WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.080 Music. 00:00:08.075 --> 00:00:12.205 Welcome to episode 68 of Waking Up to Narcissism. I am your host, Tony Overbay. 00:00:12.205 --> 00:00:15.402 I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, host of the Virtual Couch podcast. 00:00:15.685 --> 00:00:19.849 And the one that I would be just so grateful that if you will go check that out 00:00:20.265 --> 00:00:23.351 is the Waking Up to Narcissism Premium Question and Answer podcast. 00:00:23.693 --> 00:00:27.069 So the links for all of the above will be in the show notes. 00:00:27.285 --> 00:00:30.823 Just look for a, it's a linktree slash virtual couch. 00:00:31.183 --> 00:00:35.054 And then that has links to everything including marriage course, marriage workshop, 00:00:35.245 --> 00:00:38.125 Instagram accounts and TikTok and all those sort of things. 00:00:38.538 --> 00:00:41.625 But let's get to today's topic. I wanna start with another poem 00:00:41.625 --> 00:00:43.868 that comes from my women's private Facebook group. 00:00:44.125 --> 00:00:49.885 I wish I was a poet. I wish I was creative and thought in the ways that the people that are sharing their talents 00:00:49.885 --> 00:00:53.565 around this difficult topic of narcissism and emotional immaturity. 00:00:53.565 --> 00:00:58.136 So I'm gonna start with a poem, and then, boy, today we're gonna talk about 00:00:58.265 --> 00:01:02.484 the effects of narcissism and extreme emotional immaturity on children. 00:01:02.605 --> 00:01:07.598 And someone in the group, they had a teenage son write a letter to their dad, 00:01:07.925 --> 00:01:12.675 and they said that they were okay if we just kept the name out, anonymous. 00:01:13.125 --> 00:01:15.085 And shared that on the podcast. 00:01:15.483 --> 00:01:20.805 And it's powerful. And then I found a really good article by someone that has done some amazing work 00:01:20.805 --> 00:01:25.325 with narcissism and emotional immaturity, Carol McBride. She's a licensed marriage and family therapist, 00:01:25.325 --> 00:01:27.574 and she's author of a book called Will I Ever Be Good Enough? 00:01:27.965 --> 00:01:31.885 Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers. And I'll have the link to that in the show notes as well. 00:01:31.885 --> 00:01:36.885 If you just read the reviews alone, It just speaks to people that weren't even aware 00:01:36.885 --> 00:01:42.325 of the effect of having a narcissistic parent and specifically a narcissistic mother had on their life. 00:01:42.913 --> 00:01:47.117 So let's get to the show. Let me start with this poem from one of the women in the group 00:01:47.285 --> 00:01:49.269 and she titled it, Let Me Go. 00:01:50.325 --> 00:01:55.535 Let me go, release me, let me be on my way and know this, there's not one bit of me 00:01:55.645 --> 00:01:56.840 that would willingly stay. 00:01:57.645 --> 00:02:01.368 You revealed to me a part of you I've not seen before and I'll never forget. 00:02:01.965 --> 00:02:05.671 It was cold, contemptuous, a looming shadow of terrifying threat. 00:02:06.405 --> 00:02:09.974 You acted fast at the start, setting me up for this gradual fall, 00:02:10.485 --> 00:02:13.431 conditioning my mind so I couldn't think clearly at all. 00:02:14.025 --> 00:02:19.685 Confusion and self-doubt became the biggest parts of me. You took my freedom, stripped away my self-esteem. 00:02:19.685 --> 00:02:21.767 It was inevitable, impossible to see. 00:02:22.465 --> 00:02:26.245 You know I'd never hit you, is what you would always say. Is that reassuring? 00:02:26.245 --> 00:02:28.348 I wondered in a hazy fog of dismay. 00:02:29.025 --> 00:02:34.405 Silently I thought if you did, least I would understand this underlying feeling that somehow I was under your 00:02:34.405 --> 00:02:38.605 command. You worked relentlessly. I was questioning myself every single day. 00:02:39.313 --> 00:02:43.545 Pieces of me were being chipped at, gradually floating away. I started not to 00:02:43.545 --> 00:02:47.625 recognize the person I saw in the mirror. The truth is I was too trusting, too 00:02:47.625 --> 00:02:51.799 naive even to consider. Why would a person want to do this to another human? 00:02:52.321 --> 00:02:56.565 Dismantle their brain? Keep them prisoner in a state of delusion? Surely only a 00:02:56.565 --> 00:03:00.365 person who's hurting to the very depth of their core, as you like to remind me, 00:03:00.365 --> 00:03:05.725 me often to fix me the body keeps the score. 00:03:04.681 --> 00:03:08.624 But the pieces of me I thought had gone were waiting for me somewhere else. 00:03:09.182 --> 00:03:11.820 I was forming another version of me with a stronger sense of self. 00:03:12.477 --> 00:03:15.011 I could see glimmers of her in momentary flashes. 00:03:15.700 --> 00:03:19.171 It took some time but she started to emerge, rising from the ashes. 00:03:19.949 --> 00:03:23.171 I'm not asking you to let me go, I'm telling you I'm on my way. 00:03:23.982 --> 00:03:27.651 And whilst I'm at it, you will never have another opportunity to make me obey. 00:03:28.510 --> 00:03:31.411 I'm sorry you have so much pain that you chose to act as you do. 00:03:31.411 --> 00:03:37.395 You, but for me, I'll no longer take the part in your play, the taming of the shrew.", 00:03:37.851 --> 00:03:42.051 I think we can just let that one sit there on its own, but it just, it speaks so beautifully 00:03:42.051 --> 00:03:47.391 to just the awakening of, that it's okay to have your own thoughts and opinions and to 00:03:47.391 --> 00:03:53.931 recognize how unhealthy that control and manipulation is in a relationship. And I will beat this 00:03:53.931 --> 00:03:59.591 drum every chance I get that that is not part of a healthy human relationship. You're allowed 00:03:59.591 --> 00:04:04.168 to have your own thoughts and opinions. And if you are continually trying to figure out, 00:04:04.671 --> 00:04:09.713 how to negotiate the complicated nature of trying to communicate with someone else at, 00:04:10.311 --> 00:04:17.338 the risk of who you are and your own self-development, then welcome, welcome to the podcast and this, 00:04:18.151 --> 00:04:22.866 getting your, in essence, your PhD in personality disorders and extreme emotional immaturity. 00:04:23.311 --> 00:04:28.551 And it can be difficult and the process can be lengthy, but there is hope. There is absolute. 00:04:29.257 --> 00:04:32.191 Let me jump right to this letter. I'm gonna read this letter from a son, a 00:04:32.191 --> 00:04:37.191 teenage son, that again was given full permission to share on the podcast and 00:04:37.191 --> 00:04:45.711 share with this my women's group and emotionally immature relationships or narcissistic relationships. And then we're gonna talk about narcissism and 00:04:46.002 --> 00:04:50.151 the effect on kids. The person in the group said that her son, who is 18, sent 00:04:50.151 --> 00:04:53.831 this to her to get her thoughts on it. And she said she bawled, she went 00:04:53.831 --> 00:04:56.671 downstairs, she bawled some more while hugging him and telling him how sorry 00:04:56.671 --> 00:05:00.591 she was that he had to deal with this. She said that she was racked with guilt, that 00:05:00.591 --> 00:05:03.711 she didn't know how bad it was. And then she said, I asked if I could share this with 00:05:03.711 --> 00:05:06.239 the group and he agreed, as long as it was anonymous. 