Being Raised By A Narcissist Doesn’t Mean You Can’t Be An Empath

When you’ve been raised by a narcissist, anything can happen.

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to how narcissistic abuse affects a person.

It’s a personal experience most people will never understand.

We are all different, even if the label is the same.

It also doesn’t mean you can’t be an empath or highly empathic.

When you get into Narcissistic Abuse Recovery, you find many conflicting opinions.

Opinions on this subject can create a blanket effect where large groups of people believe only one thing, and it can only be that way.

In some circles, empaths get a bad representation as being “soft,” which couldn’t be further from the truth.

An empath that doesn’t know they’re an empath isn’t soft or delicate.

Most of the time they’re confused because they don’t understand what’s happening internally.

When you’re the scapegoat daughter of a narcissistic mother, and people tell you can’t be empathic, they are wrong.

Wrong again.

Shahida Arabi did a study on a group of 733 adult children raised by a narcissistic parent and this is what she wrote.

Empathic adult children of a narcissist lack a sense of “deservingness” causing them to believe they are not owed anything, not even basic respect or decency.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula calls this syndrome, ” I’m not enoughers.”

We are I’m not enoughers, and it can be managed when you’re aware of it.

No one can tell you your story, and it only adds to the confusion when people make blanket statements about what an empath can and can’t be.

As if there’s some rule book.

Narcissistic abuse is years of repetitive psychological and emotional abuse.

It creates a dark side, a cold side, and it’s there for a reason, you wouldn’t be human without it.

Empaths are not weak or meek or soft.

We are underestimated, we know it, and we use it to our advantage.

One of the worst things that can happen is being an empath and not know it.

I spent my early adult life constantly wondering what the hell was wrong with me, which is also normal textbook thinking for a child raised by a narcissist.

However, when you’re an empath and don’t know it, there’s a whole other dimension to your experience non-empaths cannot understand.

They don’t understand and will more often than not dismiss it because, to them, it’s unknown.

They will struggle to understand where you’re coming from because they were not chosen to carry the weight of this gift (it’s more like a curse if you don’t know what it is).

I was completely confused from being raised by a narcissist, and on top of that, I’d never even heard the word empath until I was thirty.

My mother never understood me as a person, and she didn’t like anything about me or what kind of person I was.

This is normal for a narcissistic parent, but it goes much deeper.

An empath is quite different than most people.

We have to be because a narcissist isn’t like most people either.

I believe we’re created to keep the universal balance and designed to combat the narcissistic destruction, so I encourage you to think bigger and go deeper to find yourself.

You may have lost a few battles, but this is war.

Let’s face it; when you have a narcissistic parent, there is no doubt you’ve been ripped off in life.

Not only is it a twisted blurry mess for the child being abused in this way, but it’s also almost impossible for anyone to understand unless they experience it for themselves.

Most parents would lay down their lives for their children, but a narcissistic parent will throw you in front of a bus and then put on a show, so everyone believes they are the victim.

Or they play the hero and tell everyone how they tried so hard to save you but were unable because you were such a mess, and just out of reach.

No one connects the dots on the outside.

Maybe, just maybe, if you hadn’t thrown your child in front of a bus to save yourself they wouldn’t be “such a mess”.

A child raised by a narcissist is forced to accept all the blame.

No matter what transpires, it’s always the child’s fault, and if you dare to imply otherwise, you’re viciously attacked.

Shame on you for thinking such a thing.

How dare you blame them for abusing you.

Stop acting like you’re being abused while you’re being abused.

How did this happen?

How did you get this way?

Everyone knows you had perfectly good and capable parents, so you must’ve been a bad child or a bad apple seed.

When you realize what kind of person raised you, the most difficult part is unraveling a lifetime of lies and betrayal.

You should be able to trust your parents.

It’s healthy and normal to go to them for guidance.

Unfortunately, every time you do what normal and healthy children do, you are purposely, blatantly, and intentionally led astray.

Not just in childhood.

When you’re raised by a narcissist, you’ll be denied emotional support from that parent for a lifetime.

A narcissistic parent doesn’t innocently mislead her children.

A healthy parent wants their children to succeed in life, and they want more for their children then they had.

They will do anything in their power to help their child reach their highest potential.

When you become a parent, you know this to be true, and you can feel it in your bones, you want more for your children.

Being raised by a narcissist is the exact opposite.

They don’t consider their offspring as individual human beings with their own personal thoughts, feelings, or emotions.

