A narcissist can be a leader of the free world, or a mediocre small business owner, a washed-up old con man, a homebody recluse, a brilliant and accomplished academic, or a stay at home mom. Narcissists can be male or female and found, indiscriminately, across work sectors, races, and socioeconomic strata.
Ultimately, though, regardless of this profile variance, narcissists are defined by an almost exclusive, self-serving focus on themselves and firmly entrenched psychological defenses that guard against almost intolerable feelings of shame stemming from a deeply wounded psyche.
Simply put, deep down, narcissists feel terrible about themselves and do whatever they can to make themselves feel better.
This leads the narcissist to cope through a variety of ways, ultimately seeking to make themselves appear and feel more important and special than, at their core, they truly feel.
Unfortunately, in the pursuit of trying to appear more special and important, they often relationally wound those around them, particularly their spouses and their children.
The psychological effects of childhood neglect and emotional abuse are, fortunately, and unfortunately, well documented.
We know that children have core developmental needs that include consistent attachment, mirroring, attunement, and positive regard from their primary caregiver(s) in order to help them establish a stable, cohesive, and positive sense of self and to help them learn secure relational attachment.
FREE GUIDE
Recognize the signs. Understand the pattern. Begin to heal.
A therapist’s guide to narcissistic and sociopathic abuse — and what recovery actually looks like for driven women.
We also know that when children don’t consistently receive this, or when they instead receive consistent invalidation, frequent insecure attachment experiences, a lack of empathy, or outright hostility from their caregiver(s), this will impact them in myriad ways.
Unfortunately, parents with NPD possess character traits that are almost antithetical to being able to provide their children what they need to emotionally and mentally develop and thrive.
What are some real examples of narcissistic parenting?
- Narcissists can struggle with being able to focus their attention and orient towards someone else instead of towards themselves (refocusing parenting begs of us);
- Children’s normal and natural childhood needs can be a “bother” to a narcissist;
- The moods of a narcissist may be highly variable and explosive in nature. This is especially true if their fragile emotional regulation skills are challenged. Which is inevitable with children.
- Narcissists can often seek to put their children down to make themselves feel better. They may also play favorites among their children. They seek to stabilize themselves through manipulation of the family dynamics.
- Seeing the child as an extension of themselves, a narcissist may attempt to control the child’s appearance. As well as their pursuits, and trajectory. This is often done to ensure these align with the image the narcissist is personally trying to display to the world.
- Narcissists may only show love to a child when they perform or act in ways that are pleasing to the narcissist. This disallows a child’s authentic experiences and individuality to come forth.
- Instead of displaying and providing consistent support for their children, a narcissist may invert the dynamic. They may expect validation, support, and esteem stabilization from their children—therefore parentifying them.
- A narcissistic parent, confronted with a child who is particularly strong-willed, defiant, or independent, may rage, abuse, or even disown the confrontational, scapegoated child.
CLIENT VIGNETTE
Camille grew up in a house where her achievements were never quite her own. When she won the spelling bee at age nine, her mother told the neighbors, “She gets it from me.” When she graduated valedictorian, her mother wept — not with pride for Camille, but with relief that she had raised someone exceptional. Camille learned early that her success existed to furnish someone else’s story. By the time she reached her thirties, accomplished by every measure, she still found herself waiting for a moment that would never come: the one where her mother would look at her and simply see her.
Names and identifying details changed to protect client privacy.
What else should you know about narcissistic parenting beyond these examples?
There are myriad ways in which narcissistic parenting can manifest.
However, despite how the individual actions of the narcissist show up, and whether the child was raised by a single narcissistic parent or in a blended or married family that colluded with the narcissist, it’s safe to assume that any child – whether this child was the favorite or the family scapegoat – doesn’t escape the ill impacts of being parented by a narcissist.
So what can the ill impacts of being parented by a narcissist look like?
