Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never seated. We pay our respects to their elders past and present.
Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was recorded on Drug wallamut Land. Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life on CAAT. I'm Laura, I'm Brittany, and I am so looking forward to today's interview. In today's conversation because you guys might remember a few weeks ago, we did part one of a chat around narcissism. But this conversation that we had a couple of weeks back was all around dealing with narcissism in a romantic relationship.
And I feel like there's been so many conversations recently around narcissism, around narcissistic personality disorder, but so much of it is always about romantic relationships, and it raised for
us so many more questions around. Okay, well, if the explanation which is where we got to you on that episode, for dealing with a narcissist in your life is to cut ties with them, is to go no contact, how do you then deal with a narcissist if the person you're dealing with in your life, is actually your parent or somebody who you have to co parent with where you can't just cut them out completely.
Yeah, it's a whole different kettle of fish. And that first episode was with Novah Gibson, who is the director, founder, and primary counselor of Brighter Outlook Narcissistic Abuse Counseling service. She's also the author of Fake Love. She has spent her life dedicated to narcissism. We thought she was a perfect person to come back on for part two, which is all around family narcissism.
But in order to really tackle this conversation, we didn't want it to just be an education piece. We also thought it would be really important to speak to somebody who has experienced a narcissistic parent, because this is a type of relationship and power dynamic that I think doesn't get explored as often, but it is so damaging for a child or for an adult child who needs to grow up and overcome that sort of narcissistic abuse from
their parent. And sometimes it can be really overt and it can be really damaging, and then other times it can be more covert in the ways in which that narcissism plays out from a parent, and so we have Monique, who is one of our listeners, joining us on the podcast to talk through her experience with her parent, the reason why she is now no contact with her mother, and how that relationship played out throughout her life. Let's
get into the chat with Monique. Mannette, can you tell us a little bit about what your mum's personality was like when you were growing up.
She's very charismatic. It's just a real extrovert. People loved her. I actually thought of her when I was listening to your episode Brett about how you dated the Associopo. You said he would walk into a room and everybody knew that he was there, and immediately I was just like, the only person I can think of is her, because she had there in spades. You know, everyone loved her very funny and warm and beautiful, and so people would naturally really drawn to her. But she also wanted that,
you know, she loved it. She thrived of being that center of attention. She would go to extravagant links to make them love her. You know, she would buy ridiculous presents for people. She would buy them jewelry and pay for their kids' holidays and things like that to make people love her. But at home she was entirely different. You know, she would have these episodes where she would
fly off the handle. We would come home from somewhere and she would be sure that my dad was looking at some other woman all night long and things like that, and these these episodes would last for sort of two days of just walking on eggshows, but out and about to other people and to our peers and her friends, she was just the best, just the most charismatic person ever. So it was quite polarizing in that sense, but we knew that that was who she was.
How did your dad manage the relationship at that time? Like, if there was this volatility at home, do you remember how he was kind of like what his reaction to it would be.
Yeah, he was always very gentle with her in a sense that I think of it now, I'm like, man, you are so patient. You are the most patient person. And for some context as well, he is just the most beautiful person. Like it's actually quite tragic to think that the nicest, kindest dude he ended up married to someone for thirty odd years that was just a total of nasist that didn't bring him a lot of joy apart from his children.
Do you feel like you and your siblings? How many siblings do you have?
I have four, there's lots of us. Yeah, I'm one of four.
Two Do you feel like growing up there was one special golden child that got all the love and all the attention, that could do no wrong, like the Teflon child, and then there was one that was I don't want to say picked on and bullied, but maybe that was the case.
I don't know if there was a golden one, but there was definitely one that was pecked on, and quite obviously so. And now in hindsight and being an adult, can see that it was quite sick really, because my sister, who was the pect on one, she's just this like beautiful goddess creature, and I feel like she was always quite jealous of her, but she was always in trouble
right she was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid. I always thought it was down to that, the fact that you know, she was just bringing home strife quite often as a like troublesome teenager, and I thought that was why, you know, they just didn't get on. But now in hindsight, I think no, it wasn't that. It was like it was somebody that she had to share the attention with that was hard for her, and it was hard to see because they look quite similar as well. I think
that it was hard for her in that sense. But I mean, to this day, it's affected my sister. Like she's not a hugger, she doesn't like people to touch her, she's not affectionate, but she wasn't given affection. Yeah, of course, you know throughout her life. Really she wasn't given that affection by our mother, things like that, So I think that's affected her.