00:05:06.923 --> 00:05:09.885 And then i asked permission to share on the podcast as well. 00:05:10.434 --> 00:05:16.906 But in and i believe the comment that i made her even on the group was i feel i'm so sorry that she feels the way that she did. 00:05:17.284 --> 00:05:22.839 But she truly did not know what she did not know and and i believe was one hundred percent trying her best. 00:05:23.172 --> 00:05:25.620 Is this whole process of awakening to this. 00:05:25.990 --> 00:05:37.503 It can be really difficult because none of us want to think that we ever put our kids in a position where they weren't allowed to grow and thrive and emotionally mature because the people that, 00:05:37.972 --> 00:05:46.902 are waking up to this in themselves have to come to this realization of what that's been like for them to even start to understand what that's been like for their kids 00:05:47.307 --> 00:05:52.033 And this is where I just I implore you to give yourself grace beyond anything else. 00:05:52.159 --> 00:05:55.473 Because if you are listening to this, if you're starting to do your homework, 00:05:55.473 --> 00:06:00.144 if you're starting to recognize and learn the things you didn't know that you didn't know, 00:06:00.315 --> 00:06:05.285 then you are changing the dynamic and the pattern in your family. There's no doubt about that. 00:06:05.924 --> 00:06:12.753 And your kids will appreciate that. And it may take a while and some will be like the this letter 00:06:12.753 --> 00:06:16.618 that I'm gonna read and they're gonna they're gonna really understand that boy, 00:06:17.212 --> 00:06:19.753 you weren't aware of what you weren't aware of just as they weren't as well 00:06:19.753 --> 00:06:24.513 and so the fact that you are starting to open up to this will give them a voice 00:06:24.513 --> 00:06:31.913 because you're gonna be a safer place for them to be able to share and express their feelings and emotions. So here's the letter and the son said for 00:06:31.913 --> 00:06:35.673 dad lol been working on this let me know what you think and then it had the 00:06:35.673 --> 00:06:39.873 crying face emoji so I mean you can tell that that he's saying okay you know here 00:06:39.873 --> 00:06:45.533 we go. We'll see how this goes. So the letter that he wrote, the teenage son 00:06:45.533 --> 00:06:49.173 said, I hate you. I think you should know that. I've thought about you a lot 00:06:49.173 --> 00:06:52.973 recently, actually, and I realized something. I have no happy memories with, 00:06:53.735 --> 00:06:57.573 you. Everyone I have, there's a sense of fear or guilt or anger or something 00:06:57.573 --> 00:07:02.293 along those lines that pops up. I avoid you now because anytime I speak to you, 00:07:02.293 --> 00:07:04.988 there's an inescapable feeling of rage that boils up. 00:07:05.816 --> 00:07:11.739 So if I just pause, I wasn't going to commentate on the letter itself, but even this teenage boy 00:07:11.829 --> 00:07:17.026 and boys that most teenage boys like to watch cartoons, eat cereal, play video games and 00:07:17.026 --> 00:07:22.029 compartmentalize. So the fact that his own body keeps the score is pretty phenomenal that even 00:07:22.466 --> 00:07:26.386 when he's in the same room, he has that inescapable feeling of rage that boils up. 00:07:27.520 --> 00:07:31.746 So back to the letter. Like I said, there's no happy memories. You know what I do remember? I 00:07:31.746 --> 00:07:35.874 I remember you telling me not to wear my favorite color to school because it was a girly color. 00:07:36.252 --> 00:07:37.819 And he said, literally, it was red. 00:07:38.413 --> 00:07:41.618 I remember you commanding me from the couch to refill your whiskey glass. 00:07:42.122 --> 00:07:47.523 I remember you driving 80 to 90 miles an hour on gravel roads at night, drunk, with me and others in the car. 00:07:48.279 --> 00:07:54.770 As you swerved all over, being scared for, not being scared, for myself and the others' safety. 00:07:55.586 --> 00:07:59.370 I remember you blocking the doors out of the house, stealing my keys so I couldn't get away from you. 00:07:59.910 --> 00:08:07.256 I remember walking miles down a driveway in boots with no socks to get away from you so that mom could drive over an hour to come and get me. 00:08:07.805 --> 00:08:16.276 I remember you throwing me around into the walls of the house. I remember you throwing me into the bathtub when I was younger because I accidentally woke others up before school. 00:08:16.547 --> 00:08:20.391 I remember the sound of you screaming in my face and I could smell your nasty breath from it. 00:08:21.120 --> 00:08:28.376 I remember the emotional manipulation that you put me through. You made me feel guilty for seeing who you are. And as I got older and I learned more, you got angrier. 00:08:29.114 --> 00:08:33.684 I remember you playing with my emotions to make me compete in sports year after year 00:08:33.684 --> 00:08:37.234 when it was clear that I didn't enjoy those particular sports and the list goes on and on. 00:08:37.927 --> 00:08:41.484 So I'm thinking about all these things and I realize that you never saw me as a human 00:08:41.484 --> 00:08:42.707 being and you still don't. 00:08:43.274 --> 00:08:48.208 You have no sense of respect or love for me. I'm nothing more than an extension of yourself and your eyes. 00:08:48.964 --> 00:08:52.898 You made me do the things that you wanted me to do my whole life with no regard for what I wanted. 00:08:53.555 --> 00:08:58.002 I realized that what you wanted so badly for me to be was something that you were... 00:08:58.724 --> 00:09:02.152 I realized that you wanted so badly for me to be something because you're nothing. 00:09:02.444 --> 00:09:05.267 You're a liar, a manipulator, and an abuser. Nothing more. 00:09:06.004 --> 00:09:09.964 You wanted to parade me and my siblings around like prized possessions to make up for the 00:09:09.964 --> 00:09:12.613 fact that you've done nothing inherently good your whole life. 00:09:13.344 --> 00:09:16.204 You want to throw it in mom's face that you've got more money than her and you can afford 00:09:16.204 --> 00:09:20.924 to buy all these things, but you still don't manage to pay your child support on time because 00:09:20.924 --> 00:09:26.124 you don't give a crap about us. Which sucks, because your money is the only thing you're 00:09:26.124 --> 00:09:30.044 good for. I've also realized through all of this that you don't love me and that 00:09:30.044 --> 00:09:33.644 the only reason you say it so much is to make up for the fact that you don't, and to try 00:09:33.644 --> 00:09:38.644 to convince yourself that you do. You're a pathetic father, a sad man, any decent man 00:09:38.644 --> 00:09:42.844 is supposed to protect his children and loved ones, not be the person that endangers and 00:09:42.844 --> 00:09:46.884 hurts them. I'm done talking to you. Even after all these years, you're still putting 00:09:46.884 --> 00:09:51.464 on an act for everybody else. You still want to portray yourself as the almighty loving 00:09:51.464 --> 00:09:55.604 father and take credit for everything you didn't do and then deny the blame for everything 00:09:55.604 --> 00:10:01.004 you did do. I see your whole act of, and got in quotes, changing out in public, but you're 00:10:01.004 --> 00:10:04.804 still the same miserable, horrible person when it really comes down to it and when you're 00:10:04.804 --> 00:10:08.805 behind closed doors. Don't respond to this. Don't try talking to me. I'm done with it. 00:10:09.524 --> 00:10:11.361 Just sit, just read it and sit in it. 00:10:12.370 --> 00:10:21.939 So you can feel that emotion and I'm trusting that if you are already here and listening to this podcast that there isn't judgment at all on that letter. 