How do I Deal with Narcissistic Parents?

6 min readMar 10, 2023

When you’ve been raised by narcissistic parents, they are difficult to deal with because you’ve been conditioned a certain way all your life.

The narcissist is the centre of it all.

Their principal tool of manipulation is fear, each family member fears being abandoned by the narcissist. Even into their adulthood and independence, adult children still fear this.

Narcissists are master manipulators.

They know other people’s weaknesses, especially their children’s. They exploit these weaknesses for power and control.

A child of a narcissist is desperately seeking the love and approval of their narcissistic parent.

This is a difficult thing to acknowledge, it’s not a conscious thing. It’s something that’s very deep, something that affects every thought and decision when it comes to a narcissistic parent.

It isn’t until you’ve had enough time and space from them, that you realise how deep it goes. How they affected everything that you said and did.

The things that make it difficult to deal with a narcissistic parent, are the behaviours of a lifetime.

These patterns, formed in childhood, go deep. They were ways to feel like you stood a better chance of survival in the narcissistic family.

They served you.

However, these things that ensured that you survived your childhood, are the problems and issues you’ll have as an adult.

In order to deal with a narcissistic parent, you have to acknowledge these patterns and see how they’re not serving you.

It’s about changing the habits of a lifetime.

For your whole life, you’ve been concentrating on the narcissist, doing whatever you can to keep them happy, or if not happy, at least stable.

These are the things that make your life with them as an adult difficult.

The narcissist has been content with the situation, and the role that you fulfil for them. They’ve been your priority.

As an adult, it’s more difficult to prioritise the narcissist, with a career, partner, and children, there are other things to focus on.

No doubt there’s been some resistance from the narcissist about this. They want to be the ONLY one to you, no matter your other responsibilities.

That’s probably why you’re reading this blog.

Things have been getting worse for a long time.

Perhaps there has been a life change, a move, a marriage, the arrival of a child, or a career change. That’s when things got so bad, you couldn’t deny it anymore.

The arguments or disagreements are getting more frequent. Where before there were often months or even years between these difficult times, there’s only weeks.

It’s one thing after another.

The more you put into trying to work it out, the more difficult things get.

Even worse, the more you put into trying to understand, to fix things and make things better, the less your narcissistic parent is putting in.

The more you engage, the more problems there seem to be.

It feels frustrating, confusing, impossible and making you angry and sad.

This is when you’re at the peak of it all, the time when you’re throwing yourself into it.

There’s not much choice here, because just as much as you’re trying your narcissist parent isn’t.

The only way to deal, is to take a step back from it all.

It’s easier said than done, but the best thing is to disconnect emotionally from it all.

The more your emotions are involved, the more they’re getting in the way.

Your narcissistic parent is feeding from your emotional response, your emotional need that’s not being met.

You need something from them, that they are not willing or able to give.

It’s their love and approval, or at least some sort of comfort or care from them. It doesn’t feel like much to ask for.

This is where they’ve got you- it’s like you’re trapped.

It’s the pattern of your lifetime, formed in your childhood and carried into adulthood.

Try finding someone else to vent to, someone you can trust deeply, somewhere safe to talk it out.

The more these feelings come out, overtly or hidden, to the narcissist, the more they are getting from it. They won’t want it to stop. They know what’s going on for you, they’ve triggered this response in you.

If you can disengage from them, or at least make an effort to, things will feel better for you.

However, the narcissist will be confused, once you start behaving differently, they don’t like it.

When you’re predictable, they know where they stand, and they know that they are in control of the situation.

Once you change the pattern of your old behaviours, the narcissist will try to get you back into them.

They know the strings to pull to get you back into the ways that serve them.

It will get worse and worse, as they try to re-establish their control over you.

Their manipulations, emotional blackmail, threats and reminders of your obligation to them will reactivate your guilt and fear.

They may recruit other people into the drama as well. Other people to put the pressure on you and manipulate you into doing what the narcissist wants.

This is the greatest stand of your life.

You’ve probably never been here before. It feels strange, and scary. You’re standing up to your narcissistic parent.

A part of you will want to concede to them, whatever it is, for a easier life.

Hopefully, a bigger part of you, will refuse to back down, you’ve probably backed down before and it didn’t go well. And it all happened all over again.

It might mean the relationship goes in a completely different direction than you thought.

When you take a stand against the narcissist, it’s often the beginning of the end.

If you’re willing to refuse to back down for the changes you want in your relationship, then you are no longer the person the narcissist wants you to be.

They want you controllable and complete power over you or no relationship at all.

Unless you are serving them and whatever they want from you, they are not interested.

A narcissist does not have the same emotional connection to the relationship as you do.

Sadly, they are incapable of caring or loving anyone, and lack compassion for others. It’s all about them.

It means that they can walk away.

This is what happens when you start to try to change the dynamic with a narcissistic parent.

It becomes about the narcissist fighting to get you back, not to work it out for a good and healthy relationship, but for power and control over you.

Once they see that you’re changing, you won’t let them bully you anymore, they know it’s all over.

They may cut contact with you or you feel there’s no other choice than no contact.

You’ve tried everything else, and nothing worked.

All you’re asking for is for your narcissistic parent to take responsibility for their actions, apologise, ask for forgiveness and change.

However, a narcissist prefers no relationship with you, than to do any of these things.

They prefer to find someone else, someone else who they will have complete power and control over.

As soon as you ask this question, it can be the beginning of the end of the relationship.

Unfortunately you are not dealing with someone who wants the same as you.

You want a good, healthy and loving relationship with them. You’ve wanted this your whole life.

A narcissistic parent wants you to fulfil a role for them, someone to dump all their crap onto (their scapegoat), and someone to praise, ‘love’, and treat well (their golden child).

They also want someone that they can control and get attention and energy from.

When two people want two such different things from a relationship it will never work.

For the narcissist it’s all about what they want.

For you, it’s about how you love and care for them and want a relationship.

It won’t work, not for the satisfaction of both of you.

If you do have to go no contact, I want you to know that it gets better.

It is possible to heal from narcissistic abuse.

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