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Children of narcissistic parents know loneliness in a way that many people are lucky enough to avoid. From the day they are brought into this world, there’s a hollowness. Though they crave love, closeness, and compassion, what they often get from a narcissistic parent is distance and emotional harm.

It’s especially hard to escape that latter threat as the child of a narcissistic person. That deep emotional connection a child craves never really feels all the way there when your parent is a narcissist. Instead of closeness, what many survivors of narcissistic parents find is pain. There is a lot of emotional damage that comes with being raised in a narcissistic household.

The narcissistic parent lacks space.

Clinically, referring to someone as a narcissist means someone who has been diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (or NPD). These are individuals with a proven history of controlling, manipulative, and abusive behaviors who also display a clear lack of empathy and an overly grandiose opinion of themselves.

Not every narcissist in this world is diagnosed, however. In fact, it’s an incredibly hard personality disorder to pinpoint because of the way it inherently avoids accountability (and, therefore, treatment). Narcissistic people are also incredibly manipulative and known to lie pathologically, which can make treating them hard and, in some cases, impossible.

More than anything else, a narcissistic person (whether diagnosed with NPD or not) lacks emotional space where others are concerned.

That is where the empathy deficit truly displays itself. Narcissistic people are certainly capable of understanding and expressing their own emotions, but they do not hold (or understand the need for) that same emotional space when it comes to other people.

This is displayed in the hypocritical behaviors of a narcissistic person. Whenever they struggle with a tough emotion, they look to the people closest to them to soothe that emotion. Some “dump” on others by over-venting, and others will go the “punishment” route — explosively taking their anger, sadness, and grief out of the people they love.

When the other person struggles emotionally? Narcissists disappear. It’s worse if they bear any responsibility for the challenging emotions inspired by the people around them. Skirting too close to accountability, this is when the narcissist lashes out at friends and family who dare have an emotional response to their diabolical behavior. They won’t tolerate anyone else taking up that same emotional space.

This holds true in romantic relationships, friendships, the workspace, and everywhere else. We see it most clearly displayed in the relationship between the narcissistic parent and their child. That’s right. Narcissistic toxicity doesn’t end when it becomes a parent. The emotional damage actually becomes magnified and manifested in the future lives of those children.

How narcissistic parents emotionally damage their children.

When raised by a narcissist, children come to a world of emotional harm. There’s no easy way out of the narcissistic parent’s path of destruction. Like a tornado, they rip through the lives of their children, damaging them emotionally and making it hard for them to form stable and loving relationships (with others and themselves) in the future.

A world of neglect

As pointed out in a previous article, narcissistic parents are known to emotionally neglect their children to the highest degree. Many see their children as material extensions of themselves. Much like a handbag or a piece of luxury luggage, they prefer to roll their children out when needed and keep them at a distance in the interim. There’s no big emotional welcoming or embracing (unless a calculated effect is desired).

The child of a narcissistic parent is never given a chance to get close to their parent on an emotional level. Not only is it not safe for them, the narcissistic parent won’t allow it. Why?

The narcissist, especially as a parent, lives behind a mask. Rooted in insecurity, they create a mask that hides their deepest self away from other people. No one is allowed to peek behind the mask unless they want to risk destruction. So, the child has to be kept forever at an emotional arm’s length, away from the vulnerabilities of their narcissistic parent.

Torpedoed self-esteem

Building self-esteem, as the child of a narcissist, is one of the most difficult things to do. Narcissists, while projecting their own high sense of self-esteem, diminish the self-esteem of others. Some will go so far as to do this overtly by harming their children physically, calling them names, or criticizing them. Others do it slowly by insisting the child isn’t capable enough or smart enough to manage their own lives by themselves.

The results are the same. When a child isn’t given healthy encouragement and space to explore, they fail to develop a healthy self-esteem. Without that self-esteem, children grow up and go out in to the world chasing all the wrong things, both in others and for themselves.

There’s a bigger reason at play behind the narcissistic parent’s destruction of their child’s self-esteem. Narcissistic parents don’t instill their children with healthy self-esteem because that would require putting them on an equal par with the narcissist, and that’s not something the narcissistic parent will be willing to do.

It makes child harder to control and more determined to control their own lives. Worse, a child with healthy self-esteem is more likely to question the narcissistic parent and stand up to them when boundaries are violated. The parent will tolerate none of the above, so self-esteem must be kept on a tight lead and minimized as much as possible, leaving deep emotional scars behind.

Belief in performance

Narcissistic people are actors. At every second of every day, they are performing, hiding behind masks created to cloak their deepest insecurities. It’s the only way a narcissist is able to validate their delusional beliefs, behavior, and sense of self. They mirror what the world wants to see, and they teach their children to do the same. There is little emotional honesty in the narcissistic family.

This can do a lot of damage to the children who are taught to perform for their parents and for the world. Because narcissistic parents expect their children to perform at all times — even in the privacy of the home, the children rarely learn a different way to exist. They must conform. They must look, believe, act, and talk a certain way in order to gain approval.