00:10:22.065 --> 00:10:33.340 That there's empathy, compassion, there's uh, you can feel the strength and the, just the anger and the power and the, just trying to see someone take control of their life. 00:10:33.340 --> 00:10:39.100 And at 18 to have to have this kind of awareness over some human being, you know, you hear that 00:10:39.100 --> 00:10:43.740 concept of an old soul and sometimes it sounds like it's pretty cool, like this 16-year-old's 00:10:43.740 --> 00:10:49.660 gonna fire up a bass guitar and play jazz, like that's your old soul. But really an old soul is 00:10:49.660 --> 00:10:54.446 somebody that has not been able to really find their sense of self as a kid and they've been 00:10:54.509 --> 00:11:00.540 having to figure out how to survive and how to cope and how to not get in trouble and how to 00:11:00.540 --> 00:11:05.180 to protect siblings sometimes and how to just say, man, there's nothing I can do right now. 00:11:05.180 --> 00:11:11.884 I got to get out. Instead of just being a kid and being a teenager and just caring about 00:11:12.253 --> 00:11:17.900 school and relationships and movies and all the things that a teenager is missing out 00:11:17.900 --> 00:11:23.500 on because they have to grow up and they have to protect and they have to learn to read 00:11:23.500 --> 00:11:28.660 the room and manage others' expectations. So, I'm just, I'm grateful that he took the 00:11:28.660 --> 00:11:33.048 time to write this, that he shared it with his mom, that his mom shared it with the group. 00:11:34.020 --> 00:11:39.500 And so I often find myself getting asked questions about children and co-parenting with a narcissist 00:11:39.500 --> 00:11:44.460 and staying in the relationship so that at least they have a mom or a dad, whoever is 00:11:44.460 --> 00:11:52.340 the more emotionally immature. And I try to, I feel like tiptoe around this because I don't 00:11:52.340 --> 00:11:58.180 know what a divorce is like because I'm still married, my parents didn't divorce, but I 00:11:58.180 --> 00:11:59.980 I work in this world of divorce, 00:11:59.980 --> 00:12:03.656 and it's easy for me to say that in these emotionally immature relationships, 00:12:04.140 --> 00:12:08.958 that when somebody gets out of that emotionally immature relationship and finds themselves, 00:12:09.380 --> 00:12:13.198 that they also become a completely different person in the way that they show up with their kids. 00:12:13.700 --> 00:12:16.781 And when a kid gets their own sense of self through external validation, 00:12:17.300 --> 00:12:20.660 that then you can really reverse the tide 00:12:20.895 --> 00:12:27.420 of who that kid is or what it feels like to be them if you become this, not just a safe place 00:12:27.420 --> 00:12:30.870 where they can then dump and share emotions about the more emotionally immature parent. 00:12:31.480 --> 00:12:34.400 But where you can actually start to build that secure attachment with them 00:12:34.400 --> 00:12:37.340 so they can go out and explore and be and do 00:12:37.340 --> 00:12:41.100 and know that they have a safe place to come back to and that your interaction with them 00:12:41.100 --> 00:12:42.483 isn't constantly talking about, 00:12:42.980 --> 00:12:47.100 hey, watch out or things, make sure you don't do this or I understand, 00:12:47.100 --> 00:12:50.396 I understand how frustrating it is, but if it's more about, hey, how was your day 00:12:50.660 --> 00:12:54.100 and what was that like and how's your job going and what do you wanna be when you grow up 00:12:54.100 --> 00:12:55.420 and what's that relationship like, 00:12:55.914 --> 00:12:59.200 and what do you like about this boy or this girl? 00:12:59.200 --> 00:13:04.440 And I mean, that's the way you build a real relationship, not trying to continually figure out, 00:13:04.440 --> 00:13:05.951 okay, how do we all manage this? 00:13:06.080 --> 00:13:10.966 How do we see how we approach mom or how we approach dad, however the more emotionally immature a person is. 00:13:11.731 --> 00:13:20.688 So, on that note, I want to get into an article that I really do appreciate and the article is from Psychology Today and it's titled, How Narcissistic Parenting Can Affect Children. 00:13:21.354 --> 00:13:34.966 And this Carol McBride, she's got a PhD in clinical psychology and then she again is author of this book that is highly recommended. The book is called, Will I Ever Be Good Enough Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers? 00:13:35.452 --> 00:13:42.105 She's also a licensed marriage and family therapist, and she has 30 traits of how narcissistic parenting affects children. 00:13:42.600 --> 00:13:47.866 So I'm going to read just a couple of paragraphs that she has as part of this article, and then I'm going to go through that list, 00:13:48.226 --> 00:13:54.501 and I'm sure that I'll comment on some of those, if not all of those, how narcissistic parenting affects the children. 00:13:54.501 --> 00:13:58.543 She says, why does it matter if a parent is a narcissist? How does that hurt a child? 00:13:58.741 --> 00:14:03.944 She said, you might be asking this question if you're a person that is currently co-parenting with a narcissistic ex, 00:14:04.340 --> 00:14:11.101 Someone raised by a narcissistic parent or one who's in a relationship currently with a narcissist or if you're a divorce professional working on a case 00:14:11.101 --> 00:14:18.701 That involves a narcissistic parent and I'll put that out there right now. I now understand a lot of therapists listen to waking up the narcissism 00:14:18.701 --> 00:14:24.441 I'm grateful for that I am so grateful for the ones that reach out and want to be a part of the women's group or one that would love 00:14:24.441 --> 00:14:28.898 to talk about this as a group of therapists so that we can start to really address this population. 00:14:29.556 --> 00:14:43.311 But I also have a thread in the group that's talking about experiences in therapy that have been detrimental because if someone, if you are going to a professional who is not familiar with emotional immaturity or narcissistic personality disorder or traits or tendencies, 00:14:43.968 --> 00:14:56.326 then it can actually be, I feel, pretty detrimental because you're often being told that you're just buying into the hype of narcissism and what are you doing and what can you do and just stand up to him or her. 00:14:56.326 --> 00:15:00.442 Just tell them and all of those things are things that can actually end up making things worse 00:15:00.626 --> 00:15:05.266 because you're engaging, you're letting the person see, you're letting the narcissist see your buttons to push 00:15:05.266 --> 00:15:06.051 and they will do so. 00:15:06.666 --> 00:15:11.186 Carol says, given my research and clinical experience, I wanna provide some education and awareness 00:15:11.186 --> 00:15:12.676 about how this disorder hurts children. 00:15:13.386 --> 00:15:16.666 She said, first let me explain that narcissistic personality disorder is misunderstood 00:15:16.666 --> 00:15:19.869 when applied to someone who is just boastful, arrogant and all about themselves. 00:15:20.506 --> 00:15:22.706 So while these traits are annoying and not fun to be around, 00:15:22.706 --> 00:15:27.006 narcissism is a deeper, more destructive disorder has devastating effects on the people 00:15:27.006 --> 00:15:31.617 and relationships with the individual. It's a difficult disorder to treat and some do believe it's untreatable. 00:15:31.946 --> 00:15:35.906 She said the cornerstones of the disorder are lack of empathy and the inability 00:15:35.906 --> 00:15:37.505 to tune into the emotional world of others. 