Again, while the impacts on the child will vary as widely as the ways in which narcissistic parenting may manifest, some of the impacts may include:
- Absorbing and deeply believing in dysfunctional and destructive emotional templates of what love looks like;
- They can learn their worthiness is dependent on how they act and what they do, not on who they are or that they are worthy just for existing;
- They may struggle with setting healthy and appropriate boundaries;
- They may struggle or fail to recognize healthy romantic partners and even be drawn to dating or marrying narcissists themselves;
- Adult children of narcissists may fall into caretaking and rescuing roles, seeking validation and worthiness from taking care of others and people-pleasing;
- They may neglect their needs and wants, or even be “needless and wantless”;
- They can have a hard time trusting that their feelings and thoughts are valid and that their needs will ever be met;
- They may deeply struggle with their self-esteem and with maintaining a stable and cohesive sense of self;
- Adult children of narcissists may attempt to cope with their emotional pain from a childhood of neglect and emotional abuse through addictive and self-destructive substances and behaviors;
- Also, adult children of narcissists may possibly grow up to become narcissists themselves.
And again, this list is in no way exhaustive. These are just some of the psychological impacts being parented by a narcissist may have on someone.
The impacts will vary and will depend on the context of the child or adult child. Factors include how strong their sense of self was. Whether they had stabilizing, functional relationships with other adults in their childhood. Whether they were the scapegoat or the favorite child. How much or how little contact they had with the narcissist, etc.
Ultimately though, the adult children of narcissists will likely face complex psychological healing tasks. These challenges stem from their parenting experiences.
So how does one begin healing after being parented by a narcissist?
CLIENT VIGNETTE
Priya didn’t understand the shape of her ambition until her mid-thirties, when a therapist asked a simple question: “Who are you working this hard for?” The silence that followed was its own answer. Her drive — the 5am mornings, the promotions she’d chased like oxygen, the relentless need to be more — had never quite felt like her own. It was an offering. A proof of worth submitted again and again to a father who had always moved the goalposts. In therapy, Priya began grieving something enormous: the understanding that the approval she’d been earning toward would never come. Not because she hadn’t done enough. Because he wasn’t capable of giving it.
Names and identifying details changed to protect client privacy.
The healing work required by adult children of narcissists will likely include the following tasks:
Educate yourself.
Whether this is through books (see my reference list below) or through my therapy practice, you will likely need to begin learning about what narcissism is. How it can show up in parenting. And what the possible impacts of it can look like. The first step in any healing process is bringing awareness to what is. And I find that psychoeducation about narcissists can be deeply illuminating. Especially as you begin to make sense of your past.
Confront your personal history of trauma and neglect.
I strongly recommend working with a therapist or other trained professional as you begin to remember, talk about, and make sense of your past. And, side note, don’t necessarily look to your own family of origin for an accurate reflection of your personal history if you have memory gaps or questions. They may not be willing or able to validate your personal history based on their own trauma with the narcissist.
Grieve what you did not receive.
Inevitably, in the course of educating yourself and confronting your past, you will need to grieve what you did not receive. Which, essentially, was a chance to truly be a kid. This grieving process may take quite some time. It can, at times, often feel endless, but it’s so valid and necessary to your healing process.
Work through the developmental milestones you may not have achieved.
Often as children of narcissists we don’t fully get the chance to be children or teens with our own identities, needs, wants, and preferences. We may also have missed out on certain development milestones. Like lifestyle experimentation, dating. Or even pursuing the education or career we wanted due to the impacts of psychologically unhealthy parenting. It’s, therefore, part of your healing work to begin working through any developmental milestones in conjunction with your personal history confrontation and grieving work.
Setting boundaries.
Either with the narcissist(s) still in your life or with those you may be over accommodating and catering to. Learning what healthy boundaries are and how to set them with others is critical for those recovering from narcissistic parenting.
Seek out healthier, more functional relationships.
At first, these may feel hard if not impossible to recognize. And you may not trust yourself that you can actually draw these kinds of relationship into your personal life. That’s okay. Start with your relationship with your therapist (a trained professional whose job it is to show up in a healthy, functional way) and allow them to help show you what could be possible in healthier relationships. Over time, may influence who you attract into your personal life.
Focus your healing and recovery work on developing a more cohesive and stable sense of self.
