WEBVTT

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- Hey, everybody, happy Thursday.

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Now, today's question is a good one

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

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Welcome.

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I am a licensed therapist

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talking about all things mental health

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and I release videos on
Mondays and on Thursdays

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so make sure you're subscribed

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and have those notifications turned on

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so that you don't miss out

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but let's jump into today's question

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and it is Kati, speaking of this,

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can you talk about
narcissistic abusive parents

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and how to cope?

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Now, I believe I found this question below

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on my Three Types of Narcissists video.

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Before we really get into this question

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

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that I really wanna
discuss with you first.

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

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what we struggle with
most is emotional neglect.

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This happens most commonly
when a parent is a narcissist

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because they always put their own needs

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ahead of their child's.

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Remember, narcissism
is when we demonstrate

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a pattern of grandiosity,
need for admiration

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and have a lack of empathy.

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

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or at least not healthfully

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and if we need a lot of admiration

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and have to feel important,

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being a parent to a baby and a child

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couldn't be farther from that.

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Even from my very limited
experience as a nanny

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and watching my friends have children,

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it's obvious to me that being a parent

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is one of the most humbling
experiences of your life.

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Children cry frequently.

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They need most of the
attention, care and affection.

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They truly cannot survive on
their own without their parent

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and therefore they're
gonna need us all the time

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

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If we grew up with a
parent who is narcissistic,

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

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more than keep us alive.

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Forget the cuddles, forget the
patience when we were upset

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or even them trying to figure out

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what was causing us to cry.

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

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you're like what do you want, need?

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

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You're trying to figure it out.

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So they probably didn't do much of that.

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If a narcissistic parent becomes
embarrassed by their child

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

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they might throw things in public,

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they might try to take their clothes off.

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You don't even know.

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Children are unpredictable
but as a result,

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a narcissistic parent could
lash out at their child

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or even at their spouse

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therefore this could mean that as a child

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you were possibly emotionally
or physically abused

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or at least neglected in many ways.

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Now, as far as treatment for this goes,

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

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

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I would consider trauma
treatment to be your best option.

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While I do think therapy in
general could be really helpful

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because it's validating, supportive

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and can give you a safe
place to talk through

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all that happened while
you were growing up

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but I think being abused
or neglected in any way

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is a trauma obviously

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and working with someone
who specializes in that

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could speed things along for you

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because some of the things
that a regular therapist,

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not a trauma specialist would bring up

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might not be pertinent.

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You might need someone just
to jump right in with you

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and start challenging you in ways

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that maybe you don't even know you need

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in order to process things through

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and this could be like EMDR therapy.

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I have a video about that

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

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

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there are a bunch of different
types of trauma treatment

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and finding someone who specializes

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could be really, really great.

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Next, depending on whether
the narcissistic parent

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was your mother or father,

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you may wanna consider
picking up one of these books,

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The Emotionally Absent Mother,

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I'll link to these in the description,

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and The Unavailable Father.

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These are great.

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You can see all of my tabs.

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Great books but regardless of who it was,

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something we will need
to do is to heal the hole

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they left in us as a child.

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

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

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

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

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or aren't important enough anyways.

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In most cases, having
a narcissistic parent

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means you were gaslit
for most of your life

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and when I talk about gaslighting,

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it means that you were
manipulated so often

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that you may not even
trust your own sanity

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or your own perception
of certain experiences

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

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Overall, whatever messages we internalize

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from this neglect and abuse,

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

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again this detective, I
love being a detective,

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to figure out what's affecting us,

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what our triggers are and how we react.

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

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that can really help
lead us to our healing

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and my next tip is journaling

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or writing letters that we don't send.

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

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or felt in the past and any anger or hurt

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that we may have stuffed
down for years and years.

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Any way to get those
feelings out of our head

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

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

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

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You can talk about it with your therapist,

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talk to friends about
it, anything like that

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as long as it's not being trapped in here

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

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with these narcissistic parents,

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please get out as soon as possible.

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I have an older video about this

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that's called Dealing With Toxic Parents.

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I'll link it in the description

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because you should really check it out

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and it could really help
if you're feeling stuck

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in this situation because
you still live with them

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and my next tip is remothering
or refathering ourselves.

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Whomever it was that wasn't there for us

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or abused or neglected us in any way,

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we're gonna have to heal from that.

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I believe that trauma therapy
or talk therapy in general

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

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figuring out what messages
we wished we had received

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from that parent and find other ways

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to give it to ourselves.

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

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like if we tripped and
fallen and scraped our knee,

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

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and put a bandage on it.

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

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or saying kind and loving things
to ourselves each morning.

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There's that positive self-talk.

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You knew I was gonna
sneak it in in some way

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

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just FYI, it could be a
bunch of different things

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that you do to show love
and care for yourselves

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but make sure you give
yourself the time to do it

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and to heal because this
hurt didn't happen overnight

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so unfortunately it's not
gonna heal overnight either

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and I hope you found that helpful.

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I hear about these things all the time,

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those of us growing up
with narcissistic parents

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and how painful it can be

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

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on how you can begin that process

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but if you've been through this yourself,

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can you just leave us some
tips and tricks and tools

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and maybe resources that you know of

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because together we're
working towards a healthy mind

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