There are many articles on the Internet about all kinds of narcissism and the dangers of being in a relationship with someone who has these tendencies. The advice is clear: get away from the situation as soon as possible. Anyone more on the codependent side of the continuum will testify that this is harder to put into practice than it sounds. However, what if the narcissist is your parent and has cloned you to be a “perfect” living version of him or her? A child chosen to heal his parents’ broken past. It happens more than we imagine. For convenience, I have highlighted this case with father and daughter. However, this concept is not limited to that.
A parent who has developed a sense of narcissism through their own dysfunctional childhood often believes that by bringing a “perfect” child into the world and being seen as a “perfect” parent, they can heal the wounds of their own childhood. This scenario often unfolds through a “chosen” child, the prince or princess receiving all of your unhealthy attention. Through this child, he is proving to all people who doubted his self-esteem (including himself) that he is a valuable person with real worth. However, the emotional manipulation that goes hand in hand with being the chosen one creates chaos for the child leading to extreme codependency or the next generation of narcissists.
Since a narcissistic parent will use emotional manipulation that is based on their own shame, anxiety, and self-loathing, they will depend on their chosen child to make them feel competent and valuable, and the child has an ongoing responsibility to make their parent feel good about them. same. The child rarely develops a healthy self-identity and is seen as an extension of his parents’ angry ego problems. The child is assigned the never-ending task of “pleasing” primarily the parent to the detriment of ambition and personal relationships. As this child grows and in an attempt to emotionally cope with the demands her parents place on her, she adjusts to the narcissistic parent by becoming a complacent child. This in turn will bring conditional love and praise as long as the child continues to feed the monster. Codependency forms when a child incorporates this behavior as a habit in his pursuit of unconditional love. Those who resist are treated harsher and are more likely to become narcissists in later life because they are cast out as “problem children.”
In practice, the above scenario often carries over into the child’s adulthood unchanged. Her main task, established as a child, continues, wreaking havoc on the child’s relationships, self-esteem, and parenting style. This is a girl who has been taught to think first about the needs of her narcissistic parents before her own. His father, who is usually a loving father, a successful businessman, and a pillar of the community, is actually an ego-driven individual who has a great sense of superiority over everyone around him. The demands placed on those chosen to be in their inner circle are impossible to meet and are tailored only to their needs. The chosen child may, at one stage, decide to resist and make decisions based on his needs, something that could be very new to a person who has been controlled throughout his life in his choice of career and partner. This causes the classic narcissistic injury, reversing old feelings of rejection and abandonment of the narcissistic parent who responds with classic tactics of emotional manipulation … emotional withdrawal, disapproval and focus on the least chosen children in the family. This punishment is done with the knowledge that the codependent child will always return, seeking forgiveness and apologizing for what he has “done.” The child is trapped in the psyche of the narcissistic parent who views his accomplishments as an extension of his abilities as a “parent.” The father is motivated to constantly care for her because it makes him feel good about himself.
While the child is extremely codependent with the narcissistic parent, it is often a different story with other people that they become involved with. Here she resists any form of treatment that she perceives as controlling and manipulative and often plays a narcissistic role herself and becomes an emotional manipulator. Since you have learned to be pleasant and accommodating and seemingly stable, you will easily attract mates. However, any relationship that may clash with her incessant need to please the narcissistic parent will be ruled out, even if in some cases she may have wanted to stay in the relationship. The worst case scenario for her is the disapproval of her partner by the narcissistic father. This places her in conflict between his needs and hers and, true to form, her needs are subdued.
For the chosen child, life is never easy until they learn to set healthy limits around their own and other people’s behavior. They first have to understand what is really happening to them. They often refuse to see their narcissistic father for who they are. The child holds them on an irreproachable pedestal, their advice is sacred, and the child often sees the narcissistic parent as the only one who can truly understand them and provide the security they need. In effect, they are just another pawn in the narcissistic parent’s need to feel good about himself. It is child abuse of the highest level.
