How To Know If My Parent Is A Narcissist

If you’ve ever found yourself asking, “Was this normal?” or “Why do I still struggle even though I’m an adult?”—this episode is for you.

In this episode, Lisa A. Romano explores the subtle and often misunderstood signs of narcissistic parenting, and how being raised by a narcissistic, emotionally neglectful, or emotionally immature parent can shape your nervous system, self-concept, and relationships well into adulthood.

Rather than focusing on labels or blame, this conversation helps adult children understand what they adapted to in order to survive—and why so many struggle with self-doubt, people-pleasing, emotional suppression, and codependency later in life.

Transcript

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. If you grew up feeling confused, Self-doubting, Emotionally responsible for other people, Or like something was off in your family, But you could never quite explain why, This session may bring a lot of clarity to you. Today, We're talking about the common traits of narcissistic parents, Not to label or diagnose But to finally help the adult child stuck in this system finally understand what they had to adapt to in order to survive when they were innocent and dependent upon these caretakers. Because narcissistic parenting doesn't always look abusive. In fact, It often looks normal. It looks functional and even admirable sometimes from the outside. But inside the child, Something fractures. And if that's you, I want you to hear this clearly before we go any further. Dear ones, This is so important. What happened to you was not your fault. And what you're struggling with now, Any of it, Is not who you are. It's how you were programmed. Narcissistic parents don't relate to children as separate developing individuals. They relate to their children as extensions of themselves, As sources of validation, Of sources of emotional regulation, And even control. And when a child grows up in that dynamic, Their nervous system learns very early, Who I am matters less than how I make others feel. So let's talk about the common traits, The most common traits of narcissistic parents. If you had a narcissistic parent, Then you probably grew up feeling that love from them was conditional. That affection, Approval, Or warmth only showed up when you performed, When you behaved, When you agreed, When you achieved, Or when you made them look good. So love wasn't something that you could rest in. It wasn't something that you could deem predictable or something that you knew was going to be readily available. It was something that you had to earn. So you learn to internally monitor yourself and to edit yourself and to perfect yourself. So instead of being yourself, Instead of being your authentic self, You had to become this version of who you thought they wanted you to be. Number two, Emotional neglect. That was your norm. Your physical needs may have been met. Your achievements may have been acknowledged. You may have gone to private school or had three meals at the table, But your inner world, Your feelings, Your fears, Your emotional needs, Especially those that were counter to what your parents needed and your emotional experiences, They went ignored or they went minimized or they were deemed inconvenient. You may have been chastised for having a need at all. So on the norm, You weren't asked, How do you feel? What do you need? What do you prefer? What's happening inside of you? What's going on in your life? There was no desire for them to connect to your inner world. And over time, You learn to stop asking yourself those questions. So the mirror neurons for that type of self inquiry don't exist. Number three, Control was disguised as care. A very common thing that narcissistic parents say are things like this, I'm just worried about you. That's why I go through your phone. I know what's best for you. That's why I don't want you dating that woman. I'm only trying to help. That's why I'm inside your bank account. And that's why I'm trying to control everything that you do. But beneath the concern, It was really control. Your autonomy felt threatening to them. And your independence also was internalized as a form of rejection. So your boundaries felt like disrespect to them. So you learned that being yourself meant losing connection to them, And that there was a negative consequence because of that. Number four, There was no accountability. When narcissistic parents hurt you, When they cross a boundary, Or when they cause you emotional pain, There's no repair. They're not interested in repair. Instead, A narcissistic parent will deny your pain. They'll deny what they did. They'll minimize their actions, Minimize what they said. They'll blame you for their actions, And blame you for having a reaction to their actions. Or they will rewrite history completely. And as a child, Your nervous system had to learn, Through repetition, Observation, And consistency, It learned, My perceptions can't be trusted. I can't trust my inner reality, Which is why you don't trust your guidance system, Which is why so many adult children struggle with self-doubt, Over-explaining, And second-guessing their reality. It's because there was a narcissistic parent teaching them that they should not trust their inner reality. Number five, You were given a role. You were not seen as a person. In a narcissistic family system, Children are absolutely assigned particular roles. And you might resonate with one of these, But just know that you can also experience these roles interchangeably. There's the golden child, The scapegoat, The caretaker, The lost child. And these roles serve the system, Not the child. And if you stepped out of your role, If you stopped being the scapegoat, If you pushed back, That meant more punishment, More withdrawal, Or emotional chaos. If you weren't the caretaker to your mother's needs, You may have been abused like the scapegoat child. So you're just watching all of this. And this creates a desire for you to be compliant and hyper-aware or hyper-vigilant. Number six, Your feelings were inconvenient. So your sadness was too much for them. Your anger was viewed as disrespectful. Your joy might have been ignored or subtly competed with. So you weren't allowed to have uplifting emotions. You weren't allowed to have negative emotions. You weren't allowed to be authentic. So you essentially learned that emotions weren't safe. So being authentic wasn't safe. So you dissociated, Or you intellectualized, Or you became the strong one that could do everything for herself or for himself. But unprocessed emotions, Here's the thing, They don't disappear. They live in the body, Sort of like a pressure cooker that's just been stored in the lower chakras. They're still there. They just haven't learned to be expressed. Number seven, You confused love with obligation. Because love came with strings attached, You learned that love meant over-giving, Over-functioning, Over-explaining, Self-abandonment, Guilt when choosing yourself. And this is how narcissistic parenting often leads to codependency in the adult child in adulthood. Here's the truth most adult children need to hear. You didn't become this way because you're weak. You became this way because you, Dear one, Were brilliant at adapting. Your nervous system meant to survive. You learned to read a room before you could read a book. But here's the thing, Survival patterns are not meant to be lifelong identities. So healing from narcissistic parenting is not about blaming your parents. Even though we have to pin the tail on the donkey to help us gain some context as to how and why we are the way we are. So we have to understand the subconscious programming that has taken place at the neurological level at the subconscious level. We have to begin releasing false responsibility and disidentifying from the labels that narcissistic parenting have corrupt us with. We have to learn emotional self-connection. We have to learn and retrain our internal mind, Our mind about building an internal sense of safety. We have to learn how to develop healthy boundaries even when we feel guilty for saying no. Because it's not possible to not have guilt when you first start to set a boundary. We have to learn to mitigate and navigate the guilt that shows up when we start choosing the self. I think one of the most crucial things that we have to hear is that we have to become the adult that we never had. We have to become the loving, Compassionate witness that we never had. We have to become our inner child's hero. If this session resonated, It's likely because something inside of you recognizes the truth of it. Just keep this in mind that healing, True healing doesn't happen through information alone. And dear one, Remember, It's not you. It's your childhood programming and programming can be changed.

Reviews

SPOT ON. So concise. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

So concise! I’m so overjoyed I found your talks. You have changed my life and woke me up to why I’m the way I am..You’re an angel! 😇💗💗💗💗💗