00:15:38.206 --> 00:15:43.186 And I am hearing, I don't wanna be dramatic, but on a fairly regular basis, 00:15:43.455 --> 00:15:47.929 that from those who don't understand what narcissism really is or emotional immaturity is, 00:15:48.386 --> 00:15:53.709 that just the fact that the word is being used causes a visceral reaction and people tune out. 00:15:54.346 --> 00:16:00.280 And I've also been told pretty regularly that the shifting, I've been intentional on shifting, 00:16:00.726 --> 00:16:04.412 the word narcissism to emotional immaturity and that yeah, that's a lot more palatable. 00:16:04.886 --> 00:16:08.506 And then we can all take a look at where the areas that we are emotionally immature 00:16:08.506 --> 00:16:10.466 and then the key difference is the, 00:16:10.466 --> 00:16:16.466 are the people that are willing to then sit with the discomfort of the things that they are facing 00:16:16.466 --> 00:16:21.026 and that is uncomfortable for them as a human being or as an adult and then are they willing 00:16:21.026 --> 00:16:23.659 to then self-confront and do something. 00:16:24.146 --> 00:16:28.746 So then when somebody will inevitably, maybe even right now, the kind person is saying, 00:16:28.746 --> 00:16:32.066 okay, I got it, Tony finally gets it. He's telling me, I'm the narcissist. 00:16:32.066 --> 00:16:33.850 You are not if you are listening to this. 00:16:34.561 --> 00:16:42.141 Because you are trying to do something. You're obviously uncomfortable and you're out there seeking help even though you're uncomfortable. 00:16:42.681 --> 00:16:45.877 So that is on this road of empathy. 00:16:46.201 --> 00:16:55.311 And so you are literally tuning into the emotional world of others because you're worried about how you're responding to your maybe narcissistic spouse. 00:16:55.869 --> 00:17:04.291 And this is what we now know is a reactive issue, a reactive abuse issue, or you're worried about, am I doing damage to my kids? 00:17:04.291 --> 00:17:07.931 So, you've already broken the rules of being a narcissist. 00:17:07.931 --> 00:17:14.945 You are not lacking empathy. You're maybe overly empathetic because you are just, what is wrong with me? I gotta figure this out. 00:17:15.530 --> 00:17:20.091 And then you absolutely are able to tune into the emotional world of others. 00:17:20.091 --> 00:17:26.171 Maybe even your tuning fork is on high alert that you've ever used a tuning fork, which I haven't. 00:17:26.171 --> 00:17:30.731 That might have made no sense. If we go back to Carol's list, so she has a list of how does 00:17:30.731 --> 00:17:37.131 narcissistic parenting affect children. The child won't feel heard or seen. The child's feelings and 00:17:37.131 --> 00:17:42.681 reality will not be acknowledged. And I just did an episode a week or so ago talking about the 00:17:42.971 --> 00:17:49.531 emotional abandonment that is there in our childhood that then we bring into our adulthood 00:17:49.531 --> 00:17:52.512 that we don't even recognize is not quote normal. 00:17:52.872 --> 00:18:00.211 And that is if you are trying to manage your relationship with your parent as a child, then there is a highly, 00:18:00.211 --> 00:18:02.180 I mean, I'm gonna say it's pretty much a given, 00:18:02.693 --> 00:18:08.371 that your emotions are not being acknowledged and you are not being asked to be taken 00:18:08.371 --> 00:18:12.569 on your train of thought about how you're feeling or what you're thinking about a situation. 00:18:13.190 --> 00:18:18.611 It's if you are trying to express emotion, you're probably getting a lot of either just indifference, 00:18:18.611 --> 00:18:23.891 a flat affect or a not right now or well, you need to get over it or how do you think 00:18:23.891 --> 00:18:27.971 that makes me feel? Or you got the version of emotional maturity or narcissism where 00:18:27.971 --> 00:18:31.951 a parent then says, no, I get it. Let me tell you stories of my high school days and how 00:18:31.951 --> 00:18:36.251 I overcame it. And so the fact that if you look at how great I am and then if you aren't 00:18:36.251 --> 00:18:40.431 doing the same, then it shows that you are not as good as I am. And then if you don't 00:18:40.431 --> 00:18:45.131 listen to me, then I can say, well, I told you. And then if you try to do what I'm asking 00:18:45.131 --> 00:18:48.451 you to, because it won't feel authentic to you, then I get to say you're not even doing 00:18:48.451 --> 00:18:54.531 right. So it's a no-win situation when you're trying to even express yourself as a kid to an 00:18:54.531 --> 00:18:56.320 to an emotionally immature narcissistic parent. 00:18:57.391 --> 00:19:00.875 The child will be treated like an accessory to the parent rather than a person. 00:19:01.604 --> 00:19:07.230 The child will be more valued for what they do, usually for the parent, than for who they are as a person. 00:19:07.744 --> 00:19:15.270 And I think that the letter that this teenager wrote that I read earlier starts to feel of that quite a bit. 00:19:15.387 --> 00:19:19.081 You're valued for what you do. You're only as good as what you do for others. 00:19:19.081 --> 00:19:21.328 I mean, that is a way you truly lose your sense of self. 00:19:21.940 --> 00:19:33.211 And that's where the pathologically kind people that find themselves in, again, what Russ Rosenberg so well says the human magnet syndrome, is that you are in this place of self-love deficit. 00:19:33.742 --> 00:19:41.583 So you feel like you are only as good as what you do. And so what do you do? You continue to try to do for others to try to get them to love you. 00:19:41.952 --> 00:19:49.766 And that is working absolutely counter to the fact that you are of worth and lovable as a human being. 00:19:50.270 --> 00:19:54.150 And so if you are trying to get people to recognize or acknowledge you or love you, 00:19:54.663 --> 00:19:59.321 then that is you're not in a healthy relationship. The child will not learn to identify or trust 00:19:59.321 --> 00:20:03.161 their own feelings and will grow up with crippling self-doubt. Here's what this is 00:20:03.161 --> 00:20:07.641 what I tried to identify last week is that if you're not allowed to explore your feelings and 00:20:07.641 --> 00:20:18.762 and emotions, if you're continually told that they're wrong or not now or just get over it or don't worry about it, then you are continually given this message that your feelings, you don't even understand them, they're wrong. 00:20:19.240 --> 00:20:36.389 And look at how that they make me feel. So now all of a sudden, I can't trust my own gut. I can't think on my own. And what am I doing now, I'm now actually going to start going to this person to ask for their advice or their opinion or what they think I should do. And they don't have my best my they don't have what's good for me in mind. 00:20:36.731 --> 00:20:38.061 It's, oh, well, what can I do? 00:20:38.061 --> 00:20:39.486 How can I manipulate this in the moment? 00:20:40.101 --> 00:20:44.781 And that's that form of, really, it's a form of betrayal trauma where you're starting to go to this person. 00:20:44.781 --> 00:20:47.341 If you're a kid to your parent or if you're a husband or wife 00:20:47.341 --> 00:20:49.397 to your more emotionally narcissistic spouse, 00:20:49.921 --> 00:20:54.078 and you're saying, hey, here's my heart and I need some help in managing emotions 00:20:54.141 --> 00:20:58.181 because we are inherently designed to deal with emotion in concert with another human being. 00:20:58.181 --> 00:20:59.264 It's part of our attachment. 