For most adult children of narcissists, our core healing work revolves around developing a more cohesive and stable sense of self. Learning to love and value ourselves for who we are. Not for who we think we “should” be to win approval. A poor sense of self can impact every area of our lives. From our physical and mental health to our relationships. Our career advancement. It can even impact your bank account. So focusing your work with your therapist on cultivating and developing a more cohesive and stable sense of self can be a wonderful way to focus your healing work.
What further resources can support your healing journey from narcissistic parenting?
Both Having Built an Extraordinary Life AND Still Waiting for a Parent Who May Never Truly See You
One of the most disorienting experiences in healing from narcissistic parenting is learning to hold two things at once that feel like they shouldn’t coexist.
You have built something real. A career, a family, a life that required tremendous self-determination to construct — often in spite of the messages you received at home, not because of them. That is not small. That is yours.
And yet.
There is a part of you that still picks up the phone with a quiet hope. That still, in some interior place, wants them to see it. To see you. Not the version of you that is useful to them, not the reflection they can borrow for their own narrative — but you, plainly and completely.
This is the Both/And that so many high-achieving women carry: the extraordinary life, and the longing that lives underneath it. The competence and the grief. The independence and the wound.
Healing does not require choosing one. It does not ask you to stop wanting connection from your parent, or to pretend the longing doesn’t exist. What it asks is that you stop organizing your life around earning what they could not freely give.
A Systemic Lens: Why We Mistake Dissociation for Resilience
There is something important that individual therapy can miss if we’re not careful: the cultural scaffolding that surrounds daughters of narcissistic parents.
Girls raised in these homes are trained, systematically, to suppress their own needs. To make room. To be adaptable, agreeable, low-maintenance. And when they grow into women who seem impossibly competent — who hold everything together, who rarely ask for help, who push through without complaint — culture celebrates them for it.
We call this resilience.
But resilience and dissociation can look identical from the outside. The woman who learned as a child that her needs were a burden didn’t become resilient — she became very good at abandoning herself. And the world rewarded her for it, which made the abandonment harder to see and harder to name.
This is not a personal failing. It is what happened inside a system — a family, a culture, a set of gendered expectations — that never gave her permission to take up space. Healing requires naming that system, not just working on yourself within it.
This post is not meant to demonize narcissists.
At the end of the day, narcissistic parents likely developed this way because of what they were modeled by their own parents.
And so it goes through the generations. Until one person of one generation decides to consciously and intentionally break the cycle.
My hope is that if you saw yourself in this article, whether as a child of a narcissist or possibly as a narcissist yourself, that you will make the choice to break the cycle for yourself and whatever family or legacy you create and leave behind.
Now I’d love to hear from you in the comments below:
Do you identify with having been raised with a narcissistic parent? If so, what’s been one big lesson or discovery you’ve made in your healing journey that could help others traveling this path?
Leave a message in the blog comments below so our community of readers can benefit from your wisdom.
Here’s to healing relational trauma and creating thriving lives on solid foundations.
Warmly,
Annie
Frequently Asked Questions
This is part of our comprehensive guide on this topic. For the full picture, read: Narcissistic Abuse & Recovery: A Complete Guide.
DISCLAIMER: The content of this post is for psychoeducational and informational purposes only and does not constitute therapy, clinical advice, or a therapist-client relationship. For full details, please read our Medical Disclaimer. If you are in crisis, please call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) or text HOME to 741741 (Crisis Text Line).
You deserve a life that feels as good as it looks. Let’s work on that together.
References
- American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Publishing.
- Kernberg, O. F. (1975). Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism. Jason Aronson.
- Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. Basic Books.
- Main, M., & Solomon, J. (1990). Procedures for identifying infants as disorganized/disoriented during the Ainsworth Strange Situation. Attachment in the Preschool Years: Theory, Research, and Intervention.
- Brummelman, E., Thomaes, S., Nelemans, S. A., Orobio de Castro, B., Overbeek, G., & Bushman, B. J. (2015). Origins of narcissism in children. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
- Morf, C. C., & Rhodewalt, F. (2001). Unraveling the paradoxes of narcissism: A dynamic self-regulatory processing model. Psychological Inquiry.
- Kohut, H. (1971). The Analysis of the Self. International Universities Press.
