12 Signs of Being Raised by Narcissists & Effects in Adulthood

Characteristics of a Narcissistic Parent

Narcissistic parents are often emotionally abusive to their children, holding them to impossible and constantly changing expectations. Those with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) are highly sensitive and defensive. They tend to lack self-awareness and empathy for other people, including their own children.^1,2 Narcissistic parents are frequently described as being unpredictable, or “hot and cold,” making it hard for children to know what to expect.^3,4,5,6 Narcissistic abuse is common and can have lasting negative impacts on children that last into adulthood.

12 Signs You’ve Been Raised By a Narcissist

Narcissists can be hard to spot because they tend to put a lot of energy and effort into maintaining their reputation and appearing normal, but it’s especially difficult to recognize NPD in the people closest to us. Parents with NPD tend to be skilled at using narcissistic phrases that twist reality in ways that cause their children to doubt themselves and their perception, all while portraying themselves as loving, concerned parents.

Below are 12 signs that you were raised by a narcissist:

1. Their Love for You Was Conditional

One of the most common signs of being raised by narcissists is feeling unloved and that it was your fault because you did or did not do something the right way.^3,4 This is called “conditional love” because there are certain conditions that have to be met in order to receive it. Conditional love is common in abusive homes and has devastating long-term effects on children.

When the parent is narcissistic, the conditions for love usually revolve around the emotional needs and self-esteem of the parent. When the child makes the parent feel good about themselves, important, or special, narcissistic parents will often show love and affection towards their child. When the parent feels bad about themselves or the child fails in some way, the parent may ignore them and give them the silent treatment, be cruel to them, or even become abusive.¹

2. Somehow, It Was Always About Them

People with NPD have a way of always making a situation about them. Their tendency to make it all about them  may have meant that you felt unheard, unseen, and invisible growing up.⁴ Even during moments that were supposed to be about you (i.e. your birthday, graduation, etc.), your parent may have found a way to make themselves the center of attention.

Below are some examples of how narcissistic parents make everything about themselves:

• Conversations are always about them instead of you
• They took credit for your achievements
• They created conflict or drama to draw attention to themselves
• They made everything personal, even when it had nothing to do with them
• They always needed to ‘one-up’ you when you achieved something

3. You Didn’t Know What Was Real & What You Imagined

Another sign you were raised by narcissists is experiencing self-doubt. Narcissists are often skilled at narcissistic gaslighting, which is the abusive tactic of twisting and distorting the truth in ways that can make a person question and doubt reality.⁷ Over time, this causes children to doubt themselves and their reality, even making them wonder if they are imagining things or going crazy.

Some examples of narcissistic gaslighting include:⁷

• Telling you that you are imagining or making things up
• Accusing you of exaggerating the truth
• Listing past times when they say you lied, imagined, or made something up
• Twisting what you said or did or what happened

4. You Weren’t Allowed to State Your Feelings or Needs

If you felt like it wasn’t okay for you to tell your parent how you felt or what you needed growing up, it may be an indication that your parent has NPD. Children of narcissists learn early that the things they feel, want, and need don’t matter to their parents, and learn to keep these to themselves.

Sometimes, children raised by narcissists struggle to identify how they feel, as they’ve become so used to repressing these inner emotions, wants, and needs. This can continue into adulthood, causing them to feel uncertain about who they are, what they like and don’t like, or to have a hard time making their own decisions.^3,6

5. You Witnessed Their Victims

Narcissists don’t have the capacity to have healthy, mutual relationships where they attend to the feelings and needs of other people. This is why most narcissists have a pattern of unhealthy or broken relationships. Severe narcissists often have a long list of people whom they use and then discard.²

A narcissistic parent may exhibit relational behaviors such as:

• Talking poorly about other people
• Overreacting to the slightest criticism
• Becoming aggressive or passive-aggressive to others
• Taking advantage of or using people for their own needs
• Becoming jealous or competitive with people who had something they didn’t
• Guilting or manipulating other people to get what they want

6. You Worried (a Lot) About Displeasing Them

It’s normal for a child to want to please their parent, but if you had a narcissistic parent, you might have lived in fear of displeasing your parent. Often, this fear comes from seeing what happened to others who upset them or experiencing it firsthand. Many children of parents with NPD go to great lengths to please their parents with limited success. This is because what it takes to please their parents one day might change the next, meaning that children live in a state of constant stress and fear. The punishments you received might have also varied widely depending on what mood your parent was in, leaving you constantly guessing.⁵

7. Their Reputation Was Your Responsibility

Because narcissists are so dependent on the validation, recognition, and admiration of others, their children are expected to help them maintain a perfect appearance.³ As Dr. Campbell notes, “the child can become an extension of the narcissistic parents’ ego,” which often includes helping the parent maintain a certain image or reputation.

