Like me, you may never have known the difference between an unhealthy and healthy relationship.
Maybe your parents were busy surviving and providing and didn’t have the time to model healthy interactions.
Perhaps (and my heart goes out to you if this was your childhood) your parents were terribly absent, abusive, neglectful, and even addicts or narcissists.
Of course, none of this is your fault!
In my latest Thriver TV video, I share with you the key reasons we end up in narcissistic relationships. I also provide you with a deeper understanding of how so much of what we experienced as children set us up for these toxic and damaging relationships in our adult lives.
This understanding is your first step to completely reversing the tendencies and programs that have made you susceptible to narcissists. Please watch.
Video Transcript
Today I want to talk about why we end up in narcissistic relationships and the unhealthy modelling that we may have experienced. In the last 12 plus years that I’ve been helping people recover from narcissistic abuse, I really do understand that so much of what we experienced as children is what set us up for narcissistic relationships.
In many cases, this is not about blaming our parents because they weren’t necessarily horrible parents, but they were focused on things like survival and putting food on the table and putting a roof over our head. Quite often, they were really busy working or providing, and they just didn’t have the training to know how to be emotionally present parents.
Of course, there are parents of people in this community and all through the world that are very abusive and neglectful, and addicts, or they’ve inflicted all sorts of emotional, physical, and even sexual abuse on their children. We know that, but I would just want to talk to the big range, the general range, the common range of mirroring and programming that has set us up for narcissistic relationships.
Conditional Love
Now, the first one is the parent where it’s conditional love and where you believe that you have to earn love. With this parent, if you don’t agree or if you don’t grant what the parent wants you to grant, you feel that you are suffering the fears of CRAP, which is criticism, rejection, abandonment, and punishment. Therefore what happens is you hand away your power to go along and acquiesce with what somebody else wants you to be, say, and do in order to feel loved and approved of.
Now, this can be a very big thing that can set us up for narcissistic abuse because, again, we hand our power away. We don’t assert ourselves. We don’t lay boundaries. We don’t have our own values or preferences, or opinions.
Often, this is because we came from the kind of family where children are “seen and not heard” and you “must go along with what I want” otherwise you’re not going to feel loved and safe, and cared for. It’s a very normal thing that so many of us have been through.
Unavailable Parents
Unavailable parents may have been really busy with providing, or maybe they were suffering their own addictions, where they were unavailable emotionally because their emotions were all caught up in trying to survive their trauma, and chase their addictions to self-medicate, so that they weren’t emotionally available for you.
So, what that causes within you is it feels “familiar” so you’re going to bond with people who are again unavailable, because you’re trying to right the wrongs of your childhood. This is what we do subconsciously. We get involved with people and it’s like, “Well, mom or dad, could you please do it differently this time so that I can feel safe, and whole, and loved.”
What happens with narcissists is they are very, very clever at being able to identify what it is within you that’s unhealed, or what it is that’s missing and pretend to be it. So if you have the traumas of, “The people I love don’t see me, are unavailable, replace me, ignore me, act like I don’t exist.” If that’s been your programming, a narcissist works that out very, very quickly and will show up in a way where you feel like they see you, that you do exist – that you are the only person who exists.
Of course, you feel like a human being in a desert finding an oasis, and you bond very quickly. Then what happens is once you’ve bonded, it all gets reversed. Then this person will start ignoring you, acting like you don’t exist, invalidating you, being unavailable, missing in action, stonewalling you – all of those things.
So that’s another program, another conditioning program from our childhood that can really set us up for narcissists.
A Parent That Doesn’t Respect Boundaries
Another one is when your boundaries have been violated, when you have a parent that enmeshes or engulfs you, and doesn’t allow you to have space or privacy. What happens is that you will usually end up with a narcissist who is very controlling, who is jealous, who is possessive, who engulfs your boundaries and violates your space, and your privacy, and your person all over again.
Again, it will feel to you when you meet this person that this person grants you respect, values you, gives you space to breathe. Again, the tide will turn and this space and this trust, and this respect where you could breathe, changes to you being smothered all over again.
A Co-dependent Parent
Now, another program that I see a lot of is the co-dependent parent, the parent who is sick, the parent who is needy, the parent who may be the partner of a narcissist, and you feel sorry for this parent. You’re trying to grant them what they need so that they can be strong and they can cope, and they can be well. You have been catering to this needy parent so that they can be well enough to love you and take care of you. What you will find is that you will be getting into relationships with people who need fixing.
A great example of that is the covert narcissist, who is the victim narcissist, who is the one that is always complaining and whining, and blaming everybody else, and parasiting off everybody and using everybody’s energy when they’re sick, and they’re being irresponsible, and they’re not getting their life together.
This may be the type of relationship that you end up in, or with an addict, somebody who is sick, who’s not taking responsibility, and you’re always doing the heavy lifting and trying to get them well enough because you feel sorry for them, or you feel obligated, or you feel responsible. Really at a deeper level, what’s going on here is you want them to be well enough to love you because that’s what you were going through in your childhood.