I mean, when we've been unpacking this idea of dealing with a narcissistic parent, there's so much conversation around narcissistic romantic relationships, there's not as many conversations around dealing with a narcissistic relative, mostly parent, because that power dynamic is so severe. Did you feel and one of the things that seems to this recurrent, I guess indicator is the use of your children as almost like as property. But I don't know if property is the best way of
saying it. Almost as though they are a reflection of you, like their success is or reflection of your success. And there's almost instead of having children in order to set them up to be the best people that they can be individually, it's how can they serve me? This sort of like, well you owe me because I'm your mum.
I feel like with ours. It goes against that sort of stigma and the scenes that she liked to keep people below her slightly, so she was never trying to spend time with her equals. She always looked for people that were maybe a little bit more vulnerable that maybe
would really need her. So she looked for sort of the outcast, the the people that were maybe a little bit more geeky, you know, because she was always like this cool, this popular, this beautiful lady, and those people would build her up, you know, they would attach themselves to her. And so I think with us she always wanted but less, which is really sad for us. You know, she would just be like, just get married, just get married, just have kids, don't worry about school, things like that.
We've all about against that. But for us, she always wanted that power that you were talking about to always be able to wield that, so she would keep herself elevated.
It's unusual that she would say, just get married and don't worry about an education, Like that's a big statement. But also it's a really strange thing to say, I'm going to make sure I keep you that one step lower intellectually.
Yeah, but also I mean makes sense if you feel like you're in competition with your daughters, yes, which is such a messed up power dynamic in itself.
They're and money as well, though, So my dad was always well of Like my dad always did well and I think that that's what gave her a sense of pride in herself. That she could go and splash out on things, she could go and be generous to her friends. And if she kept that for herself but kept us below her, then she would always weld that power of a sense of oh, you need me because I can buy you this and I can buy you that.
Your mum went on to have an affair, yeah, which you found out about later in life. Can you talk me through that phase and how she I guess once it all came to light, how she responded to that period.
I mean I wish she could say, you know, she said sorry and that she left us alone and that we got a breathing space from her in terms of just being able to heal. But we didn't. It was just the usual, like gaslighting and manipulation and blaming everyone else for her actions. It was very stereotypical in the sense that it's not my fauld, it's your fauld. I've done this, and actually, you guys, we've because you love your dad more and he doesn't even really like me.
And how old were you when this affair happened.
I was twenty one and my youngest sibling was eighteen. Yeah, my oldest sister was pregnant, was their first grandchild, so she had a lot to lose in that sense. But also we were all adults. We were all making our own decisions. You know, we had the choice of whether or not we had to spend time with her, right.
Yeah.
Also, because we're adults, we're also privy to every detail and we know right from wrong. We know everything, as opposed to little kids. When this happens to little kids, they don't get to say and they don't know everything. So it's definitely different as you're older.
But even so, I mean having that flipped and saying, well, you're the reason that I had an affair. It seems incomprehensible that someone could blame that on anyone, whether it be their family or something an external factor. What were the excuses that she was coming up with, What were the reasonings apart from it being broadly it's everybody else's fault, But how did she rationalize it to herself that it was other people's fault.
That our dad worked too much, that we always just loved him more.
It's funny. We spoke to Sam Fisher recently and he spoke about his relationship with a narcissistic parent, his father, and just the things you're even saying now are so similar to what he went through. And his dad had an affair and completely blamed him as well, like he was the child that was picked on out of his kids, out of his siblings. And then his dad was like, you know, basically it's on you, like you needed too much and you took your mother away from me, so
I had to go and sleep with someone else. What happened when the affair came out? And I asked that because sometimes there's a level of the narcissist wanting people to know, like sometimes it's I want this to be out because I want to be the victim, and I want to play this and this card and this card. How did it come out?
She definitely lost a lot of people because so many people were really really shocked. They couldn't compute the person that they knew to have done this and to carry on kind of just hurting us because the messages, just the gas slighting messages. But also my dad just wanted to tie up the divorce quickly, and she was going to the lawyers saying that, you know, he was just this piece of shit bully basically just beating her up every day for years, which is just all complete lies.
