This goes for lovers, friends, family and substances.
🩷
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Daughter of an extremely abusive alcoholic father. I won’t go into detail about it again on here but he was sentenced to 113 year’s in prison for the abuse of myself and my 2 sister’s. He’s now facing 2 pending murder charges as well. One I reported to authorities over a decade ago but thankfully they’re working on cold cases in our area. Although I don’t speak to him or ever write him I found that forgiveness has helped me to move on and to heal. Great post! Sorry y’all had a really rough upbringing too. 
for the group.
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“One day”
from Beating hearts and butterflies -
Christine Evangelou
One day, you will heal
One day, you will be grateful for the deepest cuts of pain
One day, you will glance at yourself
And see a stronger person through your reflection
One day, you will kiss away your hurt… gently, and with grace
Until then, use it all to propel you forward
Like a white-hot pyre through your star-spangled eyes
A fire to regenerate every shadowy cell
And open your heart to every experience
Knowing that one day
You will search your heart
And understand that love is the only thing to ever hold onto
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Of course 
Reparenting ourselves and doing the work our inept parents couldn’t or wouldn’t do, is a real bitch some days. 
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Great list! The only one I would add is:
- Validate/praise yourself each day to establish self-esteem.
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Oh yes I love that one. 
I liberally borrowed from this post:
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Just a reminder to anyone who needs to know they have value, and from my all time favourite novelist:
Having leveled my palace, don’t erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home.
Emily Bronte
[Insert here] any friendships, any love, and literally any place where you get less than you put in.
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Here’s me showing up to this thread. I dismissed it when it appeared first as not relevant to me, not fitting, my parents weren’t narcissists right? And I still think, strictly taken, they weren’t. However, there were traits. Signs.
The both of them were never diagnosed with any PD. And what’s in a name, what’s in a diagnosis, other than a label? With today’s knowledge, I might label my mum as suffering from BPD (with narcissistic traits), while my dad might be closer to having antisocial tendencies (again wiith some narcissism mixed in.
But I don’t know for sure. And I don’t really care. They’ve both been dead for a decade now. In the meantime I’ve been diagnosed with a mixed PD myself, with traits from borderline and avoidant PD. Which was helpful for me in getting the right therapy. And otherwise I refuse to let these labels define me. I’m myself. And that goes for people diagnosed with NPD too. Which to me means they are also the only ones that can help themselves (but that’s another matter) .
In the end it’s all about the effects my parents have had on my development, the influence they had on my life. In that respect I fit within this thread 100%. It’s all about the unsafe and unpredictable environment I grew up in. I was never beaten or left unfed or unclothed. But I experienced very insecure attachment from birth.
As a baby and a toddler I was left with family and friends for longer periods of time because my parents were too busy with other stuff. With themselves. That preoccupation with themselves really is what it all comes down to for me. And meant I never got to experience a truly safe environment to grow up in, giving me plenty of anxiety, avoidance and disorganized tendencies (to stay with diagnostic criteria). Because that’s how they were.
For my mum the main thing in her life was her relationship to my dad, while at the same time wanting her own career, her own friends, her own life. My dad wanted a shining career and lots of adoring women who let them live his own life. Me and my sis were just actors in their play really.
A good example for me is my coming out, which was late, when I was about 30 years old. My mum reacted with exhilaration and great happiness. Because: finally Menno tells something personal! Because Menno never told anything personal to his mum. Menno was always so secretive. This I heard from my mum as long as I can remember, in a way that it was 100% my fault, my responsibility, my failing as her son.
My dad’s only reaction was that he hoped I might be actually wrong in my feelings, that I might find a girl after all and give him the grandchild he wanted so bad. That was really all he said. My progressive liberal intellectual dad who was such a big supporter of diversity and emancipation in all forms.
Thinking about it both these reactions are pretty narcissistic right? Right. I’m still getting to terms with my youth, five years into sobriety and four years into psychotherapy. Still learning. About my parents too. I just begun reading a book tipped by @Tragicfarinelli (thanks friend!), It’s them, not you! by Josh Connolly. It’s interesting to see how I struggle a bit recognizing my own parents in the descriptions in the first couple of chapters, how I also feel it isn’t for me as my parents are long dead and gone. But the description of me and my coping mechanisms, are spot on. I think it can help me. As can this thread. And all of you in it. Thanks for beginning the thread @SoberSassy and thanks for being here all. Love.
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Hey @Mno you definitely belong here, bettering and sharing this tapestry of rich experience and advice and thoughts with fellow addicts. I don’t particularly believe that NPD is as clear cut as we think, nor should anyone’s experience have to be extreme to be here.
I always wanted to find a thread for survivors/sufferers and (subsequent) addicts created -or nurtured- by parental addicts or dysfunctional homes. I’m not sure why I never created one (too fearful probably), but I was so happy @SoberSassy did as I felt a place to be seen.
Sometimes the cross talk on this site sends me running for the hills and that’s probably part of my mismanaged regulation of emotions and feelings around being ‘corrected’. I feel safer in this thread than anywhere here, and I’m glad to see you Menno 
I’m so glad you are reading the book 
. I’m next attempting a ‘love letter’ to little me from the book… The journal prompts are also really good to just sit with. I’ve just completed the exercise before on moral inventory and identifying mistakes and their drivers. It’s reminisce of step 4 in AA I’m told. I actually have a group dial in with Josh himself every Thursday evening. It’s amazing and a totally validating experience to witness a great group of people from all over the world every week trying to be honest and heal. The stories are all concurrently similar and yet utterly different. That’s the beauty!
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I’m happy you’ve decided to be here.
Narcissistic abuse can be extremely covert and well hidden.
I was also always sheltered, fed and clothed. My basic needs were always met because my mother disguises herself as a wonderful caregiver and it’s always about image for them.
She’s emotionally dangerous and preys on vulnerable people for manipulation and control. That often includes children because well children can be easier to manipulate and mould.
Narcissists are predators no matter how well some know how to hide it. 
I’m sorry you you’ve also had to deal with such childhood trauma. And all the trauma you’ve felt that maybe I hadn’t experienced personally.
I’m happy you’re sharing it here with us.
That’s absolutely why I wanted to start the thread.
We can take back the power as we confront these things.
I’m also happy we are all allowing ourselves to make space for it so that we can heal it.
You deserve all the love and healing 
from where your parents failed you.
I’m definitely going to look into that book. 
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“Her Fury”
from Diamonds Through The Dark
Christine Evangelou
I am fury and anger
A burning rain that pours
I feel it like a wave
And it hits me full force
It strikes unexpectedly
Like a fire through my back
Makes me feel alone
Living in a space of lack
Why does anger speak to me this way?
Shutting down my senses
With such destructive sway…
But I know this anger well
How she hides behind my tears
That glisten with love through all my fears
And how she creeps into the corners
Where I feel I’m not enough
Somewhere there is truth
Like shiny diamonds through the rough
Yes, I know her well
So let me guide her might
Transcend her flames
To a pure white light
For anger is just a feeling
Another way to cope
Through all of life’s curveballs
That diminish sweet hope
So when I hear her thunder
Let me breathe and cast asunder
The burn that aches and swells my mind
To one that calms through an inner sanctuary I find
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I absolutely love this
Thank you for sharing 
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Well. I shared part of my story last night with 60+ people in my Inner You session. Apart from being incredibly nervous and probably talking a whole heap of nonsense, it felt good. 
I can honestly say, I feel compassion towards myself. But very very little towards my mother. I’m ok with this.
Proud shy girl 
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