Narcissist Mother's Pet: Her Child

Everything you Need to Know about Narcissists, Psychopaths, and Abuse - click on this link: http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq1.html

Overweening, smothering, spoiling, overvaluing, and idolizing the child - are all forms of parental abuse.

This is because, as Horney pointed out, the child is dehumanized and instrumentalized. His parents love him not for what he really is - but for what they wish and imagine him to be: the fulfillment of their dreams and frustrated wishes. The child becomes the vessel of his parents' discontented lives, a tool, the magic brush with which they can transform their failures into successes, their humiliation into victory, their frustrations into happiness. The child is taught to ignore reality and to occupy the parental fantastic space. Such an unfortunate child feels omnipotent and omniscient, perfect and brilliant, worthy of adoration and entitled to special treatment. The faculties that are honed by constantly brushing against bruising reality - empathy, compassion, a realistic assessment of one's abilities and limitations, realistic expectations of oneself and of others, personal boundaries, team work, social skills, perseverance and goal-orientation, not to mention the ability to postpone gratification and to work hard to achieve it - are all lacking or missing altogether. The child turned adult sees no reason to invest in his skills and education, convinced that his inherent genius should suffice. He feels entitled for merely being, rather than for actually doing.

(From the book "Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited" by Sam Vaknin - Click on this link to purchase the print book, or 16 e-books, or 2 DVDs with 12 hours of video lectures on narcissists, psychopaths, and abuse in relationships: http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/thebook.html)

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• mother
• child
• upbringing
• idolizing
• smothering
• spoiling
• entitlement
• empathy
• grandiosity
• narcissism
• parent
• parenting
• autonomy
• emotional blackmail
• incestuous
• incest

[twopurringcats]

Both my parents are narcissists, high perfectionists and extremely controlling. They always acted like I let them down and talked to me like I was stupid, even if I was very successful, have many accomplishments and people liked me. My parents never were satisfied..always told me I could do better. I have now disowned them in my middle age. Their aggression, anger and cruelty was too much. My life is better now.

[abby495]

Selfish users. Then the poor child gets completely screwed up because these imaginary rules don't work in the real world.

[Wivanunu]

@xthinkplayx I would..but I can't allow the kids to be with him alone. Not that's he's unsafe...just that it would be even more horrible for them. Also, I pray...I'm a Christian. I pray that the Lord will open his eyes to what is going wrong here and that he'd feel guilt. I do notice guilt recently when the kids fall apart and tell them exactly how they feel. I teach my kids to be very open...and I think it is really helping.

[xthinkplayx]

@Wivanunu Leave him. Seriously.

[TheLordmep]

@twopurringcats You have my sympathies and respect for surviving with enough cognative thought to realize what happened.

[Drahgoon]

@twopurringcats I had the same problem.The worst is when they try to guilt trip you.

[tinyctlo]

Dear Dr. Sam, Thank you for sharing this. Music child-prodigies are spoiled on the outside but beaten by their parents at home. As an adult they have no friends. In the mist of a painful life of hurting others unintentionally, your talks give immense comfort.

[MouraVianna]

i can´describe this feeling of angry i feel for havins narcissistic parents

[DCFunBud]

My mother is a narcissist. "Nothing (you do) is ever good enough." She destroyed her kids with that attitude. We used to joke that her motto was, "bigger is better, more is more, too much is never enough. I think only Bill Gates could have satisfied her demands for accomplishment. It was her way of always maintaining power over us, by denying us our own self worth. The bottom line is that we were never good enough to be her children because we failed to make her life fulfilling.

[handsintheair4you]

The entitlement is stressful to understand, no matter what they do to you they don't care because How can anyone feel guilt when they don't care (about you)? They are selfish looking out only for own interests.

[handsintheair4you]

@Wivanunu The child can blame themselves a lot and feel worthless because their parents opinion is important to them no matter how irrational it may be, it is real to them because they trust their parent, comfort them!

[handsintheair4you]

@Wivanunu Assure your kids that it's not their fault when the narcissist father devalues them and show them lots of support,love,tenderness, and kindness.