92 People Describe Growing Up With Narcissistic Parents And The Signs They Notice Years Later

A year and a half ago almost when my mother triangulated me with my sister and brother in law. I just started piecing together everything from her behaviour down the years from there and realised she is a covert narcissist.

28. I knew things were wrong before that but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It took me until this year to learn about covert narcissism and go “oh hell. That’s my mom.”.

I'm 24 as well. I went NC with my mother and sister 2-3 months ago, realized their narcissistic behavior a couple weeks after I went NC. Finally had enough energy to realize what was going on. I'm never going back!

Sometime in my 30s. 20+ years ago, the term "narcissist" was not very well-known. My sister was going through a lot of therapy at the time. Her therapist said that apparently she was married to a narcissist and had probably grown up around one. So she sent me a description of NPD, and I thought "narcissism? What does this have to do with Greek mythology?" Then when I read the description, I thought "how did they know Dad?".

When i was in a psych class in undergrad (lol) and it was my first time hearing about the clinical diagnosis. like 8/10 things were my dad to a T. it also made sense considering his weird family dynamic with his parents and sibling, like there’s def some raging narcissism on that side of the family. little things like talking about how much smarter he is than everyone at work, getting mad at me for not “being there” for him emotionally even when i was like…a teenager lol. which i guess is called parentification. and just generally viewing me as an extension of himself. i’m looking for resources online about NPD but most seem to be about the mother, would be interested to know if anyone has anything related to a father-daughter dynamic.

Real talk: I've been on this sub for 13 years. Since 2008

13 years. Since Digg went down and the mass exodus to reddit.

I just pretended my parents weren't narcissists even tho I could relate to every single post. I lurked for years without posting anything and just read.

I ended up married to a narcissist (I think she had bpd actually), divorced, and finally got therapy. Realized and came to terms that my parents were narcissists.

I've always known. I just didn't want to accept it.

I was going on one of my usual rants in which I complained about the things my dad did to me while I grew up. That’s when my mom admitted that he’s a narc. Despite that, they’re happily married for 20 years. My mom’s personality is one that is attractive to narcs and she’s fine with tolerating my dad’s personality. If I were in her place I’d go insane.

When I got accepted to study abroad, and her first comment was "pick a flat big enough so mom can come visit". I had felt off about her and our relationship for a long time, but at that moment it just hit me; she had never really cared about me, only herself.

When my dad’s ex-therapist told me. She told me that I needed to understand he was a narcissist, that my grandfather was a malignant narcissist and my grandmother on my mothers side was likely a narcissist. That I NEEDED therapy to recover from the disfunction I was raised in.

I knew my parents were different very early on but most of the signs were probably when I was a teenager.

My parents didn't take any medical issues seriously until they were borderline debilitating. My brother has a learning disability that they completely ignored so he'd be reliant on them. He's only worked physical labour jobs for the past 15 or so years because his reading/writing is so affected.

I sprained my knee when I was 12/13 and they refused to take me to the doctor until like 2 months later only because I couldn't do gym and my teacher was starting to get suspicious. I could barely walk.

My nfather was always controlling and obsessed about my appearance. He called me a hussy when I was 15 because I was wearing lipgloss and would make comments to my mother (in front of me) telling her to tell me to put on a bra in the house. He took the door off my room at one point because he didn't like the fact that I could lock it (this was also during puberty which made it even creepier).

He used to push my buttons and then laugh in my face when I got angry because he was acting like a jerk. He also straight up just gave me money for a birthday and told me I could only keep it if I hugged him. That was probably the lowest point in my life. I felt like absolute trash but I needed the money. Still 0/10 would not do again no matter how much money was on offer.

I didn’t know my grandmother was a narcissist until I had my first child and realizing how I could never ever treat him the way she treated me growing up. Also when I got to therapy the stories I would tell my therapist shocked her and that’s when I knew. I feel like after getting into therapy the memories of my childhood started flood back like crazy the more that my memories and come back the more I started to distance myself from my grandma until eventually we went completely no contact she didn’t really understand because we were on good terms but I became her most successful child in the end and I think that’s why we were on good terms and that’s why I ended the relationship. She used to treated my sister so good growing up my sister literally got the ground that she walked on worshiped I was constantly in trouble I never really had a childhood or a teenage years I can’t really remember any positive memories from my childhood at all and that’s how I know that I was raised by someone who was extremely toxic.

- being afraid to say what’s on your mind or how someone’s behavior upset you because you know it will just lead to a fight

- questioning and doubting yourself / your reality

- living in a constant state of stress

- making other people’s emotions your responsibility.

Feeling a bit anxious and worried about being happy because I'm not sure what challenges might come up. I'm always on edge and in survival mode. I also have some resentment towards people because of my narcissistic parents, especially since they always caused problems in social situations. I feel like I have to be constantly on guard.

For me, I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop and walking on egg shells. That and not having anyone to share problems or concerns with made it very lonely.

Mainly that I never felt like my parents "had my back." Any time I expressed displeasure of any kind, whether warranted or not - I was shot down and my feelings invalidated.

So I quickly learned that nobody was on my side - that nobody would care about me if I were sad/hurting/in distress/in need of help. And that feeling drove me simultaneously to resentful anger and deep despair.

I mean, could you elaborate on the last bit that believing that being happy is wrong though I completely understand that feeling ill or feeling like you’re not worthy enough or things you do are not very sensible understandable but what would make you happy?

Yes. I relate to all of that. I used to get suspicious when I would see good parents. Like yea, you just around strangers so that’s why you nice. It's really bad.

I relate to nearly all your stories. Mostly the daily blow ups and living in a constant state of survival mode, walking on eggshells. No kid should be stressed out all the time like that. The dread at the thought of simply going home after school. The panic of making a small mistake. I feel bad for the little me. For all the little yous.

When I won a full ride scholarship, and I needed my paperwork turned in, and Ndad "forgot" about doing it off every day for a week until they revoked my acceptance and chose the runner up.

4 years in culinary school paid for cause I won a national competition, but he didn't think I would be successful, so he decided I shouldn't go.

What a jerk.

When I had a very rare sleepover at my house with a friend when I was probably 12. We had such a good night hanging out. In the morning, my dad demanded that I wash the minivan (soap bucket/sponge) on my own. I have 3 brothers. My brothers didn't have any friends over or any other chores to do. I asked if one of my brothers could do it as I had a friend over. He insisted that I do it completely by myself while my friend was there. She sat in the dining room watching out the window while I sobbed as I washed the van alone. It was not a warm day, not warm enough to stick my hands in a cold bucket of water and have water run down my arms. I got a cold.

I still have no idea why it had to be me at all, me alone, while I had a visitor, and so urgently (right now!). It wasn't some job I did on my own a lot. I hadn't promised to do it. There was no urgent reason to do it that morning. We rarely washed the cars anyway. 🤷‍♀️

It was one of the few times that it just felt completely wrong and to have a witness to it felt humiliating.