Some of the ways you may have been expected to protect your parent’s image include:

• Being punished severely for embarrassing your parent
• Being bullied about your own appearance, weight, or performance
• Not being allowed to share certain details about them or their life with others
• Being treated like an ‘accessory’ to your parent for photo ops and public image
• Being lectured about how your actions reflect poorly on them
• Wanting you to be successful enough to brag about, but not so successful that it triggers their jealousy or makes them feel inferior to you

8. They Expected You to Always Agree With Them

Because narcissists have very fragile egos, having a different opinion, belief, or idea can be seen as a threat. Children of narcissists are often denied the right to have their own emotions or make their own choices.⁴ For example, if your parent hated someone, you may have also been expected to hate that person too. If they had an opinion, they expected you to second it. In times when you didn’t, you may have paid the price. Your parent may have become cold, cruel, or abusive towards you for disagreeing with them.

9. They Were Hot & Cold

Narcissists are often as skilled at reeling people in as they are at spitting them out. “Love bombing” is one of the common terms used to describe ways someone with NPD draws people close to them and involves showing a lot of affection, care, and concern for a person to get close to them.

Unfortunately, this behavior doesn’t last and usually ends with either an anger outburst, or another emotionally abusive form of punishment. If you had a parent with NPD, you have probably experienced both the love bombing and the emotional neglect that followed it. This may have confused you as a child, causing you to feel like if you “just tried harder” they would treat you better.

10. They Did No Wrong

At the core of NPD is a deep sense of shame and inadequacy, and most of the symptoms of the disorder function to protect the person from it. This includes their defenses of blaming other people, lashing out, denying their mistakes, and needing to maintain a perfect appearance. Unfortunately, this means that most narcissistic parents will not admit that they did anything wrong or acknowledge their shortcomings as parents. If you had a narcissistic parent, you may have been blamed for many things that weren’t really your fault. If you ever tried to confront your parent about the ways they mistreated you, you probably did not get the apology you wanted from them.

11. You Felt Like There Were Different “Versions” of Them

People with NPD have deep fears that they try to soothe by grasping for and maintaining as much control as they possibly can in all areas of their life. This means that when you were at home you may have seen a “version” of them that was very strict and reactionary in order to maintain control and compliance over you. Because adults in general look down upon this behavior, when you were in public you likely saw a different “version” that was more geared toward appearing to be an attentive and loving parent to maintain the high opinions of other adults.

12. You Often Feel Anxious & Vigilant of Others’ Moods

Watching drastic changes in emotions and moods, being told that you are directly responsible for those mood changes and negative consequences for their mood changes, and navigating different “versions” of a caregiver is stressful for a child. All of this emotional monitoring and labor often results in feeling anxious as an adult, and being hyper-aware of mood changes in others when in relationships.

Effects of Being Raised by Narcissists

The effects of being raised by a narcissistic parent can vary depending on how severe the NPD was, how much time you spent with that parent, and what other supports you had in your life. The more severe your parent’s narcissism was, the more time you spent with them, and the less support you had, the more likely you are to experience lasting negative impacts. In many instances, children suffered abuse from their NPD parent and may have developed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Being raised by narcissists can result in some of the following issues.^3,4,5,6

• Low self-esteem, shame, or insecurities: NPD parents may shame or ridicule their children, leading them to be insecure in adulthood
• Trust issues in relationships: Secrets, insecurities, and emotions are weaponized by NPD parents and can lead to trust issues.
• High levels of self-doubt: Gaslighting, narcissistic manipulation tactics, and rage outbursts cause people to doubt themselves.
• Needing the validation of other people: Children learn from their parent’s behaviors, including narcissists in need of narcissistic supply, so you might find yourself being an approval addict.
• Codependent or caretaking patterns in relationships: The feelings, needs, and wants of NPD parents become their child’s responsibility.
• Perfectionist or self-destructive tendencies: NPD parents have impossible standards that their kids internalize or rebel against, which may lead to perfectionism or impulsivity later in life.
• Trouble standing up for yourself: Children of NPD parents are often punished or shamed for asserting themselves.
• Difficulty identifying or expressing feelings: Children of narcissistic parents learn to repress their feelings, wants, or needs.
• Trouble being independent of parents: NPD parents often work hard to keep their children dependent on them.
• Not feeling like you developed a strong identity: Normal identity development doesn’t occur in abusive homes.
• Unhealthy or toxic adult relationships: Families of origin become the model for adult relationships, and attachment issues develop when there is childhood trauma.
• Symptoms of a mental health or substance use disorder: There are negative long-term effects that result from abuse, neglect, and unhealthy home environments.

