Adult children of mentally ill or severely narcissistic parents

If our parents were mentally ill we might not have felt safe enough, or been allowed, to develop and flourish. Instead we perhaps focused on supporting, managing or trying to avoid the ill parent, and maybe feeling guilty for our mixed feelings about them.

A narcissistically disordered parent would have struggled with allowing us to become fully our separate selves. Explicitly or unconsciously we might have been given the message: be only what I want you to be, make me feel good, don’t show me dissatisfaction or distress or ordinariness or the urge to separate off from me.

These parents may have been neglected or harmed in childhood and when we came along they needed us to prop up their fragile inner selves. Our adaptations to meet their needs may have worked at the time to preserve a relationship with them.

But in adulthood, if we keep relating to ourselves and others using those same adaptations, it will be hard for us to connect with others or be ourselves.

Therapy offers us a safe environment within which to understand ourselves and others less defensively, soften our inner critical voice, try out different ways of relating, and improve our ability to connect.