Everyone is born as a unique person designed to bring their own special light into the world.

A loving parent will nurture this light so it can bloom, blossom, and propel itself into a future that’s happy and bright.

Unfortunately, a narcissist has a broken personality.

It can’t be fixed, which makes them incapable of raising a healthy, well-adjusted child.

A narcissist shouldn’t be allowed to raise children.

Many people shouldn’t be allowed to raise children, but narcissists are one of the first on the list.

Narcissists are designed to seek, steal, and destroy any joy or happiness that crosses their path.

It’s what they do, plain and simple.

The world’s most potent and powerful defense against narcissism is an empath.

More often than not, a narcissistic parent will give birth to their own destruction, which is the empath.

Empaths have a unique connection designed to allow them to heal and then, in turn, help others heal, but it only works if you know you’re an empath.

Unfortunately, none of this works on a narcissist, and they don’t heal or get better.

They see compassion as a weakness, and that’s their first mistake.

The psychological madness of a narcissist.

What they’re really after is your mind.

They want you to think you’re going crazy.

They want you to have mental breakdowns.

Preferably in public, so they can prove to everyone how unstable and abusive you are.

A narcissist will actively try to destroy a perfectly normal mind for no other reason than they want to; they feel compelled to tear other human beings apart.

It’s the only way they can feed, and an empath has an almost endless supply of supply.

Things are not what they seem when it comes to empathic abilities.

Most people don’t have the ability to literally step into someone else’s shoes and go beyond the words and definitions people use.

An empath absorbs other people’s emotions and pain naturally, it’s what we do.

It’s not a weakness as long as you remember to only carry your own weight.

Help as much as you can and then learn to let go of what doesn’t belong to you.

You can’t take on other people’s problems, you can be supportive and try to say something profound to save the day, but at the end of the day, only carry your own weight.

Educate yourself, but be careful who you listen to and believe.

I’ve read many articles written by therapists who work with adult children raised by narcissists, and I never like what I see.

Some of what they say is true, but I don’t like how it’s so definitive and permanent.

They use words like you will always suffer and will never be able to overcome this affliction or be the person you’re meant to be.

Self-doubt is a big one for me and can be downright paralyzing, but I’m aware my level of self-doubt is an issue.

Being consciously aware of these weaknesses is the only way to confront them and dissolve the power they have.

Some therapists insist too much damage has been done and we will go through life lost and unable to fully recover.

Personally, I think the only way to fully recover is to erase the past, and we can’t do that.

No one can.

So by this definition, no one can truly fully recover from anything, including the person giving these insights and advice.

Make your own judgments.

You have the power to fix yourself.

Believe it.

Instead of focusing on what we can’t change, I prefer to focus on what we can change.

This is called growth.

I believe we can outgrow narcissistic abuse.

I believe we can overcome and become stronger than anything anyone’s ever seen.

If you survive this kind of abuse and make to the other side you’ll know what I’m telling you is true.

The first step is to stop the abuse.

Ending the reoccurring cycle of narcissistic abuse is critical to the healing process.

I mistakenly thought that once I went no contact and stopped the abuse, my work was done.

Oh, how wrong I was.

It was just the beginning.

I realized pretty quickly I didn’t know who I was, I didn’t know myself at all, and I started questioning my identity.

Who am I without my family?

What do you like?

I don’t know.

What’s your favorite color?

I don’t know.

I guess we’ll go with blue unless black is a color.

I wear black all the time, mostly every day and guess what?

Wearing black is instinctual, we use it to protect ourselves from negative vibes.

Now that makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

Healing and growth come down to one simple rule: get to know thyself.

You have one mission, one quest, and it’s to know yourself better than anyone.

• You can’t trust anyone’s opinion of you.
• You can’t allow someone else to pass judgment on you.
• You can’t trust their limiting beliefs based on what little they know of you.
• You can never know another human being the way you know yourself, so focus on that.

Get to know yourself better by taking a free personality test.

This explained me to myself, and I realized yes, this is how I am.

It’s more than okay, it’s normal, I’m normal.

It lets you know there are other people out there like you, and there’s nothing wrong with you.

What’s wrong is your narcissistic parent.

1. Narcissistic parents don’t allow their children to get to know themselves.

They teach children not to trust their own natural instincts.

They feel threatened when their children start to develop their own independence and do whatever they can to stop it from happening.

