CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - What To Do When You Have A Narcissistic Family Member with Dr. Ramani

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

In this episode, Whitney Goodman and Dr. Ramani discuss how narcissism is in the family. This is a great episode for anyone who is wondering: Is my parent a narcissist? How do I deal with a narcissistic parent or family member? How do I set boundaries and disengage? Are narcissistic adult children born or raised to be this way? Should I go to therapy with my narcissistic family member? Have a question for Whitney? Call Home at 866-225-5466.  Join Whitney’s Family Cycle Breakers Club for further support and discussion on family dynamics at CallingHome.co. Click here to get “Toxic Positivity” on paperback.  Follow Whitney Goodman on Instagram or TikTok.  The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services, is not a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider, and does not create any therapist-patient or other treatment relationship between you and Calling Home or Whitney Goodman. For more information, please see Calling Home’s Terms of Service.  Mixing, editing, and show notes provided by Next Day Podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wait, was that the group chat? Ah, sent a text to the group that definitely wasn't for everyone. You're good. Enjoy some goldfish cheddar crackers. Goldfish have short memories. Be like goldfish. I am so excited about my guests today, Dr. Romani. She is a therapist and author who's here to talk with me.

about how to navigate a relationship with narcissistic parents. We also talk a little bit about how narcissism develops and narcissistic adult children. I'm Whitney Goodman. Welcome to the Calling Home podcast. I'm glad you're here. The effect of a narcissistic parent on a child really does start from a young age and can stem into adulthood. And that can range from behaviors like guilt to feelings of not being good enough.

And these relationships can be deeply hurt. hurtful and difficult because people with narcissistic personalities do not really take any form of criticism well. And they will likely not be able to admit how their behaviors are hurting someone and seek change. But what I love about this conversation is that Dr. Romney not only talks about how we can deal with narcissistic parents, but children with this personality type as well. And so this may be helpful to anyone who is seeking to continue having a relationship with a narcissistic family member or who would like to know the signs of this behavior? The first question I want to ask you is, you know, how can you tell if a parent is narcissistic?

And what traits might a child or an adult child want to be looking out for? Well, again, you're going to, I mean, you're going to see the sort of the standard issue narcissistic patterns, which would be entitlement and the variable and low empathy and the grandiosity. the excessive need for admiration and validation, the constant self-enhancement and talking about themselves in puffed up ways and the envying other people, the assuming other people are envying them, the self-centeredness. You know, obviously that translates into all kinds of behaviors, you know, selfish behavior and manipulative behavior and gaslighting behavior and even, you know, breaches of trust, you know, sharing information that the parents shouldn't be sharing. You could see that

narcissistic parents because of the uniqueness of the family system may very clearly play favorites and pit people against each other, dangling incentives. If you do right by the parent, then you're going to get whatever are considered to be incentives in that family system. It very much feels like a transactional system from a very early age, the sense of you're going to earn your parents' love. And people will say, listen, I am 45 years old and I'm still rolling up to them with an accomplishment, like I'm holding a finger-painted picture. to get their attention. So there is never that sense that you will be simply seen, that there is a sense of earning it. And that obviously these relationships are held primarily, that you will always feel like you're trying to win them over. You'll also still feel like you're trying

to soothe them. I mean, children in these relationships with narcissistic parents find themselves in a role reversal. They're often quite parentified. They are shamed for having a need or a want or a belief that's different than their parents, and that will persist into adulthood. So there can be a tentativeness to even ask for what one wants in those situations for fear of the parent's reaction. The parent may be very manipulative in saying, you owe me, I raised you, how could you not show up here?

How could you move away, you owe me? And so the child always feels this sort of, there's a very trauma-bonded feel that they have betrayed their parent by actually simply becoming their own person. So those are the sorts of things we would say. with a narcissistic parent. Yeah. So many of the things that you just said, you know, stand out to me as like anecdotal type of stuff that I talk about a lot in my own work as a therapist who works with

adult children who have difficult relationships with their parents. And one of the biggest ones I think I hear a lot is you mentioned this idea of like envy between parent and adult child. And I'm wondering if you can talk about what happens when a parent feels very threatened by their adult child's success and how that can damage the relationship. envy is such a classical narcissistic dynamic and it can be so crushing when it happens within a parental relationship because if there was ever that one place that unconditionality should show up is the parent being thrilled for their child's success but while the parent may not necessarily feel quote unquote competitive with the child as a child gets older even coming into puberty and

adolescence it might be around physical appearance it might be around honors and adulation It might be around school performance. It might even be that, you know, listen, times change. So the child may be getting access to programs or opportunities or university or things like that that the parent didn't have. And instead of the parents saying, it's so wonderful, I'm so happy for you, what the parent will push back with, well, we didn't have that then. And I could have been so great, but you have everything being given to you now.

