9 Signs You are Raised By Narcissists

Growing up in a narcissistic household can be a traumatic and challenging experience for children. Narcissistic parents prioritize their own needs and desires above their children's emotional well-being, leading to long-term negative impacts on their children's self-esteem and ability to form healthy relationships. In this article, we will explore the signs that you may have been raised by narcissistic parents and the potential effects it can have on your life.

# You have low self-esteem

Being raised by narcissistic parents typically leaves the child with very low self-esteem. Not only were you unlikely to have your own identity outside of them, but they also made sure that you were stripped of any praise.

Constantly insulting and overly critical, you learned early on that whatever you did wasn’t good enough. That can ultimately lead to low self-esteem.

# Depression and anxiety are not uncommon

After either being overly controlled or neglected, it is not uncommon for those raised by narcissists to be prone to depression and anxiety. Never feeling in control of themselves, their decisions, or their own lives, children of narcissistic parents have very little hope for their future and feel helpless to change their life circumstances.

# You have a tendency to look for destructive relationships

Feeling comfortable with people who criticize, control, or manipulate you, you tend to seek out destructive relationships. Since it is the only thing you know, and likely, all that you think you are worthy of, normal and healthy relationships don’t feel right to you.

# You do a lot of self-sabotaging

When you do have accomplishments or healthy relationships, you self-sabotage them because you don’t know how to deal with them. Not only being fearful of losing something loving and good, you don’t feel like you are worthy of anything good, so you make sure to protect yourself by pushing people away and making poor decisions.

# You downplay your own accomplishments

You weren’t ever allowed to accomplish anything on your own that they didn’t take credit for, so you aren’t big on taking stock of your successes, and you tend to focus more on your failures.

You have the tendency to talk about yourself in a negative light and focus on your shortcomings, not the times that you rose above the crowd.

# You have trust and abandonment issues

Since your parents probably didn’t really care about whether you were happy, sad, or even taken care of, they also were not afraid to lie to you about whatever suited them.

That can leave a child feeling unsure of what is real. If your parents lie to you, then why wouldn’t everyone else? The very people you should trust the most weren’t so trustworthy, so what would compel anyone to be different?

# You keep things to yourself

Everything good you did, they criticized. Everything nice you had or cared about, they probably broke or took away. So, you have a tendency to keep things to yourself rather than fear that you are going to lose them.

# You don’t feel worthy of love

The child who is raised by narcissists doesn’t know what the feeling of unconditional love is. In their world, no one has to love and accept you. In fact, the very people who you are told have to love you, don’t. It is not uncommon for you to feel like you must have done something to make them not care for you. After all, that was their job.

# You were often made to feel crazy through gas lighting

Gas lighting is a technique used by narcissistic parents to make a child feel as if they are crazy. Changing the story and convincing children that they don’t know what they know, narcissistic parents put a gas light on any theories that they could be responsible for anything but good.