00:20:59.961 --> 00:21:04.701 But then that other human being is taking advantage of that opportunity 00:21:04.701 --> 00:21:06.835 and manipulating it for their own gain. 00:21:07.421 --> 00:21:10.462 The child will be taught that how they look is more important than how they feel, 00:21:10.641 --> 00:21:15.018 because when there is a real lack of knowing or understanding your kid, 00:21:15.121 --> 00:21:20.680 and if they are only as good as the things they do or how they make you feel as an emotionally immature parent, 00:21:21.281 --> 00:21:23.111 then they need to look the part. 00:21:23.281 --> 00:21:27.531 They need to look the part of if you look a certain way, then that makes me look better as a parent. 00:21:28.629 --> 00:21:34.183 The child will be fearful of being real and will instead be taught that image is more important than authenticity. 00:21:34.859 --> 00:21:40.152 And this is part of that, when I talk about abandonment and attachment issues that we bring into our relationships, 00:21:40.710 --> 00:21:45.778 is that I'm so afraid that if I am being real, that then I may lose this other person. 00:21:46.148 --> 00:21:49.091 Now, if a kid grows up with a secure attachment to their parent, 00:21:49.532 --> 00:21:54.479 and if they know that it is absolutely okay to be them, whatever that looks like, whatever they like to do, 00:21:54.479 --> 00:22:01.479 And again, I feel like this is where the emotionally immature person is listening to this, which I'm sure they haven't, they wouldn't have made it 24 minutes in at this point. 00:22:02.063 --> 00:22:06.331 But it's like, oh, okay, so if they just want to go shoot heroin between their toes all day, then I got to support that. 00:22:06.988 --> 00:22:14.479 If you're at that point right now, okay, you've already been looking to pick apart this entire podcast, so there's not much that I can do to convince you. 00:22:15.036 --> 00:22:17.679 But if they want to go be a, I don't know, 00:22:17.679 --> 00:22:23.319 if they want to go be an explorer and then a pirate and then an astronaut, and then they want to become 00:22:23.319 --> 00:22:29.279 a surgeon and then they want to raise bunnies and then they want to, I want to go on that journey 00:22:29.279 --> 00:22:30.142 with them the whole way. 00:22:30.759 --> 00:22:33.571 Because if any of that becomes a, I don't think that would be good for you, champ. 00:22:34.139 --> 00:22:37.820 Why am I saying that? Because I have no idea what it feels like to be them. 00:22:38.059 --> 00:22:44.563 So don't be the person that gets in the way of the hopes and dreams of your spouse or your kid? 00:22:45.199 --> 00:22:47.919 Because the reality is that doesn't mean that they're gonna all of a sudden 00:22:47.919 --> 00:22:52.639 wanna be a pirate astronaut who raises bunnies. The thing is that if they feel like. 00:22:53.394 --> 00:22:57.536 Oh, it's okay for me to say that I wanna do that, actually, I don't know if I really even want to. 00:22:58.179 --> 00:23:01.139 But if I'm continually told, no, there aren't even pirates anymore, 00:23:01.139 --> 00:23:04.782 or whatever that looks like, well then what do I feel like? Okay, I feel kinda dumb. 00:23:05.340 --> 00:23:09.193 And I don't know if I'm gonna keep bringing my hopes and dreams to you as my parents. 00:23:09.999 --> 00:23:13.622 Because you're shooting those down. And what is, I had someone in my office recently 00:23:14.019 --> 00:23:18.547 and all the person said was they wanted to look at going to a particular grad school. 00:23:18.939 --> 00:23:23.059 And the parent immediately said, that's too difficult. 00:23:21.842 --> 00:23:27.999 And I just thought, wow, that was within seconds of this person sharing something that no doubt they've been thinking about for quite some time. 00:23:28.431 --> 00:23:33.972 And then they were met with their parent who doesn't even really know, hey, take me on your train of thought, tell me more about that. 00:23:33.972 --> 00:23:35.768 And they just said, no, you wouldn't be able to do that. 00:23:36.398 --> 00:23:40.052 And in essence, implying that, hey, that's really difficult. 00:23:40.052 --> 00:23:42.583 I don't think you can do difficult things and you're not very smart. 00:23:42.970 --> 00:23:47.039 So then this person just said, OK, I guess I will not open up about anything again. 00:23:47.516 --> 00:23:51.052 The child will be taught to keep secrets to protect the parent and the family. 00:23:51.153 --> 00:23:57.356 Boy, triangulation. Hey, don't tell your mom, don't tell your dad, that is not a healthy way to live. 00:23:57.491 --> 00:24:02.928 Because then the child is now, again, gonna feel like anything they say, boy, am I gonna get, 00:24:03.372 --> 00:24:07.932 anybody in trouble? Is this, wait, is dad gonna get mad at me because I said something to mom or 00:24:07.932 --> 00:24:12.252 vice versa? And the child will not be encouraged to develop their own sense of self. It goes right 00:24:12.252 --> 00:24:17.292 back to that secure attachment. They're trying to figure out what they can do to then please me. 00:24:17.292 --> 00:24:21.612 I was gonna say I'm gonna be dramatic and throw out a very controversial thing and it's not that. 00:24:22.301 --> 00:24:26.652 But I was with one of my daughters, actually two of my daughters over the weekend and we'd gone to 00:24:26.652 --> 00:24:33.052 help paint my daughter Mackie's new salon. So, a matter of fact, plug to if you live in the Provo 00:24:33.052 --> 00:24:38.172 Orem area of Utah, then look up at Beauty by Mackie on Instagram and she's an amazing 00:24:38.172 --> 00:24:43.692 cosmetologist. But I had some of my nieces and nephews there while we were doing this and it 00:24:43.692 --> 00:24:47.792 and it was late at night, and it's just so fun to talk to the kids these days. 00:24:47.792 --> 00:24:48.731 Listen to how old I sound. 00:24:49.492 --> 00:24:53.152 But when we were talking about, they were saying, a couple of them are graduating college 00:24:53.152 --> 00:24:56.923 and they're not 100% sure what they wanna do and they were almost expressing that like, 00:24:57.432 --> 00:25:02.112 I know I should know, and I said, oh, you know, if I can just speak from some experience as a human being 00:25:02.112 --> 00:25:04.053 and throw the therapist card in there as well, 00:25:04.692 --> 00:25:08.592 then I feel like it's very rare that somebody at the age of 22 says, 00:25:08.592 --> 00:25:11.291 I think I know what I wanna do for the next 50 years of my life, 00:25:11.392 --> 00:25:15.369 that I've made this choice over the last two or three as an emotionally immature individual. 00:25:16.072 --> 00:25:21.671 But in reality, if you are just on the path of just trying to learn and do and be, 00:25:22.272 --> 00:25:24.672 that then you're going to develop your sense of self. 00:25:24.672 --> 00:25:28.352 Now, the controversial point I made was I just threw out there that I've worked with enough people 00:25:28.648 --> 00:25:33.712 that are people like lawyers and doctors and some of those professions that you've had to spend a tremendous amount 00:25:33.712 --> 00:25:40.711 of schooling on, and I'm just talking about anecdotal evidence that I have as a therapist for 15, 16, 17 years, 00:25:41.212 --> 00:25:46.592 and talking with some of those professionals and then I'm getting them in their mid-30s to early 40s 00:25:46.592 --> 00:25:48.292 and their midlife crisis phase. 