So the child now feels a sense of guilt over what was always a very earned accomplishment or even a trait, like I said, the way they've been. look. Now, this doesn't stop in adolescence. In fact, I think it accelerates in adulthood because now the child is perceived almost as an equal as a standard sort of environmental threat by the narcissistic parent who now will literally be competitive and will literally be competitive and almost take the stance of, you owe me or, you know, you owe me money, you, you owe me. And the child will often perform. I can't tell you how many people I've worked with who not from a place, of my parent always had my back, but I want to win my parent over, was doing things like

buying them homes and expensive cars and giving them vast amounts of money and expensive gifts is no different than the little rock they painted in fourth grade. They wanted to win their parent over. But the envy can come in is, you got things I didn't get. I made this all possible. You owe me. They will almost expect a, there's almost a sense of debt that comes up. And it may be a literal competitiveness, especially if they're in anything resembling a similar industry or a similar walk of life. It might be, using a gendered example, it might be a mother saying, oh, you have so much, a such nicer life than I did, you know, that we had to struggle when we were at the stage

and here you are. At this age, you already have a home and all this stuff. So instead of simply being happy for the child, they look at themselves at that similar station of life and will say, well, these things didn't happen for me. It could be a parent who says, well, it was a lot harder to get this degree then, or, you know, I don't know if you're doing this job right and will literally be, even though the parent clearly has 20, 30 years on the kid, will be competitive with them in that industry. And it can be incredibly, incredibly unsettling for a child who feels an equal mix of duty, guilt, shame, and sometimes even discussed. So it gets to be a very complicated sort of stew of emotion for the child who's in this situation at any age. and this often starts young, it doesn't just sort of spring up in adulthood, this narcissistic

parent would have been envious and competitive with a child from a very young age. Yeah, it's so true. And I think you're very right about this idea that especially parents of the same gender as their child around looks, profession, things like that, they can see themselves in that child or become very threatened by their success. And the more, it sounds like what you're saying, the more the child or the adult child tries to prove themselves to the parent or win them over, it's actually this double-edged sword that the envy kind of increases and the punishment for that success becomes even

more intensified, which is so confusing in a parent-child's relationship, right? Absolutely. No matter what the child does, they feel like they can't win, again, even in adulthood. And there can even be the sense of helplessness which can culminate in self-sabotage, as though if I succeed, I've betrayed my parent. And while a person may not sort of masochistically throw themselves into that, there may be a series of subtle decisions that get made that will all but sort of guarantee a lack of success when the person was positioned to really do well, but because it's literally somatically felt as a betrayal of the parent, which remains an intolerable emotion well into adulthood. People sometimes hold themselves back. Yeah, do you think this is why some parents maybe can be good parents to like little babies, but as their children grow old.

older, they become increasingly more threatened by the child's success or independence. Is that something that you see in narcissistic parents? Oh, absolutely. I mean, babies are like an accessory. I hate to say it, but they're portable and then a little thing you can carry around and they just smile at you and they expect nothing of you except food and all that other stuff, but that's easy, right? There's no demands. There's no real criticisms. And don't get me wrong, If a narcissistic person has a, if a baby with a more difficult to soothe temperament, you will definitely see that parent getting frustrated and angry and probably lashing out at adults for feeling unsupported, like why isn't anyone helping me?

But all things being equal, babies look great on Instagram. You know, babies are, again, babies are super portable and go with the flow and everyone's owing and awing. Well, then that child finds a voice. And that's really what we call normal ego development. And that child makes things known, which is exactly what they're supposed to be. doing. And that's when the parent starts getting frustrated. The child wants, and then the narcissistic parent bristles that the child's needs. How dare you exist outside of me? How dare you

expect anything of me? So that sort of combination of things can that sort of starts that path forward and that will continue into adulthood. So you will see some narcissistic folks are great baby parents. They really are. And so people think, what a devoted parent. And I'm often closing my eyes thinking gives about four years and this is going to fall apart. And invariably it does. And the more sort of, if you will, I don't say mouthy, it's just a kid being a kid. But, you know, the more sort of a kid is making, I want this and do this and look at me and look at me and, you know, and making needs and wants known, the more that kid is going to sort

