What Happens To The Children Of Extreme Narcissists?
I recently wrote a post about who marries an extreme narcissist. Now, I'm going to talk about what happens to the children of extreme narcissists. In my practice as a psychiatrist, I've encountered many such children and they've all been adversely affected by having one or both parents with this personality type.
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I recently wrote a post about who marries an extreme narcissist. Now, I'm going to talk about what happens to the children of extreme narcissists. In my practice as a psychiatrist, I've encountered many such children and they've all been adversely affected by having one or both parents with this personality type.
The child who grows up with one or both parents who are extreme narcissists is inevitably going to be lacking in love, validation, mirroring and approval. They will have a deep sense of insecurity and be lacking in confidence. This is because the narcissist is incapable of really seeing or loving their child.
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A loving parent wants to know everything about their child. This parent is fascinated with every little nuance of the child's personality and behaviour, and the parent celebrates their child's uniqueness. This causes the child to love and value him or herself for the special individual that they are.
A loving parent values their child, just for who they are. This parent loves their child unconditionally and nurtures them so that they can grow into the best version of themselves.
The narcissistic parent, by contrast, sees their child as an extension of their own ego and as their "property." The child is a reflection of the parent and belongs to the parent. Either the child is seen by this parent as conferring some advantage in life, or the child is seen as a burden and a nuisance; often both.
The child of extreme narcissists is never seen for who he or she is, and is never appreciated just for him or herself. The extremely narcissistic parent can only enjoy and exploit their child for what the child does for them or how the child makes them look to others.
The "love" the extreme narcissist gives to their child is a pseudo-love that's shallow and conditional and doesn't come close to meeting the child's real needs. As a result, the child grows up with an empty space inside them that was supposed to have been filled with parental love and validation.
The paradox is that the children who grow up to be narcissists don't see that they have a problem.
As they're growing up, the child of the extreme narcissist can go in one of two directions. They can channel their low self-esteem and needs for love and approval into people-pleasing, trying to get others to accept and validate them. Or, they can compensate for their deep feelings of inadequacy by inflating their fragile ego and becoming grandiose. They can become as narcissistic as their parent was.
The children who grow up to be people-pleasers seem, on the surface, to struggle a lot more in their lives, as they look to others to make them feel good about themselves. They are insecure and they go to great lengths to obtain approval from those around them. They focus on making other people happy, rather than on taking care of themselves.
The children who grow up to be narcissists might achieve some measure of success, in that their inflated self-worth can lead them to attain certain goals, but they can never be truly happy. The emptiness within them will never be filled by following in their narcissistic parent's footsteps. They will never have real love in their lives and all their accomplishments will ultimately feel meaningless.
The paradox is that the children who grow up to be narcissists don't see that they have a problem. Their inflated ego denies the deep wound within them. They're unable to recognize the empty hole where self-love should be, so they can't conceive of real ways to fill this void. They're doomed to remain narcissists, pursuing external gratification and seeing others merely as a source of this gratification or an obstacle to it.
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The children who grow up to be people-pleasers, on the other hand, have the capacity for insight into their own behaviour. They're able to look at their choices and take responsibility for their behaviours. These people-pleasers can use counseling or therapy to build their self-esteem and fill that emptiness within them. They can learn to love themselves and receive love from others, without having to earn it through pleasing.
The child of the extreme narcissist who grows up to be a narcissist themselves is doomed, in the same way as their parent is, to a life of empty, exploitative relationships and the compulsive pursuit of external solutions - money, fame, power, influence - for their real inner needs for closeness, happiness and meaning.
The child of a narcissist who grows up to be a narcissist themselves might look like they're doing better, but they'll never live a good life. The child of the narcissist who grows up to be a people-pleaser is the much luckier one, as they have a real chance to change and to live a full and satisfying life with real love and real meaning.
My new book, Be Kind, Not Nice: How to Stop People-Pleasing, Build Your Confidence and Discover Your Authentic Self is now available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
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How to Deal with the Narcissist in Your Life
(01 of06)
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Narcissists are the kudzu of the human condition -- a rapidly proliferating species that shows up anywhere, thrives everywhere and resists all attempts to wipe them out. There are a lot of reasons for that: They're charismatic, articulate and often brilliant. They have the power to charm the pants off of you -- sometimes literally -- which means they breed a lot, leaving plenty of little narcissists behind. (And yes, there's a genetic component to the condition.)
