Are you like me and narcissism actually started in your childhood?

neversettle4less: I am proud of you for doing the work to figure out why narcissists keep entering your life — so glad you have found some “connect the dots” moments. Sometimes they are hard to spot. My parents were not disordered at all. Neither were my siblings or close friends. However, from my teenage years on, I kept choosing men who were not good for me. I have done a lot of introspection, reading, learning and some therapy and the best I could come up with is I was born this way. I have always been shy, introverted, quiet, a people-pleaser, the “good girl”. I hated being the center of attention – used to cry when people sang me Happy Birthday. Conflict of any kind was painful, so I avoided it. I was adamantly loyal and hated to give up on anyone or anything. I let people walk all over me – or I avoided them. In retrospect, I overstayed just about every painful relationship, whether it was a horrible job, a horrible friendship or a horrible relationship – I kept hoping I could change it. Or them. Or me. The first man I loved – a sweet, gentle, kind soul – came back from VietNam a different person and that set me into a tailspin. I married on the rebound — an older man I thought could protect and “save” me – but he was fundamentally flawed – an alcoholic with cruel tendencies. I think I was seeking a safe haven and instead found abuse. I stayed 10 years. I gave up dating after my divorce as I kept choosing the same type of men. Over the subsequent years I let a few disordered people into my life and managed to kick them out eventually, but not until after they had done me great emotional harm. I found living alone was the only safe way to live. But, admittedly, I was lonely and hungry for love. Then the narcissist found me after 30+ years of no dating. I was ripe for the picking, eager to believe someone – anyone – cared for me. And after so many years of not having to deal with “mean people”, I was not prepared for him or his tricks. I think it all came down to a mixture of personality and circumstances. I feel I am much stronger now. I have learned a lot about myself and about people who prey on people like myself. I hope others will give you some insight into how and why they were victimized, and how they survived and thrived. Best wishes and congratulations.

neversettle4less – I can assure you, I’ve spoken to hundreds of people who became involved with disordered romantic partners who eventually realize that they were dating or married to someone just like their mother or father. Your experience is extremely common – unfortunately.

Essentially what happens is that the wounds from your childhood – like being scapegoated, ignored, abandoned, etc. – are still within you. Sociopaths seem to have radar for those wounds. So you meet them, they sense your vulnerabilities, tell you everything you want to hear, convince you that they will rescue you — and you find yourself with someone like your parent.

The solution is emotional healing. I have lots of articles about this on Lovefraud.

Yes, I have unfortunately had experience with individuals who have sociopathic and narcissistic tendencies. It started with my grandmother who sexually abused me as a child. My mother has always been very limited in her ability to take consider others feelings, and uses money to manipulative and control those around her. My mom’s younger sister is also very manipulative and can be very emotionally abusive. These experiences have left me with a lack of trust in my family, with the exception of my dad. At 18 I had a very brief marriage that was over very quickly after I confronted him about infidelity that he responded to with physical abuse – I quickly obtained a restraining order, contacted his first sergeant in the military, and immediately called 911 when he violated the restraining order. So early on, I developed a distrust and intolerance for abusive behavior, and thought that the right way to deal with it was by fighting back and then getting far away from the individual. At 19 I met a wonderful man who I married at 22, we had a great marriage but went through a difficult time, resulting in us getting divorced for a few years. However, we are now back together and very happy.

During the time my husband and I were separated, I encountered a con artist online who used my strained relationship with my family and the emotional turmoil that occurred as a result of my dad’s death to exploit me. So once I learned about the Con, I chose to confront him, fight back physically and emotionally, and involve the police; so my past experience certainly dictated my drive to fight rather than flee. This led to severe physical abuse and restraining tactics from the con artist. Eventually, with the help of the police and my husband, I was able to flee from the con artist. Unfortunately, he tracked my car, found me, and committed suicide in front of me to avoid facing federal indictment charges from myself and many other women.

During my recovery, I also learned about the impact of multiple traumas and how they shape your coping strategies and ultimately your response to future trauma. For me the trauma caused by the con artist was the “final straw” in a long history of traumatic events – It resulted in a loss of all of my money & retirement, massive debt that I could not hold anyone accountable for because he killed himself, I lost my car, foreclosed on my house, lost one of my dogs, many of my graduate school friends no longer speak to me, and I lost the respect of my colleagues who blamed me for what happened. It was just too much to handle. In fact, I developed an autoimmune form of arthritis as a result of all of this.
I was so frustrated at first that I couldn’t just bounce back like I had always done.

I often blamed myself for acting so aggressively, thinking that if I had been more covert, I could have escaped him and not lost everything. However, after going through DBT therapy, trauma therapy, EMDR, along with medication and Spravato treatments, I feel better than I ever have – the therapy helped me not just deal with the LoveFraud Con but also with all of the previous trauma in my life. I’ve learned a lot about myself and the coping strategies I developed through my life that are not sustainable – like perfectionism. While I do feel better – 9 years later – I am still healing and rebuilding my life and career.

I hope that my response helps you to know that you are not alone with this. I know that just listening to the LoveFraud stories has helped me feel less alone and less shame about what happened. Sending tons of positive healing energy your way!!!🩷🩷🩷🩷

I am not sure if my mom is a Narcissist or not. She was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder (and briefly hospitalized) when I was young. She does not believe there is anything wrong with her. I see symptoms of Bipolar disorder. But I also see signs that she has anxiety disorder and probably a personality disorder (most likely Narcissistic or Histrionic).
I grew up watching her get beaten by my dad, and then beaten by her subsequent boyfriends after the divorce.

I always believed that my mom did the best she could with what she had. She was a single mom with 5 young children (back when a fair divorce meant that my mom keeps the kids and my dad keeps the house).

At the same time, I also recognized that mom didn’t want me and didn’t love me. I’ve known and accepted this a long long time ago. I recognized that she was selfish. And I always had a theory that there is a cycle that seems to create personalities. It appeared to me that givers create children that are takers. And takers create children that are givers.

Now (in my late 40’s) I am learning about how Narcissism affects children, and I see some of the patterns that I had previously thought of as givers and takers.
A narcissitic parent tends to scapegoat one or more of the children. These children grow up to be very empathetic and vulnerable to abuse.
I’ve also read that narcissists are created by overindulgent parents that shelter the child from natural consequences. And I recognize that this is likely how my mother was raised. She was raised as the favourite child. My grandparents felt guilty because my mother was illegitimate. They went out of thier way to make my mom feel special compared to her siblings.

The short answer is that I actually don’t know if my mom is a Narcissist or if her behaviour is just a result of her other issues. Either way, it seems to have affected me the same. Although I have never let anyone beat me, I ended up married to a psychologically abusive man for 25 years. I didn’t learn and understand what a Narcissist was until very recently.