be shut down by that parent. And so, yeah, I think that the narcissistic parent can roll up in babyhood just because the photo ops are great. And it's easier to just pass a baby off as a bundle. It's a little bit harder to do with a fully formed child. Yeah, it's so true. And that was actually, it's funny that you bring up Instagram because it was something I wrote down that I get this comment all the time about, like, what my mother displays in public

and how she really is are very different. And this idea of like the Facebook parent or the Facebook grandparent has become very widely known these days. I feel like you have people posting about their children or their grandchildren. And then you come to find out, like, they don't actually see them or spend. any time with them. So how does that tie into what might be considered like narcissistic traits or narcissistic personality disorder? Well, so a kind of a key dynamic of narcissism is that false self, that false, grandiose, perfectionistic self, which is usually forward facing and it's designed to

get supply and validation and admiration. And it's very much a sort of a self-enhancement tool. Look how great I am. Tell me how great I am. Now, as you can imagine, that Facebook, Instagram, all these social media platforms in the parenting space, took that and blew it up. You know, so it was, and it also fosters that sense of competition. Look how my children are in perfectly white shirts all in a row that are matching. And you're thinking, who buys white clothes for a child? And so they've got the kids in matching clothes and the kids in these adorable poses and the house is clean.

And, you know, and it's all like, and everyone's eating healthy food. And they're talking about today we picked out carrots and everyone picked out their own care at which they're eating for lunch. I'm like, what are you talking about? So people will watch that. There's a sense of competition and a sense of self-satisfaction on the part of the narcissistic parent or grandparent. But the challenge is it is a false front. And where this really does harm is the children, because the children are now caught up in this dual repertoire system because a child doesn't know. Child's not going to have a schema for understanding false fronts. They're saying, okay, sometimes grandma or mom or dad or parent, whomever they are, are really on, and then

there are nowhere to be found. And that becomes foundational for the trauma bond because the child will internalize that blame. What did I do wrong? Because a minute ago, it was pictures and look at my cutie. And now nobody's interested in this child, especially when the child might be having a real moment or even just something they want attuned to. Like look at the bug I found. Like later, later, later, no more photo up. And so the child now is having to, is creating an internal schema of, what do I need to do to win people over or what's wrong with me? And that, again, sets the foundation, again, for that trauma bondedness, not only in childhood, but that becomes a scheme on blueprint for relationships and adulthood. So the false front, even though we as

adults can look at it and roll our eyes and know that somebody's being ridiculous, the child doesn't have that capacity. So I think that we're all cynics on Instagram and Facebook now, but the children don't have that luxury. Yeah, it's making me think of, you know, all these like influencer or families that you can tell. They say like, oh, my kid loves being on camera and they love, like, doing Instagram. It's like, no, they love the attention that they get when they're performing that way or being close to you. That's it.

What they do is they've realized that if I'm happy on camera, then my parent attunes to me. And children are unreal and how attuned they are to the tiny micro adjustments they need to make or macro adjustments to keep their parent attuned. This is why we talk about things like consent with children. Children don't have the capacity for consent. Children are about attachment and survival and how do I stay close to my caregiver. And if that means a dog and pony show on social media or someplace else, then that child's going to show up and give their toothiest grin because that's going to be,

then they're going to see their parent focused on it and editing it and getting it on the Instagram. And the child's like, whoa, mom loves me. I mean, listen, Whitney, we're in an interesting time from a, from a, a data-driven perspective, what these platforms have been around in earnest now for about almost 20 years. So we're going about to see the first generation of kids who are growing up with these images publicly consumable since the day they were born. And that data in terms of how that's affected the construction of self and identity is going to be incredibly revelatory. I have two kids, but they were born well before social media. So any images, in fact, my older child,

child, there wasn't really, there were no digital cameras. Like we had to print the picture and, you know, put it on a CD and all this. Some of them are still on floppy disk. It's all a thing. And so, you know, that documentation and how much that's going to become almost a living lab, how many of those images will still be available, but even for us to realize, like how much that child, even preverbal, really got that sense of validation came from being the cutie in the picture. And while I, listen, I don't want to be so cynical to say, I think it's magnificent and people can share pictures of their children with far-flung families. That's not what we're talking about.

We're talking about the posturing that comes from an influencer that's sort of selling this kind of, you know, sort of this family vibe and then are marketing their children saying, you could buy my child's shirt. Right. I'm not a big fan of commodification of kids. Right. There's a very big difference between sharing some photos with your family and exploiting your child on the internet.