She was saying that to the lawyers, but she wasn't saying it to other people because they knew that this was just not the chores, right, So we had that sort of thing to just make us feel even worse, to be like why are you doing this? Like just go away, you know, take whatever you want and go, but you don't need to keep kicking us. We're down already.
You made the decision to cut your mum from your life completely, which I even though you have so many reasons, even though your parents have done so many things that and this goes for anybody who deals with a narcissistic parent, there is so much repetitive behavior. It's still really hard to come to the realization and the acceptance that that
person's not going to be in your life anymore. How did you make that decision, and also how did you deal with or did you feel any guilt around it at the time.
I feel guilt at times when other people say it to me, you know, when they give you those platitudes of, oh, but it's your mum, you know, like you've got to let her see your kids. You know, that's their grandmother, things like that. I feel it then, and I hate it because it's like, yeah, I can't forget that that's my mother. But for me, I maybe I'm not as
nice as a person. You know that I don't actually carry that guilt, And I think I'm actually lucky in that scenes because I'm not way down by it, because I really just think that this is a protection for myself. You know. It's almost like physical pain, you know, like your body locks up. It's your body's reaction to pain, and it's the same for me. I'm just like, I'm just protecting myself from pain. So no, I don't feel guilty.
You're also protecting your kids though, because this is the thing, right when you have someone who's a narcissistic parent, and you've experienced it all throughout your own childhood, you then when you become a parent, feel this immense responsibility to not allow that person to let your kids down, because
that's what they will do. Eventually, they'll show themselves in the ways that they are, and they will never be able to show up in the way of a loving, stable, consistent grandparent because they don't have the capacity to, because they are a narcissist exactly.
It's interesting that you say, you know, maybe I'm not a very nice person. I don't think that's accurate at all. I think you've just made a decision for your own and your family's well being.
I think it's also partly because people don't understand. They think that like, you know, oh, well you can forgive you know, she made a mistake. And it's very different when there's one parent who's had an affair and it's like that affair is not indicative of their entire personality, because that does happen as well, and relationships are complicated and affairs happen, but when it's part of a bigger picture that pertains to a personality disorder, then that's a
very different story. And it's hard for other people who sit outside of you to understand or to know that because they've not experienced the twenty years that came previously.
It's always given by people that have experienced no trauma and no dysfunction in their lives that are like, oh, you've got to forgive them, you know, But it isn't even just that a fear, Like if it was just the affair, then of course, like you move on. You know, people make mistakes, they're human, or they fall in love like whatever. But it is all the years of emotional abuse beforehand that is really why you cut them off. It's not because they've made a mistake or they've hurt
your feelings by doing this behavior. It's all the years beforehand that makes you cut them off.
And how long has it been now since you haven't had contact with your mom?
It's been nearly ten years, and sporadically, like my siblings have got texes, I haven't. But it's so much better, And that's all I want to say to other people is that it gets so much better. As time goes on, you know, you have some clarity, like the smoke clears and they're gone, and you're like, I can look at this and be like, Okay, might be embarrassing for a little while, because this person is biologically programmed to love you, right,
and they've caused all this pain to you. It's embarrassing to sit there with friends, but you're gonna feel so much better without that person who is just never bringing peace to your table.
Has your mum in that ten years, has she ever accepted any blame? Has she ever tried to make amends? Has there been any an apology, any attempts, or does she see this whole thing as though she's the victim in this.
I couldn't speak for her anymore because I just don't know. I know she has seen messages of I'm sorry, but she's also seen messages to one of my siblings that she's dying, and then we find out she's not actually dying. You know, she just wants your attention, you know, So I've now got this random disease and you need to speak to me low and behold, there's no disease. And so on those occasions, I'm just like Oh, it's just manipulation again.
What do you think you would do now, Monique?
Out of curiosity.
I know it's a strange rhetorical question, but if that was the case, and after all this time and you've got no connection that your mum did come back and say that and it turned out to be true, do you feel like any part of you needs to go and see her if she had a disease that we know was maybe going to end her life, do you think you would need to have that closure and that wrap up and that final goodbye or do you think you would be okay with just continuing to go through life now as you are.
