Raised By A Vulnerable Narcissistic Parent

Welcome to Breakdown to Breakthrough,

The podcast that empowers you to transform your life by awakening to your true,

Authentic self.

I'm Lisa A.

Romano,

Your host.

As an award-winning author and certified life coach,

I've dedicated my life to helping others understand the incredible power of an organized mind.

I believe that true empowerment begins with awakening to our false self.

My mission is to support you on your journey toward mental and emotional regeneration through conscious and deliberate awakening.

In this podcast,

I'll share insights,

Tools,

And transformative stories that illuminate the path to healing and self-discovery.

So today I wanted to address what I think is a pretty important topic,

And that is this idea that vulnerable narcissistic people,

Especially if you were raised by a vulnerable narcissistic mom or dad,

One of the things that you've had to contend with your whole life is how they weaponize forgiveness.

And what I mean by that is that you have someone who is devaluing you,

Who is gaslighting you,

Who is challenging you,

Who is abusing the power dynamics in the relationship.

And what I mean by that is that you have a parent who is abusing the power over you as you are their child.

So because they are the parent,

They absolutely need to be obeyed,

Even if what they're asking for is unreasonable.

It is unrealistic.

It is so suffocating to be raised by a vulnerable narcissistic father,

For instance,

Who is always looking to beat his chest like a silverback gorilla,

Especially when he feels intimidated by someone who's confident.

Remember,

Somebody who has a weak mind is always going to be intimidated by somebody who is confident.

So a vulnerable narcissistic father will feel like he is crawling out of his skin when he is in the company of strong,

Confident alpha men.

I'm not talking about toxic alpha men.

There's a difference.

I'm talking about men who don't need anybody else's validation.

I'm talking about men who know who they are.

I'm talking about men who feel confident in their own skin,

Who have their own hobbies,

Who,

Like I said,

They just know who they are.

So they're not seeking your approval.

They don't laugh at every joke you tell because you need to command their attention by other people laughing when,

Let's say,

A vulnerable narcissistic father cracks a joke,

What's really happening is that he's looking to control the audience.

He's trying to get a feel and a read for how well people respond to him.

So covert narcissistic dads who are like,

Oh,

The funny one,

They don't tell jokes to make other people laugh.

They tell jokes to control how other people feel about them because they're so anxious in their skin around men or other people who are confident.

This is very common.

It's a covert operation.

It's a form of coveting and it is envy and it is jealousy and it's rooted in insecurity.

When you have a covert narcissistic mother,

She could be dismissive,

Passive aggressive,

Nasty,

Withhold love,

Gaslight you,

Triangulate you with family members,

Even against your father.

I went through that with my mom.

She covertly would speak about me to my siblings and to my dad and to other family members in a way that made it sound like she cared,

But she really didn't.

It was her way of justifying her emotional abuse,

Her psychological abuse,

And her uncomfortability with her inability to love me unconditionally.

All children are born good,

In my opinion.

Some are born with brain anomalies,

But I'm of the belief that while yes,

It can be nature that causes certain dispositions and personality,

I would say dysfunction or disorder,

But evidence highly suggests that what happens to the child affects the outcome,

The psychosocial development,

The ability for the child to socialize.

For a child to be able to socialize confidently,

They have to feel loved.

They had to have felt safe.

They had to have felt like the people that gave birth to them thought they were good.

How does a child go into a playground with the confidence to say,

Hi,

My name is Lisa?

If their sense of self has never truly taken form and allowed them to feel good about themselves,

They can't.

But we judge those little babies.

We say that they have a personality issue.

We say that they have esteem issues.

But lots of the cases,

What they really have is a dysfunctional parent at home.

That's the real issue.

A parent that is so wrapped up in the goodness that they think they are.

See,

A lot of damage is done by parents who think they're awesome.

By parents who think,

Oh,

Well,

I tell my kid I love them.

I'm home every day.

Right.

But you are there with this child because you see the child as a source of narcissistic supply.

Oh,

No,

I don't.

Think about it.

Think about it.

How many parents think they're doing good when they're criticizing their child?

Like really harshly.

How many parents think that they're doing good when they talk their child out of their dream?

And they poo-poo the dream.

And they,

Rather than try to help the child figure out,

Well,

How do we get you to a point where you can actually make that dream happen?

So what talents and skills do we need to nurture?