But I think- For commercial interests. Yeah, exactly. I firmly believe that that is. is going to be like this next generation's bone to pick or complaint with their parents is how much they were shared on the internet. You know, for I'm a millennial, and I think for a lot of millennials, it's like my parents didn't validate my emotions.

They weren't there for me. And that's kind of the discourse that you're seeing among millennials now. And I feel like with these younger kids, it's going to be a lot of conversation about the choices their parents made in putting them on the internet and how that data was handled. So the other thing I wanted to talk to you about is I feel like a lot of people ask me, should I tell my parent that I think they're narcissistic? No. Yes.

That's a hard no. I agree with you. Move to the next question. No, no, and no. And let me tell you why. It sounds just apparent. It's any relationship you could be in. You should never tell a person you think they're narcissistic.

You know, first of all, it's just going to cause a whole lot of hooey that you don't need and it's going to go nowhere. I mean, the term is powerful. The construct is powerful. What really matters are the behaviors. And so if you want to have a conversation with a family member who you suspect is narcissistic, you certainly can, if you want to talk about the behaviors, it's still going to get you nowhere because they're going to still push back and gaslight and all of that. But you definitely don't want to do that. Because what ends up happening, when that becomes the conversation, it doesn't move the needle. They're not going to change their behavior. They're probably not going to change their behavior. They're probably not going to change their behavior. But then

everything devolves into, the person who made that observation is the bad person. How could you be so mean? How could you be so cruel? How could you be so arrogant? You're not a shrink. If you are a shrink, how dare you come in here and analyze us? I've gotten that side of it. So it's a, there's a no win. And like I said, I understand people say, I finally got their number. It's almost like catching someone out in their scam. And I said, I fully understand that and take it to other places, whether you journal about it, whether you talk to your therapist about it, whether you talk to very, very trusted people in an inner circle. Or maybe you have a trusted sibling and say, hey, I think I got a line in on what mom is doing here. And let's talk about this. And I read this.

And maybe you'll share that with that family member who may benefit by that insight. But taking it to that parent gets you nowhere. And honestly, because of how entrenched parent-child relationships are, even into adulthood, even pointing out the behaviors tends to be pointless. So now it's really the decision-making is around what are my choices around how I intend to continue to engage because I've now been shown the limitations of what this relationship has always been and will always be. Yeah, absolutely. It's reminding me of a, I put up a video the other day that got a lot of interesting feedback

about like stop telling people who are continuously abusing you or hurting you and you've told them that they're doing that to go to therapy. like that there's never you know i have a lot of adult children that i that i work with and that we have in our groups in calling home like how can i get so and so to go to therapy how can i get them to go to therapy and i think that comes with an expectation that therapy is somehow this magic pill right that is going to fix them right and so if you have a parent who you believe is narcissistic in your life can you talk about like maybe why that isn't the best recommendation to try to get them into a therapist office or to force them to do that.

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So, and I think ultimatums around therapy are never a good thing. I mean, I understand the whole world of doing interventions in the substance use world, but even that, that's sort of a marginal literature. But the sense of you're not going to see your grandchildren anymore unless you go into therapy is an absolutely worthless, in a way you're now playing sort of their ground game. It's almost like extortionate therapy. No one's going to benefit from that. If a person is noticing these patterns and they're saying, this is not good for me anymore,

and it is bringing up too many old psychological wounds and there, and I can't do this. Certainly, I would say, you don't go up to and say they're narcissistic and say, these are the patterns that are problematic. I call this maneuver going into the tiger's cage, and I'll tell you why I call it that. I can almost guarantee you that that parent is going to push back. How dare you? You impertinent little so-and-so.

You are so ungrateful. You're so this. You're so this. You're so selfish. You'll get that whole torrent. Pay attention to the torrent because now it's showing you that there is really not. much movement here. Then you start making decisions. And you're very clear on linking those decisions. So what do you mean you're not coming to Thanksgiving and say, you know, I was very

clear. There were things I said are not healthy and they keep happening. Don't say you keep doing them because that's accusatory. They keep happening. And at this point, I'm just going to have to put a line in the sand here for myself. This is not how I want to spend the four days I have off. And then they'll say, oh, you're so much better. So they're going to, again, Tiger's gauge again. But now you're not just ghosting. You're clear. And you are then disengaging. And it may mean you don't go to Thanksgiving or you only go to Thanksgiving for two hours or you don't say the whole four days or, you know, not everyone gets a seat at graduation. Whatever it may be, you may make it, it might be people don't come to events in the same way. It also may be how you interact with