I think I've wrapped it up years ago for me. I mean, I can only speak for myself, not my siblings. But I don't think it needs to be done because I feel like it might just cause more pain. And I don't even want to cause her pain, Like it might be really painful for her, you know, to have to go through because at the end of the day, I forgive her because I don't want to carry around anger. I don't want to feel shitty about the situation, right, and so I absolutely forgive her about I don't need
to see her for that. You know, people often think that forgiveness means that you spend all this time with them and that they're in your lives, but no, it doesn't. It just means that you're not hanging on to this anyway.
Now that we've spoken to somebody who has had lived experience, and if you were someone who has been navigating their relationship with a narcissistic parent as well, we hope that that conversation with Monique might be something that you find similarities in, or you might find some comfort in hearing other people who have been through it as well.
I could have spoken to Monique for hours. I hope that if you guys are going through something similar, you took some confident in that, or you could relate to that in some way. But now let's get into a more detailed chat with Nova.
Never.
I was actually gobsmacked at the response we had from the narcissistic episode, but the number of people that wrote saying, can you guys do an episode on narcissism with a family member, I couldn't believe how many people were in these situations. Yeah, I mean, in your world, how common is having a family member with narcissism.
It's very very common. Will you think about it. A narcissist much of the time in an intimate relationship is going to who have learnt that behavior somewhere. Not all the time. There's sometimes it's just not explainable around how
they develop this personality disorder. But much of the time it's being role modeled by someone at home who is narcissistic themselves, who is rewarding them for cheating and lying and teaching them that there are no rules, they should just take what they want, and basically teaching them to have no empathy. This is being hardwired or conditioned into a brain that's still growing. Our brains don't stop growing till wear twenty five, so this is what they're learning,
I guess at home. It is very very common, And I would speak to a client in my practice every day, at least one every day who is struggling with a narcissistic parent who's really just as an adult coming to term because they've had that light bulb moment and they've someone's mentioned the word narcissist and or they've started googling their parents' behavior. Why because it hurts They never feel emotion they never have felt emotionally safe around their parent.
They were never allowed to have any boundaries, never allowed to have any needs, And as they look back over their lifespan, they realized that those toxic behaviors, the way they were treated, the way they were abused, were consistent over space and time for the entirety of their lives.
And they really suffer because they feel this massive sense of obligation to the parent who birthed them, and that's a debt in the narcissistic parents' eyes, that's a debt you will never pay in full, and a sense of obligation and guilt is instilled in children who have been conditioned their entire lives to meet the needs of the toxic parent.
Nova.
I would love to know, because you mentioned that obviously it's a trait that can be passed down like it's taught to our children. But in saying that, I would also assume that there are a lot of people who have narcissistic parents who are not narcissists themselves and have this, as you say, quote unquote, light bulb moment at some point when they start to unpack their many years have hurt that they've experienced.
Yes, absolutely. Just because there's one narcissistic parent does not mean there's going to be a narcissistic child. There could be, it's more likely than in a household where there is no narcissistic parent. Narcissistic parents will assign roles to their children, so the scapegoat child becomes the dumping ground for the narcissistic parent, will never be able to do anything right.
The golden child will be the wingman, so to speak, for the narcissistic parent, and this is to put the narcissistic parent at the top of the triangle where children are forever trying to please them. It's basically about creating an organization for maximum narcissistic supply using their own children, whom they objectify just as much as anyone else. So the child who is most likely to become a narcissist
is the golden child. They're rewarded for bad behavior. They're pitted against the scapegoat child who can never do anything right. And of course that golden child wants to keep their position, so they will sabotage their sibling and join forces with the narcissistic parent to demean them, sometimes very very covertly.
So the child who is most likely to escape and of course not become a narcissist is the scapegoat child who is usually the most intuitive one, the most sensitive one, the one that the narcissist parent is not able to manipulate so easily. You can have narcissistic parents where there are no children who are narcissistic, and a narcissistic parent where most of the children end up being like them for reasons relating to nature or nurture.
No, I feel like.
It's not uncommon for people to have narcissistic traits in some capacity. Maybe it's the one off, maybe there's a little bit, but there is a difference with narcissistic traits and narcissistic personality disorder or NPD. How do we tell that difference with a family member?