What communities do you need to become aware of?

How many parents are afraid of letting their children spread their wings because the parent themselves never took that risk and they took the safe road,

Right?

They took the path of least resistance.

They stayed in the paradigm,

In the box.

But how many parents think they're doing their child good when they criticize their child for having a dream?

I started writing when I was seven years old.

And I was good at it.

And it came natural.

It saved me.

Literally,

Journaling saved me at seven years old.

Writing just four-line poems,

Just,

Okay,

I got that feeling out because nobody in my family cared what was happening inside of me.

So I found this way out.

When I was 17,

My dad said,

What do you want to do with your life?

And I said,

I want to be a writer.

And he said,

No,

You'll never make any money being a writer.

And there went my dream.

So it was my father's fear,

His fear,

Because he never went after his dreams.

And it was his fear that he imposed on me.

Now,

I understand that from my father's perspective,

He was trying to save me.

He was trying to protect me.

But there was a true cost in that.

And we can't miss this emotionally immature parent piece.

We can't miss the lack of awareness around parenting skills.

We can't miss the narcissism,

The perpetual narcissism that I lived under with both my parents.

We can't forget what it's like to be raised in a home that invalidates you every single day.

That was just one incident.

But you're talking an entire lifetime of a subconscious mind being programmed to disown and betray the self.

Narcissistic parents weaponize forgiveness.

You have to be aware of that.

Because if you're the adult child of a narcissistic parent,

You might be struggling.

I know I have with where's the line between forgiveness and holding myself accountable for how I feel around these people.

If I was a good person,

Wouldn't I forgive?

Wouldn't I be able to spend more time with them?

Wouldn't I be able to just let this roll off my back?

That train of thought happens because lots of the times,

I'm not saying all the time,

But based on my personal and professional experience working in this field for so long now,

What I have noticed is that as a child,

When you were treated very,

Very poorly,

You were judged for not getting over it quickly.

You heard things like,

I did that for your own good.

How long are you going to hold a grudge?

You know that I did my best.

Why are you so angry with me?

You are so ungrateful.

So this is what happens when you come from a narcissistic home.

And remember,

Narcissists don't think they're narcissists.

That is why they remain narcissists,

Often till the day they die.

Because lots of times,

Narcissists think they're awesome people.

And I have found that the more awesome you think you are,

Oftentimes,

The worse you are.

It is the people who are asking themselves,

Why did I do that?

Why did I say that?

How did I hurt my child?

How did I hurt my spouse?

When was I snarky?

How can I not be snarky in the future?

Wow,

I made that all about me.

I don't want to do that.

I don't want to be that person.

So it's the person that's willing to ask themselves,

Why did I do that?

It's this empathy piece,

This real empathy piece.

Like,

Wow,

My actions,

My immaturity,

My reactivity,

And even my trauma has hurt someone else.

And I don't want to be that person.

It's so beautiful.

That's how we unfold into higher states of consciousness.

Narcissists can't unfold into higher states of consciousness.

If you are struggling with a line,

You're not alone.

You love your parents.

It is so unnatural to not love your parents.

It's so unnatural not to want to be with your parents.

It goes against nature.

It goes against biology.

So what also goes against biology is having the mama bear attack the baby cub.

Or the lioness attack the lion cub.

Like,

That also goes against nature.

But yet,

When we're dealing with humans who are flawed or have trauma in the subconscious mind and have neurology and psychology and nervous systems that are wired for self-protection,

That are below the veil of consciousness,

That don't know that their small self and their ego self is making them a threat to their own children,

Well,

We end up being those baby cubs that were attacked by the mama bear.

And that changes you.

And so if you are here and you're understanding,

Like,

Wow,

That was my experience,

Of course you're going to have a hard time going over for a Sunday meal for spaghetti and meatballs.

Like,

When is the next attack?

When's the next snarky comment?

When is the next innuendo?

When is the next guilt trip?

When is the next criticism for the pocketbook that I'm wearing today that doesn't match my shoes?

Or where is the condescending remark about,

Oh,

Who do you think you are?

Or Miss High and Mighty,

Who does she think she is?

Well,

She's better than us.

You know,

You're always walking on eggshells when you're the adult child of that covert,

Narcissistic mother or father.

Growing up,

If your parents disciplined you with corporal punishment,

You hear things like,

You know,

I had to do that,

Right?