00:25:48.292 --> 00:25:51.693 And that's because when we sometimes dig back and go deep. 00:25:52.440 --> 00:25:58.823 They wanted to be the let's just take a doctor for example as long as they can remember but when you go back and look at why. 00:25:59.264 --> 00:26:05.377 Did it was because whenever they said i want to be a doctor you watch the parents beam because we talk about external validation. 00:26:05.818 --> 00:26:11.012 And whenever you talk to your friends and if your friends and i don't know what i want to do if you say i want to be a doctor. 00:26:11.525 --> 00:26:19.078 No sudden everybody can lights up like that's cool you know and then if you're a kid are you so rich and you need to do all these cool things. 00:26:19.690 --> 00:26:23.010 So, then the person got the validation and then that might have carried them all the 00:26:23.010 --> 00:26:25.170 way even through medical school. For some, it hasn't. 00:26:25.170 --> 00:26:28.530 For some, they get two or three years in and then at that point, they're in a crippling 00:26:28.530 --> 00:26:30.268 amount of debt and they feel stuck. 00:26:30.610 --> 00:26:31.249 They really do. 00:26:31.654 --> 00:26:36.210 Or others, I remember talking to a podiatrist a long time ago and he was talking about, 00:26:36.210 --> 00:26:39.490 we were looking at scheduling and he said, I can't come in on, it was like Tuesdays or 00:26:39.490 --> 00:26:41.107 Thursdays because those are surgery days. 00:26:41.557 --> 00:26:44.627 And I said, oh my gosh, what is that like? I mean, that's just got to be crazy. 00:26:44.850 --> 00:26:50.523 And he just said, you know, he's like, after about the 2000th time that I released a plantar fascia, 00:26:51.050 --> 00:26:52.756 he just said, yeah, not so crazy. 00:26:53.090 --> 00:26:54.205 They all kind of look the same. 00:26:54.890 --> 00:27:00.410 And I just thought, oh, to that person that was thinking this will be amazing, 00:27:00.410 --> 00:27:07.970 they just have foot lined up after foot lined up and slice cut into that, release the fascias 00:27:07.970 --> 00:27:09.311 to get rid of the plantar fasciitis. 00:27:09.870 --> 00:27:14.613 And so he said, I don't mind surgery. Said it's still a little bit cooler than just the office days. 00:27:15.090 --> 00:27:19.375 But the only point that I'm making is that, boy, when you know or you think you know that young, 00:27:19.930 --> 00:27:23.859 a lot of times that's because of that, I believe, that external validation from parents. 00:27:24.530 --> 00:27:27.054 So the child won't be encouraged to develop their own sense of self. 00:27:27.330 --> 00:27:32.210 They may want to then say the things that will get the, if they are just truly being an extension 00:27:32.210 --> 00:27:34.319 of their emotionally immature or narcissistic parent, 00:27:34.990 --> 00:27:39.892 then if they say, I'm gonna be a whatever, and the parent goes, yeah, that's my boy, 00:27:40.330 --> 00:27:43.762 then they're gonna be driven more to do that, even if that isn't something they feel passionate about. 00:27:44.690 --> 00:27:48.435 The child will feel emotionally empty and not nurtured. The child will learn not to trust others 00:27:48.590 --> 00:27:51.577 because, boy, if you've grown up in an emotionally immature household, 00:27:52.110 --> 00:27:56.170 there are gonna be times where you have said something and you felt like that was in confidence, 00:27:56.170 --> 00:28:00.070 but then your narcissistic parent has then told somebody else. 00:28:00.070 --> 00:28:05.470 That one happens so often, and it's because that narcissistic parent, in that moment, 00:28:05.470 --> 00:28:08.906 is getting the validation off of you giving them a secret. 00:28:09.030 --> 00:28:11.913 Man, promise you won't say anything, Mom? And it's like, hey, you bet champ. 00:28:12.290 --> 00:28:15.930 And then as soon as I, mom's talking to her sister, well, no, I just told her 00:28:15.930 --> 00:28:17.359 because she lives in a different state. 00:28:17.970 --> 00:28:21.210 Or then tell a neighbor, no, I told them, but they don't, I mean, 00:28:21.210 --> 00:28:22.805 they don't run in the same circles as you do. 00:28:23.490 --> 00:28:26.757 So it's like, oh, I'll absolutely keep your promise. I mean, until I don't. 00:28:27.250 --> 00:28:29.773 That's basically the creed of the narcissist in a sense. 00:28:29.850 --> 00:28:31.835 The child will learn, yeah, not trusting. 00:28:32.250 --> 00:28:36.690 The child will feel used and manipulated. And I feel like that's where you start getting the vibes 00:28:36.690 --> 00:28:39.090 of highly sensitive people or the body keeps the score. 00:28:39.847 --> 00:28:42.908 The child will be there for the parent rather than the other way around as it should be. 00:28:43.033 --> 00:28:47.076 That's what starts to create that anxious attachment vibe, is that when the child 00:28:47.148 --> 00:28:52.783 needs the parent from an emotional standpoint and the parent is, it's not a good time, 00:28:53.116 --> 00:28:58.283 which I know we're all human, but I want to say, which should not be the answer, 00:28:58.436 --> 00:29:03.640 because if you're the parent, then I would love for you to model the fact that, hey, for you, 00:29:03.982 --> 00:29:08.737 it now is a good time, because this now isn't about me, it's about the tiny human being that 00:29:08.737 --> 00:29:09.817 that I've helped create. 00:29:09.817 --> 00:29:13.785 In that scenario, then, you're gonna be there for your kid because if it's the other way around, 00:29:14.337 --> 00:29:18.337 that's where you start seeing this anxious attachment show up in adult relationships where you've said, 00:29:18.337 --> 00:29:22.697 all I ever wanted to do was feel heard and understood, and then when the spouse finally says, 00:29:22.697 --> 00:29:28.900 okay, I hear you and I wanna understand you, it can feel emotionally overwhelming and engulfing, and it really can. 00:29:29.537 --> 00:29:33.857 The child's emotional development will be stunted. The child will feel criticized and judged 00:29:33.857 --> 00:29:36.457 rather than accepted and loved, and that's again where we have this vibe 00:29:36.457 --> 00:29:37.577 where we say, hey, champ, you can come 00:29:37.577 --> 00:29:41.477 talk to me about anything and then you come and say, I think I want to quit 00:29:41.638 --> 00:29:50.177 school or I think I want to join the army or I think I want to and if the parent is saying, okay that's that's just ridiculous. Why do you know how much time 00:29:50.177 --> 00:29:54.437 and effort I put into your schooling or it really I didn't teach you well enough 00:29:54.437 --> 00:29:58.857 to want to continue to be an attorney like me and so when you're putting that 00:29:58.857 --> 00:30:03.557 vibe out again it is all about you not your kid and so in that scenario then 00:30:03.557 --> 00:30:10.428 the kids gonna feel criticized and judged. The child will grow frustrated trying to seek love, approval, and attention to no avail. 00:30:11.097 --> 00:30:15.517 Which will often then lead them to looking for external sources to provide them 00:30:15.517 --> 00:30:16.972 with the love, approval, and attention. 00:30:17.517 --> 00:30:21.050 And I'll just talk about, I was speaking at a conference not long ago, 00:30:21.537 --> 00:30:25.577 and somebody had asked a question about, all the kids, everybody's smoking pot these days 00:30:25.577 --> 00:30:26.776 was the way that the question was put. 00:30:27.337 --> 00:30:31.477 And I just said, here's the challenge, and I'm with them on that. 00:30:31.477 --> 00:30:35.175 I feel like I still grew up in the time where that was the stoner, 00:30:35.317 --> 00:30:39.637 and I don't know what it's like to be a kid that is in their early 20s that has, in essence, 00:30:39.637 --> 00:30:42.089 grown up within most of the states, it's legal. 