Every day I hear more than one person about their experience of narcissistic abuse as a kid.
At the time of being a kid – they had no idea the abuse had a name. Why would you? At ten, even five years old – you aren’t going to know what narcissism is.
It’s thanks to places like The Narcissistic Life that you can learn what happened to you, and piece it all together.
Starting with these 17 signs.
You know, there are so many signs right here that I just need to dive right in and get started…
1. You Are a People Pleaser
People pleasing is the desperate need to make everybody else happy, no matter what it does to your own mental health.
As long as those around you are okay, you’re okay. This is because you learned at an early age that your feelings don’t matter, and that you have to work to ensure other people’s happiness.
I’m here to tell you that this was never your responsibility.
2. You Find it Hard to Maintain Healthy Relationships
Healthy relationships involve compromise and trust, and give and take, and the idea that nobody is out to ask for your love on condition.
If healthy relationships were never modeled to you, how can you either find one, or be in one as an adult? You will be more naturally drawn to wanting to fix people, or to try and change those who exhibit abusive traits.
Your job isn’t to earn the love of somebody incapable, but to thrive in the love of somebody able to love you back.
3. Boundaries Are Difficult
Saying no, or putting your foot down when somebody oversteps is hard for you. You say things like, “Oh, that’s okay!”, or, “Hey, I know you mean well.”
Nobody who violates your boundaries means well, and it’s not okay. Narcissistic parents assume their role as parent automatically gives them a pass on your boundaries because you have to do as they say, but that’s not the case.
We all deserve respect.
4. You’re Hypervigilant
Noises, feelings, situations send your senses onto overload. You constantly look for what could go wrong, or try to tap into what others are thinking.
So many children have to try and question their environment day after day, and it’s not something they’re even consciously aware that they’re doing.
What mood will daddy be in?
Is mommy going to speak to me today?
No child should have to feel this way, but of course over the years it leads to a hypervigilant state of being.
5. You Doubt Yourself
Dealing with narcissistic abuse as a kid would have meant regular times where you would have doubted yourself, your abilities, your skills, your likes and dislikes; everything.
The root of this stems from the incessant criticism, mockery and ridicule you’d have received from your narcissistic parent.
Nothing you did was right or good enough, and now here you are, a grown adult and dipping into daily doubts.
6. You Fear Success as Much as You Fear Failure
Of course you do. You were never given the chance to succeed, and because your light was dimmed so much as a child, you fear the feeling of actually having it shine brightly.
Potential success was taken from you as a child, because your narcissistic parent feared you being more successful than them. Lids are put on children, and that feels like failure.
But the lid acts as a limit to what you think you can achieve, and anything above that feels absolutely terrifying.
7. You Feel Isolated
Narcissistic parents isolate their children in the following ways:
- They tell them that any family business should be kept inside the house and not spread around to people. This ensures no abuse is talked of, and can make children feel very alone.
- They pull you away from any true friends you make, or anybody they feel you’re getting ‘too close to’ to control you further.
So yes, as an adult, you struggle to talk or admit your problems, and you find it hard to make or maintain friendships.
8. You Find it Hard Making Decisions
How can it be easy for any child of abuse as an adult to make decisions easily?
You’re probably used to all decisions being made for you, and if you dared try to do it yourself, you will have been mocked or rejected.
So now – here you are – an adult trying to think about what choices you have and how to make the right one.
This is where the self-doubt I talked about likes to awaken.
9. You Self-Sabotage
Why not ruin something that was only going to eventually get ruined anyway, right?
You’re so used to everything going wrong, or happiness being so short-lived that you may as well make a dent in it and abandon any hope that you can prove yourself – and your past – wrong.
10. You Don’t Know Who You Are
Loss of identity starts at a young age, but children of narcissistic abuse go through all those vital years of change and hormones never really knowing who they are.
All their efforts are instead to try and conform with who their parents want them to be.
As an adult – you feel lost and you don’t really know where to place your values or beliefs.
11. Anxiety
It goes without saying that anybody who has experience having a parent – somebody who is supposed to love and care – be abusive will cause anxiety.
Not knowing what kind of mood they will be in.
Never feeling good enough.
Being gaslighted as a kid where you know no better.
Loss of identity.
It’s all going to stir up fear and worry.
12. Depression
No surprises that it leads to depression in a lot of adult children of narcissists.
You’re grieving for a parent you never had, who is still alive.
You’re sad for all the loving moments that never occurred.
You’re sad for yourself, being put through all of that so young.
13. Feeling on Edge Constantly For No Reason
It’s what you were accustomed to feeling, after all, no day was the same.
Narcissists’ moods fluctuate quickly, and children aren’t supposed to understand that.
You wonder what you are going to do wrong next, or worry that you aren’t showing up as the right kind of person, and it’s all down to that parent.
14. To Trust, or Not To Trust?
If you can’t trust a parent, how can you trust anybody else? The first people you learn from are your caregivers, so if they let you down, there’s so much you need to learn yourself. And trust is a hard one.
15. You Gaslight Yourself
It’s easy to convince yourself that you don’t feel a certain way, or need something from life if you’ve constantly had your reality ripped from you.
So yes, adults tend to gaslight themselves and ignore what’s really going on.
16. You Put Everybody Before Yourself
Everybody comes first because that’s how you were taught to treat that parent in the past.
As long as I can make them happy, that’s all that matters.
If they can be happy, I will feel better than I helped them.
It was never your responsibility to show up and be the parent.
People pleasing leaves you always coming last.
17. You Disassociate
Zoning out and not being in the moment, or when it comes to close relationships is your automatic way to try and be safe.
It’s what you would have done as a child, because you felt better pulled away from reality.
This lingers into adulthood, and is a huge sign you dealt with narcissistic abuse as a kid.