A Narcissistic Parent
So, these are just some of the most common overlying programming structures that can lead us into relationships with narcissists, and of course there is the narcissistic parent, whereby there are inconsistencies all the time. One moment you’re being adored, and it might be when this parent is parading you around because you’ve done something that feeds their ego and their sense of importance.
Then there’s a narcissistic parent whereby it’s been completely unpredictable. One moment you’re being adored, which is because you’re being groomed because the narcissist wants you to grant them some kind of duty, your parent does, or maybe they’re showing you off like a trophy as the golden child, because you’ve done amazing things. Then you could be getting the most cruel, dismissive, unreasonable treatment on the turn of a dime, and you don’t even know what’s coming next.
So that means that you’ve become very sensitive to other people’s energy. You’re trying to read them in order to know how to be in order to be safe. That means that you’re not in your own body, being able to work out your own barometer of what’s right for you and your values, and your truths, and navigate your life accordingly.
You feel like you’re taking on everybody else’s energy and it’s affecting you, and you don’t know how to bond in ways where you can look after your energy, and so many of the other things that I’ve already described.
In Conclusion
So, I want you to know there is more than hope, because I promise you, in all of these years and these thousands of people that I’ve helped heal, including myself, and I went through a lot of what I just described to you, there is a way to recover your True Self, and to be able to be in your body and in life navigating from your truth and established values, and True Source. It completely reverses all of these tendencies and these programs that have made us susceptible to narcissists.
I’d love you to have a look at my signature program, my signature healing program, which is NARP, which takes you through a step-by-step process to heal this through to completion, and not just survive narcissists, but Thrive on the other side of this.
If you want to know more about these deep inner healing processes, please check out my free webinar, where I explain it in detail and take you through the actual healing process to reverse these programs. So, both of these links are in the video description.
Please know you’re not alone, this is all really common, what so many of us have been through, and there are powerful solutions to come out the other side.
I really hope that this has made sense. Remember to like and subscribe, and please share this video if you think it could help somebody else.
Sometimes I worry that IM the narcissist!
In the transcript, you describe the covert narcissist. Complaining, whining, blaming…
Ive had at least five narcissists in my life and the trauma that came with those relationships. So, naturally, I complain about them. I “tell my story”, rehash terrible incidences, want to discuss what happened and what no one understands… (mainly with my best friend who is patient but might feel I am sucking her energy:(
I dont do this ALL the time and I know that those habits are not leading me toward healing. I have a long way to go. Sometimes I feel I will never heal from some of it. I think I have PTSD. But that doesnt mean it isnt my responsibility to pursue self-partnering and healing.
But, this covert narcissist thing worries me.
Can a narcissist EVER find themselves being abused by another narcissist?? Is that even possible? Because if not, then I cannot be a narcissist! When I think of the narcissists in my life, I cannot picture any of them being manipulated, abused, or heartbroken. I think to myself that all the insane, painful experiences that Ive had are PROOF that Im co-dependent and seeking “healing” through others who only repeat the behaviors that wounded me to begin with. A narcissist would NEVER keep trying and giving more and being manipulated.
Am I just a selfish, immature, navel-gazing, irresponsible narcissist?
Im tired and lonely and trying to grow and heal. But sometimes I just feel so stuck and trapped by how I must seem to others: a victim who has made poor choices and is underdeveloped and unworthy of respect.
On top of all that, am I actually a narcissist??
For you to have so much insight and self-awareness, you are definitely not a narcissist, hun. Sending you love and healing xoxo
Hi Dandylion,
please know what you are feeling is what so many of us were terrified about too.
The very fact that you are questioning this means you aren’t.
Have you googled my name plus “Am I the narcissist?” to get clearer on this?
Also I cant recommend working with NARP enough to powerfully and directly heal http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp and if you are please come into the NARP Member’s Forum for extra support. It will make a world of difference to your healing http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/member
I hope that this can help you
Mel 🙏💞🦋
I am hoping to see an answer to your question as I spent 38 years of my life with narcissistic people and I feel the same way when I read articles about it.
Is it me.
Dandylion
No you are not the narc!,!….you wouldnt be asking yourself those questions if you were
. Self refection is not one of their virtues…..very confused😅😅
,BUTnot narcissistic?? ,,,,,,,
Look inside yourself,every day and find at least THREE GOOD things every day and write them down,meditate on these Lovely attributes.