Yeah, look, the same way you would tell with anyone, only it's going to be more difficult for you as their child, because you've been conditioned. You've never been allowed to have any boundaries, you've never been allowed to have any needs, and you've been taught or conditioned to believe your entire life that this is what love looks like.
Love is additional upon meeting someone else's needs. So I guess going back to our first episode where we talked about the intimate partner relationship and the fact that you're never going to get a diagnosis or rarely simply because the narcissist doesn't believe there's anything wrong with themselves. It's everyone around the person who finds themselves in therapy, including
their own children. So, as I said, with intimate partners, it's about looking at consistent patterns of behavior over space and time, looking at the complete lack of empathy and all those traits associated with MPD, and trusting your instincts given that you are never going to get a diagnosis. The difference between someone who has narcissism or is a pathological narcissist and someone who's having a bad day or might just be a bit of a grumpy old person
is that they're consistent patterns of behavior. They're not isolated incidents. I'll just touch on a couple of strategies that a narcissistic parent will use. One of them is parental alienation, trying to get that child to either not develop a loving bond with the abused parent, not developing a loving bond at all, or to destroy the love that they
have for that parent. This is done through coercive control on such a passive level, where they will insidiously imply, perhaps or that the other parent has mental health issues. May be maybe the child was there when the abusive parent baited the other parent into reacting and trying uncontrollably hysterical even and then that parent, the abusive parent, took the kids out for ice cream or to take them away from the parent they're trying to make out to
their child is a toxic one. These things said in the children's mind, because the actual abuser is cool and calm and collected, don't just take them out for ice cream. The other parent is in their eyes, you know, behaving erratic and frantic and maybe even a little scary. So this is what is being set up in the child's mind. Now, that is a classic example of coercive control.
I think as well. This is so interesting and mostly because when we have spoken about narcissists before, it has always been in terms of romantic relationships, and we are very aware of the impact and the damage that that can have on your self confidence, on your feelings of whether you are worthy of whether you will be loved again.
Like it can be truly damaging to be in a relationship with someone who's a narcissist, but I can own imagine that the damage of having a parent who is a narcissist can be equally, if not worse, in that that is your framework for what love looks like for
your entire childhood. And I guess growing up these feelings of being invalidated or not good enough, or feeling unstable because there's this lack of consistency, what are the telltale signs as a personality trait for the victim that they may have a narcissistic parent.
As with any narcissist, it's all about impression management, making sure they look good to the outside world. And all abuse shall remain behind closed doors and shall not be spoken about. Children don't even know that it is abuse. Often I hear so many stories where the narcissistic parent will take their young child to counseling and sit out in the waiting room, playing the role of the dutiful parent while their child goes in to be counseled for the effects of the abuse of that parent. They go
to counseling to fix what's wrong with them. They're being told, even though any behavioral issues or depression anxiety are related to never being able to please and having a goalpost shifted and being abused. Essentially, they grow up believing their problem adults there's something wrong with them, and the parent uses that the fact that they've taken the child to counseling to you know, once again, put that image out to society that their mother or father of the years.
So children of narcissistic parents grow up with massive anxiety because they cannot predict the consequences of their actions. One minute, you'll bring home a report cut, for instance, full of a's one bee. Oh my goodness, that's amazing. The next time you'll be punished because there was a bee. So you can't predict your behavior. It's going to be a
good thing or bad thing. They're forever hyper vinculant to that parent's moods, and they grow up with these exact same anxiety disorders, often self medicating with alcohol and drugs.
Do you feel like a child that grows up with a narcissistic parent is more inclined and more likely to then go on and date or be attracted to a narcissist. And then having said that, in the relationship world, once you've dated a narcissist, especially if you're under twenty five, are you more likely to continue to date people with narcissistic traits.
It's very common. Looking at the scapegoat child in particular, who was never allowed to have any needs, could never ever please, it's going to be very normal for them familiar to not seek out. We never seek out a relationship that's toxic. It's that they bypass healthy relationships. They will be boring, their noose will be too big, there'll be something with them. What their subconscious is really streaming at them is they're not toxic. There's no goalpost to outrun,
there's no roller coaster to climb aboard. So healthy relationships are so foreign and unfamiliar to them, and they find themselves in relationships where they have to try so hard for just bread crumps of conditional love. Of course, the golden child, who's more likely to become narcissistic, is unfortunately going to go seeking relationships where they can manipulate people to boost their own ego, to meet their own needs.
