Is My Parent a Narcissist? [CC English & Español] | Kati Morton

- Hey, everybody, happy Thursday.

Now, today's question is a good one

but before we jump into that,
are you new to my channel?

Welcome.

I am a licensed therapist

talking about all things mental health

and I release videos on
Mondays and on Thursdays

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and have those notifications turned on

so that you don't miss out

but let's jump into today's question

and it is Kati, speaking of this,

can you talk about
narcissistic abusive parents

and how to cope?

Now, I believe I found this question below

on my Three Types of Narcissists video.

Before we really get into this question

and how we can best cope,
there are a few things

that I really wanna
discuss with you first.

Number one, when we grow up
with a narcissistic parent,

what we struggle with
most is emotional neglect.

This happens most commonly
when a parent is a narcissist

because they always put their own needs

ahead of their child's.

Remember, narcissism
is when we demonstrate

a pattern of grandiosity,
need for admiration

and have a lack of empathy.

So having a child isn't something
that we can emotionally do

or at least not healthfully

and if we need a lot of admiration

and have to feel important,

being a parent to a baby and a child

couldn't be farther from that.

Even from my very limited
experience as a nanny

and watching my friends have children,

it's obvious to me that being a parent

is one of the most humbling
experiences of your life.

Children cry frequently.

They need most of the
attention, care and affection.

They truly cannot survive on
their own without their parent

and therefore they're
gonna need us all the time

to feed them, change them and
also love and care for them.

If we grew up with a
parent who is narcissistic,

this could mean that they
weren't able to do anything

more than keep us alive.

Forget the cuddles, forget the
patience when we were upset

or even them trying to figure out

what was causing us to cry.

If anybody's ever watched
a baby when they're crying,

you're like what do you want, need?

I bathed you, I fed you, I changed you.

You're trying to figure it out.

So they probably didn't do much of that.

If a narcissistic parent becomes
embarrassed by their child

which happens all the time
'cause kids cry in public,

they might throw things in public,

they might try to take their clothes off.

You don't even know.

Children are unpredictable
but as a result,

a narcissistic parent could
lash out at their child

or even at their spouse

therefore this could mean that as a child

you were possibly emotionally
or physically abused

or at least neglected in many ways.

Now, as far as treatment for this goes,

if we're out of that situation
and we're trying to heal,

we're trying to figure out
what we should do first,

I would consider trauma
treatment to be your best option.

While I do think therapy in
general could be really helpful

because it's validating, supportive

and can give you a safe
place to talk through

all that happened while
you were growing up

but I think being abused
or neglected in any way

is a trauma obviously

and working with someone
who specializes in that

could speed things along for you

because some of the things
that a regular therapist,

not a trauma specialist would bring up

might not be pertinent.

You might need someone just
to jump right in with you

and start challenging you in ways

that maybe you don't even know you need

in order to process things through

and this could be like EMDR therapy.

I have a video about that

if you're curious what I'm talking about.

I'll link it in the
description but these are just,

there are a bunch of different
types of trauma treatment

and finding someone who specializes

could be really, really great.

Next, depending on whether
the narcissistic parent

was your mother or father,

you may wanna consider
picking up one of these books,

The Emotionally Absent Mother,

I'll link to these in the description,

and The Unavailable Father.

These are great.

You can see all of my tabs.

Great books but regardless of who it was,

something we will need
to do is to heal the hole

they left in us as a child.

When we don't get our emotional
needs met as a young child

or a baby, we can begin
to not trust ourselves,

not trust how we feel or
what we think we need.

We can begin to believe
that we are making it all up

or aren't important enough anyways.

In most cases, having
a narcissistic parent

means you were gaslit
for most of your life

and when I talk about gaslighting,

it means that you were
manipulated so often

that you may not even
trust your own sanity

or your own perception
of certain experiences

or things you know happened,
you think maybe you made it up.

Overall, whatever messages we internalize

from this neglect and abuse,

it's important now to do
our best to be a detective,

again this detective, I
love being a detective,

to figure out what's affecting us,

what our triggers are and how we react.

Being more mindful of all of
this can give us more evidence

that can really help
lead us to our healing

and my next tip is journaling

or writing letters that we don't send.

This is a great way to
express all we may be feeling

or felt in the past and any anger or hurt

that we may have stuffed
down for years and years.

Any way to get those
feelings out of our head

is really helpful as long
as it is safe to do so.

That's why I said letters
that you don't send.

So a lot of it's just ways
for you to express it.

You can talk about it with your therapist,

talk to friends about
it, anything like that

as long as it's not being trapped in here

and stuffed down there and
also if you still live at home

with these narcissistic parents,

please get out as soon as possible.

I have an older video about this

that's called Dealing With Toxic Parents.

I'll link it in the description

because you should really check it out

and it could really help
if you're feeling stuck

in this situation because
you still live with them

and my next tip is remothering
or refathering ourselves.

Whomever it was that wasn't there for us

or abused or neglected us in any way,

we're gonna have to heal from that.

I believe that trauma therapy
or talk therapy in general

can help with this but we'll
need to spend some time

figuring out what messages
we wished we had received

from that parent and find other ways

to give it to ourselves.

It could be caring for a wound
when we've hurt ourselves

like if we tripped and
fallen and scraped our knee,

we might want to care for
that ourselves and clean it up

and put a bandage on it.

It could also be taking care
of ourselves when we're sick

or saying kind and loving things
to ourselves each morning.

There's that positive self-talk.

You knew I was gonna
sneak it in in some way

but whatever it is and it
may be all of those things

just FYI, it could be a
bunch of different things

that you do to show love
and care for yourselves

but make sure you give
yourself the time to do it

and to heal because this
hurt didn't happen overnight

so unfortunately it's not
gonna heal overnight either

and I hope you found that helpful.

I hear about these things all the time,

those of us growing up
with narcissistic parents

and how painful it can be

so I hope that that just
offers a little bit of guidance

on how you can begin that process

but if you've been through this yourself,

can you just leave us some
tips and tricks and tools

and maybe resources that you know of

because together we're
working towards a healthy mind

and a healthy body and I
will see you next time, bye.