In the Bible,New .testament, book ,Philippians chapter 4 verse 8, somes it all up🙏
Keep following Melanie, she has heaps of good advice,having experienced it All herself……NOW her “” Thrivers” too…..keep going ,little steps,you will eventually grasp it all…. And Turn the Corner 🙋🙋🙋
Much Love and encouragement
From what I have read from Melanie, a narcissist would not even bother to self evaluate themselves at all they feel perfect nothing to change here, so the fact that you are even questioning your self and your behaviour just means you know there’s more to you. That’s my understanding x
I sure understand Dandylion and feel like i’m the covert narcissist also. I’ve never heard anyone address my situation. I grew up with very loving parents, brother, relatives, church people, school people, college and work people in various states in the US. Our 50’s and 60’s attitude was ‘Do your best, be kind, be thankful, be accepting, be appreciative, love God and Jesus.’ Then, my mind started to ‘unknowingly play tricks’ on me from age 30-70 with ‘spiritual manic episodes’ with lots of hospitalizations and going out on Long Term Disability for 20 years, after 20 years of a perfect Research Biology career. I’m now 74. At age 44, I had ‘radical waking memories’ of being 3 in the crib and my Dad ‘coming in my mouth’ when I took it in my little hands. This was so ‘out of character’ for this sweet souled gardener fisherman wrestler personality. Sadly, it was more ‘out of curiosity.’ No intentions to hurt me. And, it ‘split my intense heartache’ up to my ‘head’ and I’ve spent decades re-aligning my energy and mind. Not fun. Dad ended up drinking, going to a rehab center and was always kind. We were ‘contently silent’ and never once had a conversation. Never one hug with him, ok, one, when he was in his 60’s and he told me he loved me, 3 months before he died at 62. Our family was loving and respectful and felt no need to hug. It actually felt ideal. And, as an adult, I ended up ‘screaming for attention’ and when I got no attention, it made me scream even more, not even knowing why I was so angry. Hence I had no friends, nor did I want them. I was happier being alone and traveled the world. To me, ‘Everyone is doing the best they can OR we’d all be doing something else’ and thus, everyone is AS genuine AS they can be. AS happy AS they can be. AS loving AS they can be … based on our upbringing, our parent’s upbringing, education, culture ideas and life experiences.. OR … we’d all have been doing something else. True or true. This has always been my Essene (Jesus) Way of Life. Now, that i’m ready to become ‘visible’ and ‘Take a Stand’ for me, I’m finding it odd that I can be calm AND be visible. Seems like a weird combo. Yet Motivational Speakers are all ‘in control’ and never seem to be ‘out of control’, so, I know that I can ‘Re-train my brain’ and ‘Re-wire my mind’ to FEEL even better about myself and have them be my Role Models. I just released deep feeling of self-hate and being EVIL and even ‘judging God as EVIL’, which conflicts with my ‘knowing of the Creator’. Now, I feel I’m on the road to greatness. My body is having a hard time keeping up as I gain more ideas, and, if not me creating my own magnificence, then who? If not you, then who? If not us, then who? I’m BORED with hearing ‘blame, shame, guilt, fear’. I’m excited when people become 100% of themselves as others are 100% and they ‘meet in the middle’ being accountable. Yes or yes.
My parents were good people. They were not the reason I blamed myself for not feeling good about myself. I was molested by my grandfather, my Dad’s father at the age of 7. I could never tell my parents as I loved my father and grandmother and didn’t want to hurt their feelings. This affected me my whole life and I always went overboard doing things for people to erase my guilt. I married my high school sweetheart , had 3 beautiful children, but the marriage ended 32 years later. He became an alcoholic for the last ten years. I accepted his verbal abuse and stayed til the kids were on their own and he was retired. A few years later I met a man who had been divorced when his children were small. I fell in love with him and remained significant others for 25 years. He carried a lot of baggage with his ex wife and I was sympathetic and tried to help with his relationship with his children whom I liked. We enjoyed doing the same things and took lots of trips for which I am grateful. But he did have a mean streak occasionally which was verbally abusive. If I dared to criticize him he became verbally abusive and wouldn’t speak to me for a day or so. Then things would be okay for awhile. This happened many times over the 25 years we were together. I accepted it until the end when it was affecting my relationship with my children. The final incident when he told me to get out was actually over his kids not following his orders. I felt badly for them and walked out. I went to my daughter’s and spent the night. I probably would have gone back til I found out he blamed me for the whole thing and wanted his son to help him put all my furniture out on the street. I finally realized it was over. We had a family meeting with my kids and we sent a note to his son about getting clothing, pills and a list of personal things from the house. His son was very accommodating as we had always had a good relationship. We made 3 trips to the house over a period of 3 months without his being there, just his kids who were very nice to me and my kids. I have had to endure his hateful emails demeaning me for everything. I have never answered any of the emails. I am only in contact with his kids. It has been 8 months with no contact. I bought a house and am starting my life over. I had never heard the term, Narcicist, but have discovered through all Melanie’s posts that is probably what my significant other is. We had many good times together, but I can’t endure the hurt anymore.
Thank you Melanie for all of your encouraging posts. I am still healing, but I am doing better. Thanks also to my kind and supportive kids. I couldn’t have gotten this far without you.
Dear Trish,you have been very brave and strong.You should be proud of yourself.It’s great that you got a new house and have the support of good children.You sound totally on target.Don’t make the mistake of going back !!!.