And perpetuate the same thing that was done to them. In other ways. Yeah, I think in terms of children who then grow into adults. For a lot of people who grow up with a parent who's narcissistic, and you mentioned that light bulb moment where they realize that maybe this is what it is that they've been dealing with their entire life. As an adult who has realized that their parent is nice, how does one create boundaries with that?
And how does one navigate a relationship with a narcissistic parent.
Yeah, it's incredibly hard for adult children or teenage children. How do you manage boundaries with someone who has conditioned you your entire life that you owe them. We're taught by society that you respect your parents. Your parents love you. The people who love you are at home, and when society is impacting on your belief system, it's incredibly hard to put a boundary in place with a toxic parent who has conditioned you to never be able to say no.
In other words, have no boundaries. So it is going to be incredibly hard, but you have to do it while it feels bad. There is no easy way to do this. For instance, you might say to a toxic mother, we would prefer it if you called before you come over, well, toxic mother is maybe just going to ignore you. Just rock up at your house and own the place. Tell you what's dirty and what's wrong with your parenting. Perhaps
try and put roadblocks between you and your partner. Or if you enforce that boundary, they're going to make you feel guilty. You explain to me why I'm your mother. So this is what you have to expect when you put the boundaries in place. But as I say to my beautiful clients, boundaries are just our self care. They're not about the other person. They're not about punishment or revenge. They're about self care. So the only people have a problem with your boundaries are the very people you need
them for. So, getting back to the good of boundaries, boundaries are useless unless we have consequences. If you lower your boundary for everyone who wants to walk all over it, you may as well not have any because your boundaries only need to be enforced with the people who want to use you. So that means parents. Perhaps you say you're not welcome in my circle for you know, I'm going to have a hiatus, a break for a few weeks.
When they've been manipulating you ringing you ten times a day to gossip about you know, Uncle Bob and how mean and horrible he's been, you know, and basically pit you against other family members. It's about boundaries and following that up with consequences, and that's hard when you are trauma bonded to the toxic cycle, the ups and downs, the rollercoaster with your toxic parent.
But what if I feel like this is going to be starting to happen more and more with how open people are about the conversations about narcissism. I feel like now people in their teens and young adults are going to be coming to this realization quicker than we probably did in our generation because we didn't have access to the information. So if you're a young adult or a teenager,
you might still be at school. But even if you're you might be at UNI right like eighteen nineteen twenty, there's still these formative years, and there's still the years that you so heavily rely on your family and your parents. I mean, I feel like I'm thirty six, and you never outgrow that when something goes wrong, you want to call your parents. You still want to have that connection.
But I know we discuss in romantic relationships. If you have this direct relationship with a narcissist, cut them off right like you go cold turkey. You don't have them in your life anymore. But you can't really do that if you're a teenager or a young adult with a parent who you do rely on. Maybe it's financially, maybe it's to literally put the roof over your head. What are you do in that situation?
It's very, very difficult. There is no easy answer here. The parent has control, so the guilt and the obligation of ever having any needs of their own normally keeps them there. So if a teenager out there is actually able to assess this situation, and I guess look from the outside in which once again is incredibly difficult, get support, Speak to another family member, speak to your school counselor, but talk about it, Ring Kids Helpline, there are services
out there. But yeah, I think it's about getting lots of support because we also need to be mindful that a teenager is going to need support to identify what's happening to them. And it may not be a narcissistic parent.
It may be a parent who's just very strict, who that child, you know, seems as you know, a bit over the top and not narcissistic at Also, this is where we need to support them to actually identify what's going on for them simply because they're a teenager and you know, they've got so many different things going on in their life.
That's also a really important point to make. I do think these terms are thrown around too loosely sometimes, and I would hate for somebody younger maybe or anyone really to hear and throw that term around. You and my parents are narcissists if maybe they are just more on the strict side. And it's from more from a conservative who knows what it is. But I do think and I do worry sometimes that these terms do get thrown around a little bit loosely.
