in a specific light.
Also, my other parent finds a way to make everything about her. Tries to make sure she never looks like the bad guy. Spent the entire time my sibling was hospitalized monopolizing the time of the doctors and nurses to turn the entire ordeal into a pity party in which she was the star. Uses my grandmas illness as a social prop and basically feeds on people's (even strangers/acquiantances) sympathy and attention to the point where she'll shoehorn it into an irrelevant conversation. But spins it so she is viewed as sort of a savior/self sacrificing figure and that no-one-suffers-like-she-suffers kind of thing.
But I wouldn't diagnose them as narcs because I don't know if they truly are. They might just be assholes haha
Also, my other parent finds a way to make everything about her. Tries to make sure she never looks like the bad guy. Spent the entire time my sibling was hospitalized monopolizing the time of the doctors and nurses to turn the entire ordeal into a pity party in which she was the star. Uses my grandmas illness as a social prop and basically feeds on people's (even strangers/acquiantances) sympathy and attention to the point where she'll shoehorn it into an irrelevant conversation. But spins it so she is viewed as sort of a savior/self sacrificing figure and that no-one-suffers-like-she-suffers kind of thing.
But I wouldn't diagnose them as narcs because I don't know if they truly are. They might just be assholes haha