You know,

It hurt me to hurt you,

Right?

And it's like,

Oh,

Now I have to give absolution.

Now suddenly I'm a priest in a confessional box and you're confessing your sins to me,

Yet I'm the victim of you.

And now I have to say,

It's okay that you whipped me today,

Dad.

It's okay that you did this terrible thing,

Mom.

It's okay.

It's okay.

Completely narcissistic.

So a covert,

Vulnerable,

Narcissistic father and mother will weaponize forgiveness.

And they will make you feel guilty for trying to hold a boundary with them.

So my suggestion is,

And it's always been my path,

Is to think about what's really going on here.

To be mistreated your entire life,

To have such a lack of compassion for who you are as their child.

To consistently over and over and over have a parent turn every conversation into something that has to do with them becoming the main character.

For them to twist the stories,

To use the Bible against you or the Quran against you or whatever,

The Torah,

To have them invalidate you,

To have them intimidate you,

To have them threaten you,

Threaten you with their criticism.

And then after this big explosion,

They want you to absolve them so that you don't hold them accountable.

I'm sorry.

I just can't do that anymore.

I just can't do that anymore.

And I remember when I finally put a boundary in place and boundaries aren't,

You can't talk to me like that anymore.

That's a verbal boundary.

A boundary is,

Oh,

You did that thing again.

And now this is the action that I'm taking because you did that thing.

So for me,

It was peace out.

And I left my parents' home and we did not see each other for over a year.

That was a boundary.

I didn't answer the phone.

I didn't go to holidays.

It's like,

You have to stay away from me now.

It was the worst time of my life.

My family was not there for me.

If anything,

They were talking smack about me,

But that came from when I was two,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Six,

And seven years old,

When my mother was telling people that I was too much.

I was selfish.

So she set the stage and I played the game.

She gave me a name and I played the game.

So because I feared her seeing me as selfish and the way that they felt,

I thought the answer was to not have a self.

Don't have a self.

Don't treat the self well.

I remember the first time I saw a young girl,

I think I was in seventh or eighth grade.

I went to her house and she was putting cocoa butter on her legs and I was shocked.

Like what?

This evidence of self-care was so shocking to me that it rattled my brain and I never forgot it.

Because in my house,

If I dared to put lotion on my skin,

There would have been criticism from my mother and I know that.

So for me,

Which is why I ended up with codependency and depression and had this ultimate breakdown when I was about 35 years old.

Terrible mental and emotional,

Spiritual breakdown,

But it was the best thing that ever happened to me because the lobster shell was ripped wide open and I got to crawl out of the shell that my childhood created for me.

And in that space,

That year,

I was growing a new shell.

I was growing a new shell.

This toxic family.

No,

You don't have access to me anymore.

Oh,

You don't support me and my kids in the worst time of my life?

Oh,

Okay.

Oh,

You're not rallying behind me to move out of this house and to push this person off our back that's trying to destroy us financially,

Mentally?

Okay,

You stay over there.

You stay over there.

And so to me,

That was a boundary.

But what happens is when you come from a toxic home,

It's almost like they want to force you into forgiving them or force them to let go of how you feel because of their bad behavior.

That is also toxic.

So this session is really to encourage the adult children out there who come from homes where forgiveness is weaponized,

Where it is a form of narcissism.

It is a fight for power in the dynamic of the relationship.

It positions the person who is demanding forgiveness into the victim state.

See,

They're a victim of you.

See,

They cause an action in the quantum field against you that causes you to feel this way about them.

But now you're forced into forgiving them.

And in that space is the jockey for power and dominance.

And in that space,

That narcissistic parent is saying,

I'm better than you and you have to forgive me.

And how dare you hold me accountable for how I treated you?

How dare you?

And so here comes more guilt.

And here comes more blame.

And here comes more conversations and triangulation and outing you out and more flying monkeys and all that crap.

Here it comes.

And you know it.

You feel it.

And you just got to get to a point where you're just like,

I'm done.

My philosophy is let go in love and light.

Shetty shetty.

Namaste and walk away.

Literally shut the chapter on that part of your life.

We do not.

Life is too hard.

Life is just too hard.

We do not need people in our lives that do this.

We do not need mothers and fathers in our lives or brothers or sisters or ex-spouses or ex-sister-in-laws or whoever.