How Children of Narcissistic Parents Can Heal

While being raised by a narcissist fundamentally impacts every area of your life, there are ways to move forward and to heal. Most aspects of healing focus on changes that you can make for yourself, because there is typically very little that you can do to change a narcissist or your relationship with one. It’s important to remember that you are only responsible for your half of the relationship, and that is where your healing must stay focused.

Here are healing tips for children of narcissists:

• Set boundaries: When you set boundaries with a narcissist you are outlining what your reaction will be to specific inappropriate behaviors they may choose to do. They are welcome to choose those behaviors, but it protects you from having to accept harmful behavior.
• Learn about narcissism: The more you understand about narcissism and its impacts, the better you’ll be able to make sense of your experience and be able to accurately place responsibility for different things that happened throughout your life.
• Work toward acceptance: The nature of NPD, with believing that you are truly superior to others and never to blame, often means that narcissists don’t do the healing work needed to make impactful change. Accepting that this is who they are can save you so much emotional work, heartache, and disappointment; it can also help to remind you that the hurtful things they say to you are a part of their disorder and are not necessarily true about you.
• Prioritize your own emotional well-being: Being raised by a narcissist meant that you were likely taught that their emotional well-being was more important than yours. There is likely no amount of compliments, soothing or attention that will ever be enough – focus on connecting with them in ways that feel genuine to you, so that you can feel confident in the ways that you showed up in this difficult relationship.
• Identify and lean on your supports: Having a narcissist for a caregiver is so hard because they influenced the way that you view yourself, others, and the world in general. Having trusted friends, other family, and support that can help you untangle the narcissist’s warped views from reality can be a helpful place to begin rebuilding your confidence.
• Work on regulating yourself: Interactions with a narcissist are often very stressful. Working on regulating yourself while you’re interacting with this person can not only help you take care of your own emotional health, but it can also signal to them to choose a new target that will give them the reaction they seek when they push others’ emotional buttons.
• Know your limits: Sometimes staying in a relationship with a narcissistic person is just not feasible. Outlining and understanding your boundaries and overall limitations for the relationship will help you to structure the relationship in a way that is healthy for you – whether that means continuing the same way and detaching from their behavior, limiting interactions, or choosing estrangement.
• Give yourself time to grieve: All children deserve to have caretakers that are emotionally safe and focus on helping give their child the things they need to grow. You likely will need time to grieve the parent that you deserved and didn’t get, regardless of how you choose to move forward with this relationship.

How to Break the Cycle of Narcissism When You Become a Parent

It’s a natural occurrence that the parenting you grew up with will likely impact the ways that you show up as a parent, even if your parent was not the healthiest parent. While this can feel stressful to consider, there are things you can do to break the cycle of narcissistic parenting so that it doesn’t get passed onto your children.

The most important thing you can do is to first protect your child right now in whatever ways you need to as they interact with your narcissistic parent to prevent damage from being directly passed onto your child. The next important thing you can do is ensure you work to heal the impacts on your own childhood, your self-esteem, and to examine any ways that the parenting you received is negatively impacting your own parenting. This is often best done with a therapist that can help guide you through different considerations.

When & How a Therapist Can Help

In order to recover from narcissistic abuse, it’s important to seek help from a professional counselor. Individual therapy may be helpful for those just beginning the healing process, but group therapy can also offer you the ability to connect with people who have had similar experiences. If your parent has taken accountability for their actions and are willing to work on their relationship with you, family therapy could also be an option.

When you are in the process of finding the right therapist, it’s a good idea to look for someone who has experience in treating trauma and is knowledgeable about NPD. Using an local therapist directory can help you narrow your search to find a therapist who has certain specialties and is in-network with your insurance, or you can find online therapy options like online-therapy.com that fit into your schedule. With therapy, it is often possible to heal from narcissistic abuse and learn ways to move forward with your life.

A trained therapist can help someone recovering from narcissistic abuse syndrome by:

• Identifying old coping mechanisms that may be getting in the way of healthy relationships now and better ways of coping
• Teaching you how to tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships
• Teaching you to communicate assertively, set boundaries, and avoid repeating toxic patterns you witnessed and experienced as a child
• Getting in touch with your feelings, wants, and needs and learning to make decisions independently and doubt yourself less
• Resolving shame, attachment wounds, and insecurities that result from unhealthy or abusive relationships with your parent
• Identifying ways to set boundaries with your parent to reduce the negative impact they have on you and your life as an adult