All of these expectations, of course, come back (in the narcissistic parent’s mind) to validate their role as parents. The child, meanwhile, is emotionally damaged and distanced from their true beliefs. All of this leads the child on a crash course to a disastrous relationship with their core sense of self.

Detachment from self

What child could form an authentic sense of who they are when they are constantly performing for the validation of a parent? When they are wearing the “death mask” of someone they don’t even understand? It’s not a trick question. A child raised by a narcissistic parent usually sustains significant damage to their core sense of self. There’s no freedom to experiment with who they are (or to express it). Walls are inevitable.

The emotional wounds here are foundational. It is never safe to be emotionally authentic around a narcissistic parent. Punishment, loss of privileges, and screaming matches all arise when a child attempts to express themselves honestly to a narcissistic parent. The denial of self begins here.

Our emotions are essentially a reflection of our experiences and perceptions. When someone denies your emotions, they deny your experience or the way you see the world. They’re essentially denying what you think or what you believe, which is linked to that sense of self.

Emotions inconvenient to the narcissistic parent, so they have to limit them or shoot them down in their children in order to avoid them. Over time, this pushes the child to detach from their lived-in reality or experiences, and therefore their truth or their sense of self.

Twisted intentions

It would be pretty miraculous for the child of a narcissist to go out into the world totally well-balanced and well-behaved. What reference point would they have for that kind of behavior? Narcissistic people, on their best behavior, are emotionally dishonest and manipulative. To get what they want, they either push people around or pull their strings. Their children learn the same behaviors, and they can adopt the same motivations.

In the long run, this can damage the child emotionally. They don’t learn healthy ways to navigate or express emotions. They don’t learn how to build compassionate and balanced relationships. The only example they have is of twisted power dynamics and transactional relationships.

All of this can change the way the children of narcissists see emotions and the world. Ultimately, this can twist the child’s intentions. They can come to see others as a way of getting what they want. They can even pick up their parent’s worst emotional tendencies. Living like this can create an emotional storm that follows the child into adulthood and inflicts even more harm.

Reckless relationships

If children don’t take on the overtly narcissistic behaviors of their narcissistic parent, then you can generally find them on another path: reckless relationships. Human-to-human connection is one of the biggest struggles for survivors of narcissists, even though most crave this more than anything else. The biggest issue is the emotional damage that is inflicted. They don’t trust themselves, and their wounds draw them to more damaged people.

Survivors of narcissistic parents, dealing with low self-esteem and little sense of who they are and where the lines are, settle for people who treat them as poorly as their narcissistic caretaker. It’s a vicious cycle. Even more importantly, this drive toward reckless relationships can inflict emotional harm of the deepest degree.

Can you recover from emotional harm caused by a narcissistic parent?

When you’re still inside the storm, moving beyond all this emotional pain seems impossible. Survivors, essentially, have to relearn how to relate to themselves and the world. It’s a lot of work, but it’s the only course to freedom and a greater sense of emotional empowerment.

1. Get professional help: There’s no escaping the reality that narcissistic parenting fundamentally leads to emotional abuse of some kind. Those wounds run deep and touch our nervous systems, our endocrine systems, and every other corner of our minds and bodies. Professional help is needed to untangle the web and direct the most effective path to healing.
2. Focus on emotional intelligence: Narcissists are inherently emotionally immature. Unable to self-soothe, they lash out and lack empathy, which is what allows them to manipulate and harm others. To course correct, survivors of narcissists have to focus on building emotional intelligence tools for themselves.
3. Surround yourself in health: There is so much unhealthiness in the narcissistic family. Children learn to surround themselves in similar unhealthy environments when they grow up. Getting beyond that requires a change in direction. Healing becomes easier when you’re surrounded by healthy people and an emotionally healthier lifestyle.

Avoid underestimating the depth of the emotional harm inflicted. If you’re serious about changing and getting beyond the pain of a narcissistic parent, then get the help you need to get there. Build your emotional intelligence. Use empathy for your highest good and create an emotionally safe life around yourself that empowers healing to the highest degree.

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Narcissistic parents leave a path of destruction in their wake. Unfair as it may be, it’s up to survivors to pick up the pieces. Not for the narcissistic parent, no. They deserve little in terms of the service of others. The pieces must be salvaged for survivors to create a life that’s worth living. A small ask? No, but it’s the only way to tap into a life that’s fulfilling.

Is that you? Were you raised by a narcissistic parent? You may still be in the middle of the storm, or you may be on the outside looking in. Where you’re at in the journey doesn’t matter. All that matters now is that you take your inner child by the hand and remind them of all the good they deserve. Be that good for them now. Take a step away from the narcissistic parent and into a future of love and compassion.

Day NJS, Townsend ML, Grenyer BFS. Pathological narcissism: An analysis of interpersonal dysfunction within intimate relationships. Personal Ment Health. 2022 Aug;16(3):204-216. doi: 10.1002/pmh.1532. Epub 2021 Nov 16. PMID: 34783453; PMCID: PMC9541508.