This kind of repetitive psychological abuse causes learned helplessness in a child (among other things).

I didn’t know what this was until I saw the definition, and I didn’t like how horribly I was manipulated.

You don’t know what you don’t know.

It’s one of those things you wish someone would’ve told you twenty years ago.

2. Fear of failure and making the wrong decision.

We’re so afraid of making the wrong choice because a narcissist never misses an opportunity to crucify you for any minor infraction or failure.

It can be debilitating to do something as simple as shopping for clothes or ordering a meal.

Sometimes you make a bad decision and pick the wrong meal or choose clothes you don’t like when you get home.

Then there are flashbacks of getting raked over the coals every time you made a choice that wasn’t what the narcissistic parent wanted.

Narcissists teach their children failure is a terrible thing, and if you don’t get it right the first time, you’re worthless.

You should now how stupid they are because failure is how human beings learn to do it right.

When you fail at something, you learn how not to do it.

The more you fail, and the faster you fail, the sooner you get to success.

I’m familiar with failure and feeling like a failure, so now I embrace it because I know it’s there to teach me something.

It isn’t always pleasant, don’t get me wrong, but it is a part of life so I might as well get used to it.

It’s not about how many times you fall down.

A narcissist can’t get better, but I can because I just keep getting up.

A professional faller knows that it’s all about getting back up.

3. The highly critical and negative voice in your head.

The voice in your head is often of the person who raised you.

When you’re raised by a narcissist, that’s a pretty nasty voice.

It took me sixteen months to get her voice out of my head.

One day I noticed it wasn’t there anymore, and I’ve never been happier in my life.

It didn’t happen by itself.

It’s a process of actively correcting your thinking and replacing the negative, highly critical voice with something much more powerful.

Your voice.

Trust yourself.

Trust your instincts, they are there to protect you, and once you start listening to your inner voice, it only gets stronger.

Believe your inner voice.

It’s the truth screaming to get out.

4. When you’ve been raised by a narcissist, you don’t heal and “find yourself again.”

That’s not what this is about.

You can never go back and become what you were.

There is no going back because back there, I didn’t exist.

When you’re never allowed to be your true self, you don’t even know what it is or what it means for you.

Give yourself a clean slate and start over.

Grow into yourself and become whatever you want to be; once you start, it will happen very quickly.

Being raised by a narcissist creates blocks in your mind, limiting beliefs, paralyzing thoughts, and weird behaviors from not being allowed to connect with your true self.

I use self-hypnosis to reprogram my brain, and I don’t think I would’ve gotten this far without it.

It’s one of the best ways I have to reparent myself with positive reinforcement.

A narcissist will never change because they can’t grow.

They don’t want to; they truly believe there’s no need to change.

They are fundamentally incapable of growth and will always revert back to their original state.

A normal human being never reverts back to their original state.

When a plant grows, it can’t go back to being a seedling.

It can produce new seeds, new flowers, and new fruit, but it can’t go back to its beginning.

Narcissists don’t grow past a certain stage in their early childhood development, which means they are trapped in a constant state of zero growth.

Hard to imagine, isn’t it?

How painful it must be to have no ability to grow.

I struggle to comprehend it; we all do.

Being a narcissist is an impossible situation that goes against mother nature herself.

They don’t grow; they simply exist as they are, and that’s it.

That’s all there is, and that’s all you get.

I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

This is why they fight so hard to keep people from outgrowing them because once we do, we’re gone, and then they have to hunt for a new source of supply.

Compassion, empathy, love, and understanding are completely wasted on narcissists.

I’ve decided being me doesn’t sound so bad anymore.

It makes me grateful for the pain and suffering.

It helps me grow.

I can assure you it won’t be wasted on me.

A narcissist may be a form of evil that goes against the very nature of the universe, but the reality is they can never win the internal battle.

Final thoughts…

A narcissist can’t overcome what they are.

It’s what we all want, but it’s not an option.

There isn’t a single recorded case of a narcissist being cured.

There is no more a cure for being a narcissist than there is for being an empath.

We are what we are.

There is no what’s next for the narcissist.

They will continue to do what they’ve always done.

The question is, what’s next for you and where will you go from here?

When you’re dealing with narcissistic abuse sometimes you need help. Making the decision and committing to therapy can be a big ask but what if you could do it from home at your own pace?

It called Online-Therapy (20% off affiliate link).

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Post like this and narcissistic support groups are no substitute for therapy.