What this means is that you are all but certain to encounter narcissists, at any given time, on any given day. The question is how to deal with them. Here are five places narcissists lurk -- and what you should do when you find them. (credit:Hyacinth Manning/Superstock/Getty Images)
The Narcissist in the Corner Office(02 of06)
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You know this boss; you've probably had this boss. He -- or increasingly, she -- is the boorish, bullying, arrogant, blame-laying, credit-grabbing monster who haunts your days. You're not alone. According to one 2007 study by the polling firm Zogby International, 37 percent of all workers in the U.S. have at some point been bullied on the job -- or, a whopping 54 million people, when you calculate from a conservative estimate of the size of the workforce.
The most delightful way to cope with this kind of narcissist is to find another job, slap your resignation letter on the little despot's desk and walk on out. But that's not always an option. So, for as long as you're stuck in a bad gig, remember these coping strategies:
1. If possible, always pitch the boss a new idea in a group setting, rather than to the boss alone. The more people who hear that the idea is yours, the harder it is to steal.
2. When the boss blames you for a problem that's actually his or her fault, resist the panicky impulse to pass that blame further along to a subordinate. This leads to what's known as a blame contagion that can cycle all the way down the organizational chart. Better to cop to anything that truly is your fault, explain the things that aren't—and do it all in a traceable, storable e-mail chain.
3. Don't stand for being bullied -- verbally or physically (and yes, that happens). Document every single incident of abuse and report them all to human resources. If other people witnessed the incidents, ask them to back you up. And to the greatest degree possible, take none of this personally. The boss's narcissism really is about the boss -- and that explains a lot about what motivates narcissists.
In 2009, Nathaniel Fast, PhD, a professor of management and organizational behavior conducted a study of 410 people employed at various levels in various companies and found that aggression and abusive behavior come from a particular combination of authority and self-perceived competence. Repeatedly, he found, the most dangerous people are the ones with a lot of power but not as much confidence -- which means they are deeply insecure about being found out. That makes them intolerant of any criticism or contradiction -- and that, in turn, can lead to misbehavior when they feel threatened.
Bosses are particularly susceptible to this lethal combination because their charisma and confidence means they interview well, but that also means they have a higher than average chance of getting hired for a job they may secretly know they're not qualified to perform. "Search committees can't get enough of these guys," says management expert Robert Hogan, of Hogan Assessment Systems. You, by contrast, will have more than enough of them very quickly. (credit:Diana Ong/Superstock/Getty Images)
The Narcissist in the Next Cubicle(03 of06)
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Some of the same rules that apply to a narcissistic boss apply to the narcissistic co-worker -- particularly avoiding the blame game and protecting your ideas. But there are differences, too.
Narcissistic co-workers can be great in the early stages of a group project -- say, when you're brainstorming ways to land a new client. That makes sense: The work is usually done in groups, where individual contributions get noticed and applauded; recognition is the narcissist's drug of choice. If your focus is on what's best for the team, don't begrudge the narcissist the spotlight -- but don't be shy about pulling it to yourself when you have something of your own to contribute.
The bigger risk comes later -- when the work is more about managing the account, meeting deadlines, holding the nervous client's hand. There's no audience for work like that, and so the narcissist will slack off, letting other people carry the load. Don't permit it. The group should have a way of accounting for hours logged and tasks completed, and the narcissist should be included in those ledgers.
Even in businesses that don't work by billable hours, there are ways to keep track of how much of a contribution any one person is making. An unnamed narcissist at an unnamed magazine in my past was forever shirking work -- taking on fewer and fewer assignments and claiming chronic illness as a reason. A quick byline count on the magazine website provided an exact accounting of who in our department had been producing what -- and who had been producing next to nothing at all. In the next round of layoffs (and there were plenty in that era), the narcissistic colleague became an ex-colleague. (credit:Diana Ong/Superstock/Getty Images)
The Narcissist in Your Bed(04 of06)
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Get out of bed. Run away. Don't look back. Any questions?
Okay, maybe it's more complicated than that. It's very easy to fall for the charm of a narcissist; and since charm often equals sexy, and sexy often equals sex, things get messy fast. Paradoxically, narcissists are often quite faithful in the early stages of relationships, because what frequently leads people to cheat is insecurity: If you're afraid the person you love doesn't love you back, you begin looking for your next landing spot. Narcissists can't conceive that they're not adored, so they don't go through that phase.