00:30:42.237 --> 00:30:46.477 So that's a whole different ballgame. But I mentioned that I often talk with kids 00:30:46.477 --> 00:30:53.157 that when they were feeling judged by their peers, and especially if you're, I work in an area 00:30:53.157 --> 00:30:55.790 where there are a lot of people that are part of a religious community. 00:30:55.977 --> 00:31:00.390 And so then if that religious community says, hey, we're all together, we're all a community, 00:31:00.917 --> 00:31:03.397 but now within that community, let me do some judging. 00:31:03.597 --> 00:31:07.757 You drink energy drinks or your shorts are too short, or you swear. 00:31:07.757 --> 00:31:11.148 Yeah, we're all the same except for now I'm gonna judge you about those things. 00:31:11.677 --> 00:31:17.757 And I said, but Pat, that world is no respecter of persons. That there, we don't care what you're wearing 00:31:17.757 --> 00:31:21.637 or what you're saying or what you're doing because we all have this shared sense of purpose, 00:31:21.637 --> 00:31:23.625 which is, it's sad in that regard. 00:31:23.777 --> 00:31:28.877 But so in that scenario though, they're going to find love, approval, and attention. 00:31:28.877 --> 00:31:33.397 And if that is not provided in the home, then they will seek that elsewhere. 00:31:33.397 --> 00:31:35.022 The child will grow up not feeling good enough. 00:31:35.823 --> 00:31:45.563 The child won't have a healthy role model for emotional connection, which then starts leading into the when I say we don't have the tools from the factory to be able to communicate in a healthy way or to hold boundaries. 00:31:46.059 --> 00:31:59.697 Because just I feel like I want to say just remember that if you have grown up with a secure attachment as a child and now you're a teenager and you know that you're okay because your parent has never continued to I mean they haven't hammered you with. 00:32:00.264 --> 00:32:04.213 I can't believe you said that, right? I don't, I, you know what that, how that impacts me. 00:32:04.213 --> 00:32:09.005 If you've just been able to say and feel and be, and now you go on a date and somebody says, 00:32:09.633 --> 00:32:14.113 oh, I don't think you should do that in college, then your radar is gonna be off the charts. 00:32:14.113 --> 00:32:19.223 You're gonna think, okay, that's, I wasn't asking you for your opinion on what I should do with my career. 00:32:20.033 --> 00:32:26.092 But if you've been judged and manipulated and not heard or seen, and so you've tried to recognize, 00:32:26.833 --> 00:32:29.071 man, how do I show up so I don't get this person mad? 00:32:29.293 --> 00:32:33.133 And then you say, you know, I want to be a, I don't know, computer programmer. 00:32:33.133 --> 00:32:37.053 And then that person, the person that you're sitting across the table from who you don't even really know. 00:32:37.524 --> 00:32:47.787 And they say, oh, boy, I've heard that those computer programmers, you know, they work long hours or or they sleep in all the time or, you know, you have to drink four liters of Mountain Dew every day and they rot their teeth. 00:32:47.922 --> 00:32:48.973 I don't know whatever it would be. 00:32:49.516 --> 00:32:53.133 But then if you as a person then go, yeah, maybe I don't want to be one. 00:32:53.765 --> 00:32:56.213 I mean, I don't want to be a computer programmer. That's insane. 00:32:56.213 --> 00:32:59.481 I want the person who wants to be the computer programmer showing up at a date. 00:32:59.859 --> 00:33:02.573 And if they've grown up and their parent has said, what do you want to do? 00:33:02.573 --> 00:33:04.413 And they've already explored pirate. 00:33:04.453 --> 00:33:08.733 They've already looked at astronaut, but they kind of found a sense of purpose with computer programming. 00:33:08.997 --> 00:33:11.893 So then the parent may not know anything about computer programming, but that 00:33:11.893 --> 00:33:14.686 doesn't mean that then, oh, you think you're better than me or smarter than me. 00:33:15.037 --> 00:33:19.493 But it's a holy cow. This is incredible that they're already finding and enjoying something. 00:33:19.573 --> 00:33:21.333 Let me get them all the computer stuff they need. 00:33:21.373 --> 00:33:24.373 And let me now ask them questions like, uh, Hey, what are you working on? 00:33:24.413 --> 00:33:30.533 And what is that like? and how hard is that and what do you love about it? Imagine being that parent. Now that computer 00:33:30.533 --> 00:33:34.788 programmer goes out into the dating world and if anybody says, I don't think you should do that. 00:33:35.301 --> 00:33:38.933 They're saying, I don't understand why you're telling me what you think I should do. I mean, 00:33:38.933 --> 00:33:42.453 we're just here trying to order appetizers at this point and get to know each other, 00:33:42.773 --> 00:33:47.093 not tell each other what to do, which I think that's the big key there. Which then leads into, 00:33:47.093 --> 00:33:50.693 she says, the child will not learn appropriate boundaries for relationships. The child won't 00:33:50.693 --> 00:33:55.093 learn healthy self-care, but instead will be at risk of becoming codependent, taking care of others 00:33:55.093 --> 00:34:00.183 to the exclusion of taking care of self. Not wanting to rock the boat. Not wanting to then 00:34:00.499 --> 00:34:05.909 question my sense of self because that's what it's been like to be me growing up in a home 00:34:06.314 --> 00:34:10.053 where the parent was even letting you know that they did things better than you when they were 00:34:10.053 --> 00:34:17.413 your age. The cháhuá, the difficulty with the necessary individuation from the parent as he or or she grows older. 00:34:16.261 --> 00:34:25.411 I was talking with somebody recently and we were talking about the enmeshment that they felt as they, after they got married, where their parent still felt they wanted to say, 00:34:25.411 --> 00:34:27.289 I don't know, you don't seem like yourself. 00:34:27.424 --> 00:34:32.096 And this person was saying, I actually feel better than I've felt before with this connection with my new spouse. 00:34:32.646 --> 00:34:41.371 But the narcissistic parent, they were not, in essence, saying, OK, we have done all we can do and we have created a secure attachment with this person. 00:34:41.450 --> 00:34:48.811 And now we hand them into the world of marital relationships, this individuated person, and they 00:34:48.811 --> 00:34:53.291 are now going to go, now go, go and couple and thrive and start to form a secure attachment 00:34:53.291 --> 00:34:57.691 with your spouse. And then you guys will live happily forever. And we're over here. And if you 00:34:57.691 --> 00:35:02.893 need us, let's go on vacations together. No, it's, hey, let's talk every couple of times a week. 00:35:03.289 --> 00:35:06.731 And let me just make it all about myself. And let me start to tell you that you don't seem like 00:35:06.731 --> 00:35:10.991 yourself when in reality that means that you don't understand who I am. The child 00:35:10.991 --> 00:35:15.791 will get a mix of mixed and crazy making messages of do well, make me proud as an 00:35:15.791 --> 00:35:19.591 extension of the parent, but don't do too well and don't outshine me because then 00:35:19.591 --> 00:35:22.951 you're gonna think that you're better than me. I hope my kids turn out better 00:35:22.951 --> 00:35:26.791 than me, please. That would be a wonderful thing because you know we want to I hope 00:35:26.791 --> 00:35:30.287 we want to advance those generations and every generation gets gets better. That, 00:35:30.731 --> 00:35:33.171 That would be a wonderful thing. 