When you’ve cut your arm and it’s bleeding, not only are there steps to take to help heal it, but you can see it.
Not all wounds are visible.
In fact, those that are invisible are often the hardest to heal, and some carry right through into adulthood from being a child.
Those are the wounds of the children of narcissists, and it’s time to look in more detail as to what those wounds are.
What you can’t see, still exists
We often think of wounds as cuts, scrapes, bruises and breaks, but this is not always true.
I’d say there were more people out there with invisible wounds than there are visible, but that’s the problem, isn’t it? We don’t see those.
Just because you can’t see something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and that’s definitely the case for the millions of kids out there carrying invisible wounds from their childhood into adult life.
A lot of the time, you may not even realize you’re carrying something so painful, and if you do, you may not associate it with the experiences of your past.
This is where that changes, right now.
Wound: Difficulty celebrating
What a wound to carry, and one that a lot of people you get to know and become close with just cannot understand.
When important days or events roll around, instead of beaming with pride, happiness, excitement and anticipation, you’re left feeling dread.
When everybody else is counting down the days, you’re praying that nothing will go wrong and counting down the days until it’s over.
You don’t want to celebrate, but the truth is, you’ve never known how to celebrate without any drama occurring.
It seems as though it wouldn’t be a big wound, but if you think about it, your reluctance to celebrate yourself or those you love and care about can leave you feeling like it’s because you just aren’t worth the time and energy.
Let me tell you something. There is no such thing as worthless, but if you are refusing to celebrate, you have learned how to refuse from a long time ago.
Wound: Unable to pat themselves on the back
Growing up, you had nobody to pat you on the back. When you achieved something, it was always met with a brief interlude of surprise followed by them going back to their narcissistic selves.
You just wanted a moment where your hard work was recognized by your parents, but as one or both were narcissists, that never happened.
As an adult now, you find the world of success very uncomfortable. Good things happen, but you play them down.
You don’t even like to post about it on social media because you’re afraid people won’t care or you deem your success unworthy of time and attention.
Patting yourself on the back and being proud of the things you do is a way for you to stop and think about the beautiful things you’re capable of.
It should fuel you to inspire others to do the same, or go for that other thing you’ve had your heart and mind set on.
If you haven’t been given that floor space to do it as a child, it will not come naturally to you as an adult without hard work and healing.
But let me tell you, it is something you can do!
Wound: Has an allergy to praise
When it comes to praise, children of narcissists never really know how to deal with it properly. You will get some who will ignore it altogether, while others will avoid doing anything that initiates getting it in the first place.
Then there will be those who briefly feel good about praise, only for it to be distinguished by the mental patterns they’ve learned. You know the patterns I mean:
Listen and delete.
Don’t smile for long, you don’t deserve it.
Like it for a moment, then realize that they are probably going to criticize in the next breath.
The allergy to praise comes from the untold times you were praised before being punished the very next moment for something totally unrelated.
Praise never really came to you, and when it did, it never lasted long. So when you grow up and good things start happening to you, you don’t quite know what’s even normal to feel.
That’s the kind of wound that cuts really quite deeply.
Wound: Fear of standing out
Standing out was always seen to be a bad thing. You want to blend in and not draw attention to yourself, because as far as your narcissistic parent was concerned, attention shouldn’t be on you.
So don’t start arguments, don’t stand up for yourself, don’t complain, don’t shout too loudly, and just be. Be a wallflower. Be colorless. Be quiet.
Can you even start to believe how much damage that can do to an adult who is afraid of speaking up about anything?
Let me tell you that it’s possible to grow out of this and be the total opposite, because I’ve seen it with both eyes!
Wound: Fear of success
Success was always dented as a child, because your narcissistic parent was jealous of you and what you were achieving.
You worked hard and were told to come back with perfect scores, and when you did show up and achieve, you were laughed at.
Well, you might have done it this time, but I’d put it down to luck.
Don’t get too big for your boots.
Look at you, thinking you’re the best. You have no idea.
Soon enough, you learned that success was dangerous and a direct threat to your narcissistic parent.
Wound: Fear of failure
But wait, so is failure. So basically, no matter what you did, it was wrong.
You fail, and you’re told that you are a failure. You’re told you know nothing and will go nowhere in life. You’re told you will end up working in a fast food joint forever with no goals or aspirations.
You fear being that person, and so you become stuck in this limbo – this continuous cycle of what to do next – all because nothing was ever quite right in their eyes.
Wound: Too much empathy for others, not enough for yourself
Carrying too much empathy for everybody else while you struggle to mentally make it through the day is a common invisible wound.
It means you were hyperfocused on making sure those you loved and cared for got all the love and compassion they needed.
At the drop of a hat, you’d be there for them and it didn’t matter what you had to sacrifice in order for that to happen.
But when it came to you, and probably still to this day, you are not there enough for yourself. You don’t show up nearly as often for your own challenges as you do those of others.
Never being there for yourself is a form of self-abandonment, but you do it because you fear abandonment.
You fear others leaving you if you don’t measure up to their demands, and that leaves you feeling as though you’re forever in search of the self-love you need and deserve.