But they'll cheat soon enough, because for narcissists, a relationship is all about how the partner enhances their own self-image. That means always trading up to someone who's younger, prettier, richer -- or just plain newer. Narcissists will lie about where they've been and what they're doing; they'll listen less and less when you speak (not that they ever listened much to begin with), and they'll leave you flat if you don't leave first.
If you're married to a narcissist you're in a lot deeper. Here you must confront the problem squarely and suggest -- indeed, insist on -- either marriage counseling, individual therapy for your spouse, or both. Narcissists resist that, since the nature of the condition is that they don't accept that anything is wrong with them. But stand your ground -- and if that doesn't work, consider leaving the marriage. You deserve better.
This broad rule holds for both sexes, but when it comes to romance, women really are in greater peril than men. A 2008 study, by a researcher at New Mexico State University, looked at the improbable attraction many women have to men who exhibit the so-called dark triad of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism and impulsive thrill-seeking. The paper crunched the statistics and found that these men outscore other men in number of sexual encounters in any given week, month or year. If you're seeing or married to one of these guys, that alone argues for getting single or unmarried fast. (credit:DEA/G. DAGLI ORTI/Getty Images)
The Narcissist in Your Social Circle(05 of06)
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The narcissistic friend is the one who can go out drinking with you, talk all night about her job and her boyfriend and her vacation plans, and never think to ask you about how you're doing.
It's often not necessary to toss aside a narcissistic friend if you're getting some satisfaction from the relationship. Like what? Invitations to good parties, funny stories, someone to go out and have drinks with. But it's best to do your socializing in larger groups or, if you do socialize with the narcissist alone, lower your expectations for the evening. Some narcissists -- the ones with a low-grade case of narcissistic fever -- might respond to a little good-natured teasing. When I lived on the second floor of an apartment building with a narcissistic friend who lived on the fourth, and we were making plans on the phone to go out for drinks, he said to me, "Okay, come get me on your way out." That's a statement that ought to come from the person on the lower floor, unless the person higher up is entirely self-absorbed and needs to be collected and squired. My response: "Um, are we going via roof helicopter?" It got a laugh, it made the point and I think our friendship inched ahead a little. (credit:Hyacinth Manning/Superstock/Getty Images)
The Narcissist in Your Family(06 of06)
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You know the sister who never talks about anyone but herself? The uncle who holds forth at Thanksgiving dinner, from the pumpkin soup straight through the pumpkin pie and brooks no interruption, and certainly no contradiction? You know the parent or grandparent or even offspring who has never been heard to utter the words, "So how are you doing?"
Well, get used to them, because you're stuck with them. For the most part, there's no divorcing or quitting or firing your family. Even though you only see them at holidays, weddings and funerals, they'll always be a fixture in your life. That means finding ways to deal with them.
The answer, most psychologists say, begins with the same advice that applies to dealing with a narcissistic boss: Don't personalize it. The self-adoring family member is responding to an inner script, which is very often a painful script. That's worth keeping in mind.
It can also help, say therapists, to establish your boundaries: Make clear what you expect from a relationship, or at least a conversation, and that it must include some reciprocity. Narcissists are characteristically obtuse, but they do have a learning curve. When your relatives make short work of you often enough at family gatherings -- turning away to have a rousingly good conversation with the person seated across the table -- the message does get through. "It's possible," says psychologist W. Keith Campbell, PhD, of the University of Georgia. "But it's not the natural course of things."
Better still -- if you can abide it -- is simply to wait the narcissist in your family out. The old wisdom about personality disorders like narcissism was that they're intractable. Once you've got the diagnosis, you're stuck for life. But in 1990, psychologist Mark Lenzenweger, PhD, of The State University of New York at Binghamton launched a 16 year longitudinal study and found that it's possible for people simply to age out of narcissism -- at least a little.
"We did see something that was not so much spontaneous remission as it was maturation," Lenzenweger says. "The disorders just seem to clear for some people."
Spending the next few decades waiting for the narcissist in your family to shape up is not a pretty prospect. But if compassion counts for anything, remember: It is far easier to know a narcissist than it will ever be to be one.
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