We don't need people in our lives,

In my opinion,

That weaponize this forgiveness piece.

Because what it is,

They're jockeying for position of victim of you.

Meanwhile,

They victimized you.

They'll never see it.

And we have to get to a point on our healing journey where we accept that.

So I accept your faulty perception of this experience.

I accept that you see me as the person who caused this dynamic.

I literally accept it.

And you know what?

I'll go one step further.

You talk about emotional freedom,

Dear one.

You give them permission to see you as the bad guy.

You give them permission to play the martyr.

You give them permission to use the Bible against you.

You give them permission.

Give them permission.

And then in that space,

You also become the lobster that has outgrown this suffocating lobster shell.

Because that's how lobsters roll.

As soon as they get their insides become too big for the outside shell,

It cracks open.

And it's up to the lobster to crawl out of that shell.

Now,

Here's the thing.

There's a period of time when you extricate yourself from a toxic family where you feel vulnerable.

Nothing feels the same.

That's normal.

But in that time is when you can develop what I call a stainless steel spine.

I don't recommend going back for more abuse.

I don't recommend arguing with people whose agenda is to not hear you.

Like,

You understand that a covert narcissistic parent's agenda,

They're not going to hear you.

They're not going.

They don't want to hear you.

They are so ingrained in,

I have to come out right.

I must be understood.

I will demand that I will be understood.

I will throw my weight around.

I will call Tom,

Dick,

And Harry and go over this conversation and look for someone to validate me.

And every time they retell the story,

Their version of you is worse and worse and worse and worse and worse.

I got to a point where I just started laughing about it.

I was like,

Oh,

Okay.

You know,

It's like so far from the truth right now.

And,

And,

And,

And how a covert narcissistic parent can minimize what they said to justify being mad at you for holding them accountable.

It's just,

It's really talk about mental Olympics.

Like it's,

It's really fascinating when you're in the middle of the tornado.

Remember that you never know how tall it is or how wide it is or how vicious it is.

You never know because you're in the middle.

But eventually if you hold onto yourself,

If you listen to information like this,

If you read the right books,

If you get the right support,

If you connect with certain people that are speaking your language and you hear it over and over and over and over again,

Just in a different format and a different message.

Eventually you,

You get kicked out of that tornado and you go,

Oh,

That was a tornado.

And then what happens is as you gain more and more perspective and you stop going back for this abuse and in that space,

You're like,

I give them permission.

I give them permission.

I give you permission.

I give you permission.

And I'm not reacting and I'm not engaging.

Okay.

You know,

If you have to block them on,

On email,

Block them.

If you have to block them on Facebook,

Block them.

If you have to block them on social media,

Block them.

Don't talk to their friends.

Just keep going.

What happens then is now you have tremendous perspective.

Now you see this,

This tornado was a hundred feet high and maybe a hundred feet wide.

Now,

You know why you couldn't see it.

So the further you move out of this tornado,

The greater perspective you will have.

And guess what?

Energetically,

The less energetic pull they have over you.

And in that space is where you're going to have the most mental clarity.

In that space is where you will heal the invisible wounds that they created.

In that space,

You have an ability to rewire the subconscious mind because toxic family dynamics wire your nervous system for survival.

And unfortunately,

Until you get out of that vibe,

Until you get out of that mindset,

You are wired for self-protection and not wired for how do I socialize with other people now and trust them and let them into my world?

How do I gain some confidence around vulnerability?

Because this is something that I've had to do in my own life.

And my life is completely transformed today.

And it's getting better and better and better.

The relationships that are really good are only getting better.

They're getting,

I would say,

More wired for connection.

And we're able to come together and imagine what we want to do next.

What great adventure do we want to go on to next?

So it changes your entire vibrational system.

And what happens then is that you start to repel people that don't have your best interest at heart.

And they're only thinking about themselves.

They're not about negotiation.

They're about domination.

They start to just fall away naturally.

And that's a good thing.

And in all of this,

You keep rising and rising and rising and rising.

And you also,

You're saying to people who bring you down,

Including mom and dad,

Like,

You don't have the power to bring me down anymore.

I've come to fly.

You know,

And you're either going to level up or I'm going to leave you here and you're going to stay stuck.

But we can't let our toxic family dynamics or the neurological pathways or the subconscious programming,

The self-sabotaging thoughts,

We cannot allow them to prevent us from living an authentic life.