Traits of my NPD parents

[poetandpunk]

Hello everyone!

I don't know if you can relate, but it took me a few years to fully accept that I was raised by two NPD parents. What helped me was to write down all the behaviours that indicated to me they were NPD. For any of you wondering if your parents are PD, seeing a list like this might help, esp if you are considering going NC.

Here's my list:
-Using physical punishments (paddles, belts) into adolescence
-Using physical punishments in anger or out of frustration, not to really 'correct'
-Using fear to discipline instead of principles
-Cursing and fighting in front of their children regularly
-Sabotaging holidays with screaming matches, pulling over and leaving the car on the side of the road, slamming furniture
-Acting completely different around visitors or at church
-Insisting we never swore or listened to secular music while they screamed and swore all the time
—Not giving children privacy, breaking into our rooms, reading diaries or emails, even Into my 20s
-Overly involved in Romantic relationships when I was 18-22, an adult, telling me I wasn't allowed to date certain people, forcing me to graduate college early and come home because they didn't approve of my bf at age 21; taking my car away when I was 20 because they didn't like that I visited a bf with it
-Treating their adult children like children
-Guilting children into staying near them
-Manipulating children into being around for all holidays and family events, no question, throwing fits if they don't get their way
-Repetitive emails and phone calls if they don't get the attention they want
-Regular unsolicited criticism and feedback about everything, including clothes, appearance, etc
-Overly strict consequences for things like a bad grade
If there are compliments or encouragements, they seem unnatural and forced
-Shaming or criticising when an adult child asserts a healthy boundary - saying it's disrespectful or dishonouring
-Shaming children into sharing their opinions and views on the world
-Demanding family loyalty despite horrible behaviour
-Making their feelings more important to everyone else's
-Creating horrible public scenes, like screaming in a cable car with total strangers watching or yelling at one of their children at their own engagement party over nothing
-Repeatedly making situations about themselves that aren't
-Embarrassing their children by yelling at them or overreacting in front of their friends
-Claiming I've been brainwashed because I have stood up to them (apparently I'm stupid enough to be brainwashed)

There are many more of course but I'll stop there

Hope seeing this list helps someone

I can write an entirely separate list for ways I knew they are NPD after I went NC!

[Hilltop]

Wow that is some list.  What they did was horrible and very overt.  My parents were more covert and ignoring so they didn't fight with each other.  My dad would give me the silent treatment for months on end and my mother would tell me to fix it, it was up to me, I had to fix my attitude but was never told what was wrong with my attitude.  They didn't care what grades I got, they just wanted me grown up and out of the house.

They didn't give any emotional support, if I cried they ignored it.  I was mocked back then and still mocked now.  I was regularly told I was a selfish, self centered little bitch by my dad when I was a teenager.

I remember in my late teenage years I was dating a guy who treated me horribly, my mother told me I needed to work on my communication skills, this was after he stood me up for dates.  I think back to it now as an adult and think wow, she actually watched me getting treated like shit and rather than telling me I should dump him, encouraged me to keep trying with him.  However this plays into how they are, even now, they enjoy watching me fail or suffer or so it seems to me.

My parents never wanted attention from me, they wanted me to fit into their role, being there enough so it wasn't embarrassing to outsiders ie being there for holidays but they didn't want to bother themselves helping me with anything or being involved in my life.

[poetandpunk]

Hi Hilltop!

Thanks for your response. I'm sorry you experienced that hostility and emotional neglect from your parents. That is horrible! It is just as painful as physical neglect as far as I am concerned.

The whole twist in my family is that my parents constantly say that they LOVE their children, that they want to be involved and they say that they care ALL The time.

But all of their involvement comes at a price. It's not unconditional.

My parents are involved and show they 'care' because they want/need their children near them, they want to control their world, they want their children to meet their desperate need for validation and purpose, which we all have deep down, but with my parents it is twisted and perverse and means they treat their children terribly.

[blacksheep7]

Hi Hilltop!

Thanks for your response. I'm sorry you experienced that hostility and emotional neglect from your parents. That is horrible! It is just as painful as physical neglect as far as I am concerned.

The whole twist in my family is that my parents constantly say that they LOVE their children, that they want to be involved and they say that they care ALL The time.

But all of their involvement comes at a price. It's not unconditional.

My parents are involved and show they 'care' because they want/need their children near them, they want to control their world, they want their children to meet their desperate need for validation and purpose, which we all have deep down, but with my parents it is twisted and perverse and means they treat their children terribly.

 

My parents behaviors, especially in my teens till my mid 30's are 90% of that list.  After NF passed, NM took over. 

I numbed my emotions for a long time, a coping mechanism that began during  my teens to be able to cope with Raging NF.  I never cried during those difficult times.  I was just frivolous to get through it all, just like NM. 

hugs to all

[Jolie40]

poetandpunk
a majority of your list would be on mine, also

[Hilltop]

Poetandpunk I'm sorry you had to go through that.  Your parents sound like the engulfing types.  All that hostility and fighting would have been so stressful as a child.  Its really hard, its good that we can change though and move beyond it.

[M0009803]

Hi Hilltop!

Thanks for your response. I'm sorry you experienced that hostility and emotional neglect from your parents. That is horrible! It is just as painful as physical neglect as far as I am concerned.

The whole twist in my family is that my parents constantly say that they LOVE their children, that they want to be involved and they say that they care ALL The time.

But all of their involvement comes at a price. It's not unconditional.

My parents are involved and show they 'care' because they want/need their children near them, they want to control their world, they want their children to meet their desperate need for validation and purpose, which we all have deep down, but with my parents it is twisted and perverse and means they treat their children terribly.

You are describing an enmeshed family unit.

I was caught up in the same dynamic.  My mother was not averse to humilliating us in public, and with our friends.  It got to the point that we never brought friends home.  She was just not an emotionally stable person at home.

You know deep down that there is something wrong and unhealthy about your family dynamics, but you don't see any way out due to familial obligation.  So you end up normalising the dysfunction in order to survive.

I was stuck in those dynamics for many years.  Nobody ever wants to resolve these issues inside the enmeshed family unit.

It's obvious to me now what the problems were, but if you had asked me if I had a good family 5 years ago I probably would have said yes (yet another consequence of enmeshment is the need to keep the dysfunction secret to outsiders).

Not much you can do once you see the reality for what it is except move on and live your life well.  Over the last few years I have realised that the more I concentrate on my own life, the more detached I become from them, and the happier I feel.  This can be a slow process (specially at the beginning), but it does improve faster over time (in my case anyways). 

A poster on here described being hit by "waves" of FOG once you start detaching, but the frequency of these waves decreases over time as you put emotional distance between yourself and your dysfunctional FOO.  I found this to be an apt description of the healing process.

[Duck]

Is there a book that talks about engulfing and enmeshing dysfunctional families?

[poetandpunk]

M000-

Yes you are completely spot on and my experience is v similar to yours in Discovering my family is enmeshed and realising it isn't normal, etc.

Enmeshed family dynamics are SO hard because they are a very convincing counterfeit so it is particularly shocking and painful. My whole life, my parents talked about how close we were and how much we should respect them and how they loved us. Everything they did was because they 'loved' us. Sounded good but it was all twisted. Took a while to realise.