But I also I think it's an interesting one because I mean, there will be people who are young who listen to this who feel as though maybe that they are dealing with that now. But I guess in terms of my experience and not personal experience by any means, but the people in my network, my friends who are now adults, who have their own children, their own nucleus family, and they are coming to or have come to the realization over the past ten years that their parents are narcissistic.
Maybe it's their mum, maybe it's their dad, maybe it's both of them. And I think of one relationship in mind where it's been so hard for her because there is no conversation. There is no explaining to your mum the ways in which they've hurt you or the ways in which they've failed you as a mum, because it is always met with, oh, you think I didn't do a good enough job, or you think I'm the problem. My heart, the guilt, yes, and it feels like guilt.
And I know that this plays a part in romantic relationships, but it feels like the guilt is such a parental weapon. It's an even stronger parental weapon than it plays into other relationships.
Absolutely, there's an acronym that we use in narcissistic abuse recovery with all relationships, but particularly with the We call them acons, and that's another acroum ACO n adult child of a narcissist. They have support groups of their own out there on social media. But the fog, fog, fear, obligation, guilt, those are the three weapons that the narcissistic parent uses to make sure that their child that they own, that's
their property, never abandons them. They can do whatever they want and that child will be there to nurture them while they remain toxic, because of course they only get worse as they age.
But knowing that this is the case, and knowing that there are these very specific techniques that are used by narcissistic parents, how do people put boundaries in place? And I know we say that consequences are important to those boundaries, but it seems as though it is almost impossible. It seems as though the outcome is simply that you may have to cut contact with a parent if you want to live a peaceful life.
Yes, and that is the reality of dealing with a narcissistic parent. Most people, as you just us in that example, Laura, you try and talk to a narcissist about what they've done to you, they're going to They're going to start crying, Particularly a narcissistic mother will start crying everything I've done for you, and that's it. Discussion ended because you don't want to upset even more an old lady. So that's manipulative in itself. They will project it back on to you,
you were the problem. You're ungrateful everything I did for you, and you feel that conditioned guilt and obligation. Oh my goodness, you know, I just I just have to forget about this because they really did drive me to soccer practice that time, and you know what they actually did, put a roof over my head and give me food each night, all of these things that should be taken for granted. They will never acknowledge what they did to you. Never.
If they do, they're not a narcissist. They're not narcissistic. Then boundaries are everything, and consequences are going to me. Distancing yourself from that parent doesn't mean you don't see them forever, but it has to be on your terms, with your boundaries in place, because they're going to continue to hurt you and you will never heal. Just because you're related to them through DNA does not give anyone the right to abuse you.
I would love to talk about a chapter in your book Fake Love where you do talk about co parenting with a narcissist, because it is a question. We get a lot from our listeners that they're writing and saying that they're co parenting with a narcissist, how to deal
with it. What's the most important thing, which on surface level, I would say, you know you don't involve the kids, but what do you think is the most important thing for somebody to know going into a coparenting arrangement with a narcissist.
The most important thing to know is that you can't. You cannot coparent with someone who is actively trying to counterparent everything that you do. You will know that you are never able to have a reasonable discussion with this person. Consistent patterns of behavior over space and time when you
were together. It's not reasonable to think you're now going to be able to sit there and have coffee with them discussing what's in the best interests of the children when you're leaving them committing, in their eyes, the most egregious wound to their ego that you could ever commit. So they're going to use the children to get to you,
to engage in litigation abuse post separation abuse. They're going to want twenty four hour a day access to you because they care about the kids, no to ruin your day at the drop of a hat to trigger you. This is your abuse. So they know they have that power from your conditioned responses. So it's about boundaries. You cannot coparent. You ask them for something for the children, you're telling them what not to do, for instance, as
this is an example I use in Fake Club. I just need everyone to know that it's not gender specific, okay, because I know men contact me all the time, going me too, me too, I know, and that's why I've devoted a chapter specifically to men male victims in the book. But just for ease, I'm going to say, Mum and Dad. So mum's working back, she's getting absolutely no child's support, and little Johnny needs races. Again. The dentist has told him that his teeth the crooked and he will have
much great confidence if he gets his teeth fixed. Now, Mum either has got no orders in place or very very sloppy flexible orders, which you cannot have with a narcissist. And she gets on the phone, her arms shaking because she knows what's about to happen, and she says to the narcissist, little Johnny needs braces. Now do you think the narcissist is going to say, oh, my goodness, thank
you for bringing this to my attention. His teeth ol crooked, which account would you like me to put the money into? Or do you think he's going to say something along the lines of if he answers at all, strings you out for a few weeks before he answers the email whilst you're trying to get him little Johnny and very quickly. I don't think there's anything wrong with his teeth. You want his teeth to be fixed, you go fix them yourself.