- Wright, A. G. C., & Edershile, E. A. (2018). The interpersonal core of personality pathology. Current Opinion in Psychology.
- Schore, A. N. (2003). Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self. W. W. Norton & Company.
- Miller, J. D., Widiger, T. A., & Campbell, W. K. (2010). Narcissistic personality disorder and the DSM–5. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment.
What is narcissistic parenting?
Narcissistic parenting is a pattern of parenting significantly shaped by narcissistic personality traits — including a chronic need for admiration, lack of empathy, exploitation of the child’s emotional resources, and an inability to tolerate the child’s separateness. A narcissistic parent tends to see their child as an extension of themselves rather than as a separate person with their own needs, feelings, and identity.
How do I know if my parent was a narcissist?
A formal diagnosis can only be made by a licensed clinician — and many narcissistic parents never receive one. What matters clinically is the pattern of behavior and its impact on you. If your parent consistently lacked empathy, required your admiration, used you to meet their emotional needs, gaslighted your perceptions, or only showed love when you performed according to their wishes, those patterns are significant regardless of the diagnostic label.
Can you recover from a narcissistic childhood?
Yes. Recovery from a narcissistic childhood is real, possible, and deeply worth pursuing. It typically involves psychoeducation about what happened, processing the grief of what you didn’t receive, working through developmental gaps, learning to identify your own needs, and building a more stable and cohesive sense of self. Trauma-informed therapy is the most reliable pathway, and the work, while often difficult, genuinely transforms lives.
What are the long-term effects of growing up with a narcissistic parent?
Adults who grew up with narcissistic parents often carry specific relational wounds: chronic hypervigilance, difficulty trusting their own perceptions, deep-seated shame, people-pleasing patterns, and difficulty identifying their own needs. Many develop a sense of worthiness that is conditional — tied to performance, achievement, or approval — rather than intrinsic. These patterns are not permanent. They are responses to what happened that can be gently, carefully, worked with in therapy.
Should I cut off contact with a narcissistic parent?
The question of contact — full contact, limited contact, or no contact — is one of the most personal decisions in this healing process, and there is no universally right answer. What matters is what allows you to feel safest and most able to grow. Many people benefit from working with a therapist to explore what level of contact feels sustainable and aligned with their values, rather than making this decision from a place of reactivity or guilt.
What does healing from a narcissistic parent actually look like — and is it really possible, even after all the work I’ve done?
In therapy, healing means developing greater capacity to live fully and authentically, with more freedom from the constraints of past wounds. It doesn’t mean becoming a different person or erasing your history. It means developing a more regulated nervous system, a more compassionate relationship with yourself, and the capacity for more genuine connection. Yes, it is absolutely possible.
How long does this actually take? I’ve been in therapy for years and I still feel stuck sometimes.
The duration of therapy varies enormously depending on the individual, the nature of their concerns, the type of therapy, and their goals. Some people find significant relief in a few months; others benefit from longer-term work. It’s a deeply personal process, and a good therapist will work collaboratively with you to assess your progress and adjust the approach as needed.
How do I know if therapy is working — or if I’m just spinning my wheels?
Signs that therapy is working include greater self-awareness, improved emotional regulation, changes in your patterns of thinking and behavior, better relationships, and a greater sense of agency and well-being. Progress is often non-linear, with periods of significant growth interspersed with plateaus or even temporary setbacks. Regular check-ins with your therapist about your progress are important.
I don’t feel like therapy is helping me anymore. What do I do when it stops working?
If you don’t feel like your therapy is helping, the most important thing is to talk about it with your therapist. This conversation itself can be therapeutic and can lead to adjustments in approach. If, after an honest conversation, you still don’t feel the fit is right, it’s okay to seek a different therapist. Finding the right therapeutic relationship is crucial.
Why can’t I just process this with a really good friend? What does a therapist actually offer that’s different?
While both can be valuable, therapy offers something distinct: a trained professional who provides an objective, non-judgmental space; specific skills and evidence-based approaches; a consistent, boundaried relationship designed to promote healing; and the ability to work with deeper patterns and underlying issues. A good therapist also brings their own healing work to the relationship.