00:35:33.171 --> 00:35:34.032 I don't need to. 00:35:34.743 --> 00:35:38.753 Always have felt like I was better than all of my kids. That's crazy. 00:35:38.753 --> 00:35:43.553 If the child outshines the parent, then they may experience jealousy from the parent. 00:35:44.259 --> 00:35:46.993 The child is not taught to give credit to self when deserved. 00:35:48.353 --> 00:35:56.259 One of the things that drives me crazy is this concept around it's so bad to be proud of yourself. Pride. Pride is bad. 00:35:56.439 --> 00:36:00.040 No, there's a healthy ego and healthy ego changes the world. 00:36:00.490 --> 00:36:10.032 Healthy ego is based off a real life experience. If you can help somebody find a real sense of self and security, and then they start to go and do and achieve and explore, they change the world. 00:36:10.518 --> 00:36:26.812 But if that person is always worried about, I don't want to make anybody mad, and yeah, maybe I don't want to do that, then they're taught to burn all these emotional calories just trying to figure out how to manage emotional relationships around them and try to figure out, is it okay to be me? 00:36:27.001 --> 00:36:28.415 Wait, I don't even know who I am. 00:36:28.933 --> 00:36:31.827 Versus the person that has been given the secure attachment, 00:36:32.196 --> 00:36:37.624 and again, they are going out and doing and being and finding and discovering and loving and connecting. 00:36:38.065 --> 00:36:45.510 Because that will, without that, the child, again, if they haven't been taught to give credit where their own credit is due or self-deserved, 00:36:45.933 --> 00:36:51.398 ultimately they'll start to suffer from a level of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety in adulthood. 00:36:52.019 --> 00:36:57.195 The child will grow up believing that he or she is unworthy and unlovable because if my parent can't love me, then who will? 00:36:57.672 --> 00:36:58.734 Boy, that one resonates. 00:36:59.382 --> 00:37:02.272 If you create that secure attachment and that love with your kid, 00:37:02.695 --> 00:37:05.207 and they know that they are worthy of love, then they don't... 00:37:05.306 --> 00:37:10.789 Are... they're going to be less likely to find themselves in relationships where they're trying to prove their worth or their love. 00:37:11.167 --> 00:37:12.580 They just get to be and do. 00:37:13.471 --> 00:37:16.982 The child will often become either a high achiever or a self-saboteur or both. 00:37:17.567 --> 00:37:21.093 High achiever because I'll be darned if I'm going to, that's the only way I got my validation. 00:37:21.093 --> 00:37:25.613 So I got to go above and beyond and I got to go overboard and then I have to even 00:37:25.613 --> 00:37:29.173 puff myself up because I want to make sure that everybody knows that I'm good. 00:37:29.173 --> 00:37:31.683 Look, you'll love me now if I'm really special, right? 00:37:32.736 --> 00:37:40.343 And this one's hard, the last one that she talks about is a child will need trauma recovery and will have to re-parent themselves in adulthood. 00:37:40.946 --> 00:37:46.356 Carol then concludes her article by saying being raised by a narcissistic parent is emotionally and psychologically abusive. 00:37:47.050 --> 00:37:49.586 And it causes debilitating, long-lasting effects on children. 00:37:49.876 --> 00:37:55.350 It's often missed by professionals because the narcissist or emotional immature person can be charming in their presentation, 00:37:56.151 --> 00:37:59.248 displaying an image of how they wish to be seen. 00:37:59.932 --> 00:38:05.450 Now behind closed doors, the children feel the suffocation of self and struggle with loneliness and pain. 00:38:05.900 --> 00:38:12.562 The narcissist is not accountable for their own mistakes or behaviors, so the child believes that they are to blame, that they flunked childhood. 00:38:12.985 --> 00:38:14.966 Sad, but I appreciate the way she says that. 00:38:15.767 --> 00:38:20.586 She said, having worked as a mental health provider with thousands of children as well as the adult children of narcissistic parents, 00:38:21.249 --> 00:38:25.498 she said, I see the above symptoms over and over again. And boy, amen to that. I agree. 00:38:26.119 --> 00:38:29.441 And this is what I love that she said, because I think this says this so well. 00:38:29.963 --> 00:38:33.586 The lifestyles differ and the stories differ, but they all have the same emotional banners. 00:38:33.951 --> 00:38:37.586 And it's quite a list, and it takes serious recovery work to get better and feel better. 00:38:38.650 --> 00:38:44.043 So she said, if you are the other parent or part of the extended family and are trying to ward off the effects of a narcissistic parent, 00:38:44.700 --> 00:38:51.586 then you'll have to do double duty as the responsible one. And the best approach is to parent with empathy, the antithesis of narcissism. 00:38:52.478 --> 00:38:59.707 If you are a divorce professional working with a case that involves a narcissist help the kids by first really understanding the dynamics of the disorder Don't minimize it, 00:39:00.418 --> 00:39:05.279 Make sure the children are in therapy and learning assertiveness skills to use of the parent who does not emotionally tune into them put 00:39:05.486 --> 00:39:08.886 The kids first and I feel like in the work that I do it really is. 00:39:10.978 --> 00:39:15.794 Approach the the pathologically kind person with empathy the antithesis of narcissism and, 00:39:16.478 --> 00:39:20.926 and help that person realize that they need to understand, 00:39:21.546 --> 00:39:24.746 the dynamics of the disorder, even if it's just along the lines 00:39:24.746 --> 00:39:26.804 of the emotional immaturity. Don't minimize it. 00:39:27.704 --> 00:39:32.714 And then if I'm talking to them, hopefully they are in therapy and they're learning these skills. 00:39:32.714 --> 00:39:38.414 Now, the place where I feel a little bit different is that learning those assertiveness skills can be okay, 00:39:38.414 --> 00:39:42.354 but sometimes that's going to be just from a place of I need to practice being heard and seen, 00:39:42.354 --> 00:39:47.707 even if I recognize that is not going to be the case, but it's going to start to help define what it feels like to be you. 00:39:48.490 --> 00:39:53.774 So, I hope this one resonated. If you feel like this would help anyone in their situation, feel free to forward it. 00:39:54.242 --> 00:40:05.314 If you have additional questions for me, reach out at contact at Tony overbay.com and or get a hold of me through Instagram at I think Tony overbay underscore LMFT or tick tock. 00:40:05.314 --> 00:40:11.284 If that continues to be a thing, take the tick tock therapy, the tick my tick tock account just cracks me up. 00:40:11.941 --> 00:40:23.968 Because it's so funny to watch just little random videos that can be a minute, two minutes, go from just a few thousand views to all of a sudden you just watch one just kind of take off for no reason. 00:40:24.436 --> 00:40:32.295 And then you refresh every hour and it's another, I don't know, 20, 30 thousand views and it's just interesting to see what people connect with. 00:40:32.682 --> 00:40:38.129 Most of the stuff does have to do with traits and tendencies around narcissism or emotional immaturity, so it's just fascinating. 00:40:38.939 --> 00:40:41.676 Okay, have an amazing week and I will see you next time. 00:40:41.680 --> 00:41:23.304 Music. 00:41:23.284 --> 00:40:41.676 You.