And if he did say yes, he would make it so incredibly difficult to get payments you just end up paying it yourself. So orders orders in place and minimal contact gray Rock. We call it where you give absolutely no reaction to them. I strongly advise my clients who are having this, and I speak too many every day,
to block them on your phone. It is only going to make you ill, to trigger you, even if it's not them that's calling, even if you're feeling a little empowered because you ignored them to begin with, When your phone goes off, it could be them, so you're going to be triggered. It can ruin your day at work because you can just never get away from their control. They will use the family court to extend the domestic violence.
They will weaponize their lawyer to punish you. The children just collateral damage, to punish you for being able to heal and not pining for them and begging them to come back when you block them. If there's an emergency, here's my mother's number, here's my best friend's number, here's my partner's number. Here's a parenting app. So you've got your parenting app where you're recording all of their communication, which I believe goes straight to the court, and they've
got an emergency contact number. If it's just about the children, why should it matter? But it will.
How as the healthy and safe parent, do you either communicate what's happening in terms of the other parent that communicate that it is narcissism that you're dealing with, or do you just have to try and not address it so that way, I guess turn in one parent you're not, because otherwise you're almost playing into the game as well if you start calling the other parent a narcissist and name calling, like, how do you be the bigger person
whilst navigating this relationship with someone who is a narcissist.
Yeah, it's a precarious place to be because the narcissist is going to be doing what narcissists do. They lie and they manipulate, and they're going to be doing that
to their children. And this is the painful reality for parents who share children with a toxic X. So I think it's incredibly important, even at a very very young age, to get those children into counseling where they have someone who is seen not to have an agenda, because children don't grow to hate the parent, especially when they're quite little, when they're abused, they grow to hate themselves. So as you said, we don't want them to think where like that.
We don't want so we don't never speak in a derogatory way about the other parent, which puts such a lot of pressure on the child's shoulders. So yes, get them into counseling and just be an empathic ear for that child where they can come and offload and be there to pick up the p pieces, allow them to talk to you. But I think having a household that's completely different from the other parents, where they don't have to walk on eggshells, they can experience a little bit of a break.
I can only imagine how hard it would be for parents to kind of navigate this because on one hand, you would want to explain to your kids what it is that you're dealing with and what they're dealing with. But also on the other side of that is the very very precarious situation where you then are weaponizing a situation and you're in no way is that and then
make you the narcissist. But it is such a tricky situation where you want to protect children but also give them enough information that they are safe from the environment that they have to be put into.
Yeah, and once again, I think it gets back to having someone who was not seen as having an agenda, having a third party they trust, because that narcissistic parent is going to hear everything you see. He or she will manipulate it out of the children that will be us to report back every time they've come home from your house, and they're going to distort it, so you will be seen as that person who has an agenda.
Of course, of course they don't like the other parent that mum and dad are fighting, so of course he's not going to say anything nice. So yeah, I think it's really important to get someone they trust that's just there for them. Nova.
Thank you so much. For coming and being a part of the podcast and sharing with us this second part of dealing with the narcissist in your life. And I know, like we said, we had so many questions around how to deal with it when it is a family member. I think it is so much more complex and the layers of it run so much deeper than just in a romantic relationship, which is already hard enough as it is. But we appreciate your time, and we appreciate your expertise.
And if anybody wants to get Nova's book, it is called Fake Love, and it really does deep dive into all these different types of relationships and how to overcome narcissistic abuse.
Look, thank you so much for having me. It's always a pleasure, and if anyone benefits from my knowledge out there, then it's all worth it because it's such an insidious type of abuse that we often don't see and there's just not enough support or awareness out there. So I'm just so happy that you've asked me to be a part of your podcast.
Thank you. Thanks Nova,