them. I give this example of someone that I keep, you know, giving it in multiple audiences. The client sort of said, I think I'm just going to play narcissism bingo. And I said, what do you mean by that? And she said, I know the 15, 20 things they're going to do, you know, comment on my way, coming, I mean, being single, comment on this, comment on that. And I literally made notes of that. And I said, once they hit five, I'm out. I'm leaving. I'm not going to storm out. I'm not going to, you know, tantrum out. I'm just going to get up and say, you know, I have to go. they yeah they weren't pleased about it because i think this person left before deserve they couldn't get to you know you couldn't stop themselves from five before them and she said however it sort of

showed me i knew i was now hitting a sort of an end of my tolerance and i'm going to give myself this metric that i'm going to step away and then it's the the sense that the person might also use time they might say i can handle this for two hours i can i'll come a little late i'll leave a little or come early and they'll be happy about that and then i'll leave a little bit early but You sort of fool with time. Everyone knows their family's better than anyone else, right? But you figure out a strategy and it's intentional. You're doing this because, you know, this isn't going to change.

This is deeply uncomfortable. This is harmful. And then you also have hard out. If you say, like, if my mother makes one comment about my son's haircut, we're leaving. And not in a storm out way, but in a, hey, we have to go. And you hold your own ground. It's about, you know, I always say boundaries. are an inside game when you're dealing with narcissistic relationships is that this is

nothing you're making known but you're you're sort of giving yourself that permission to step away because the odds of change are so small but i but i know people feel more whole if they know they gave it they gave it the college try they really really said i communicated about this i was very clear i explained that i won't be able to come to this or that if this or that happens it doesn't feel okay to me, taking responsibility, owning the decision, connecting the dots. Nothing's going to come of it. But you now can feel like it's not like I just got up and disappeared in a way that might have felt passive aggressive. I was very clear on what this was about. And they were not coming around. And you have to be very prepared. The hardest part of this, I can say this all day,

but then you have the enablers and the family who want to maintain the status quo. But we just want Easter lunch to be this way. Can't you just put up with it this year and then next year and then next year? So the enablers who may not be narcissistic, who may just want things to keep going the way they've always gone, those folks may very well be taking the position of like, oh, come on, like, well, can't you just figure it out as though now you're the problem for wanting to set this like, this is not okay anymore? And like basically a sense of all the rest of us have figured out a way to put up with it. Why can't you?

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And ask your family eye care professional for SLOR Stellist lenses at your child's next visit. The best scenes I've ever seen in a television show around this was around, I mean, it was so complex, but it was the bear with the very, very abusive mother and very, very, you know, personality, you know, riddled issues and all of that. And that dinner, you know, and obviously the wise move was to not have her come to the dinner. And the son, who was the chef, didn't want her at the dinner. But the daughter remained very trauma-bonded to the mom and told her about it. And then mom came and the son-in-law tried to facilitate it. You can see all this triangulation taking place, right? And then mom still decides to abandon even when given that opportunity.

I thought that was absolutely pitch perfect because the son already got it. And the son was actually the one, the chef's son. So the one son who didn't get it ended up ending his life. The daughter who didn't get it was still caught in a trauma bond. The son who got it was still tortured, but he was the one who had actually fully leaned into his creative genius. That, to me, was not lost in how they sort of set up the characters in that show. Yeah, I absolutely agree for anyone that hasn't seen that.

Definitely go and watch that show because it is such a great view of how these dynamics play out, especially among siblings. And I think when we're talking about adult children and their parents, when there are multiple children in the family, the siblings are often going to be the ones that can play all those roles and I'm kind of wondering, like, well, we were all there. Why can't you figure out a way to handle our childhood in the way that I am, which is tough? So I want to pivot a little bit to talking about adult children. And this might be something that is a blind spot for me that I am absolutely willing to be educated on. But I have a lot of people tell me that, you know, they were a perfect family. Let's say I get a message from, you know, a parent who is

estranged from their child. And their family was wonderful. There was no abuse. There was no neglect, et cetera. And now their child is a narcissist. And I'm wondering, you know, I have a little trouble sometimes with this narrative that the adult child could become narcissistic after growing up in an environment in the way that it's being described. And I'm wondering if you can speak about that, you know, how that happens, if that happens. There's a couple of ways I've seen this play out. I've had people reach out to me under those conditions, but the child actually had a style that was actually more congruent with a borderline personality style and not a narcissistic personality style. There, what we do know is that even in the face of what would be considered

to be not traumatic family environments, you can have the onset of borderline. The genetic evidence for borderline is starting to pile up a bit. There's now the willingness to even diagnose it in adolescence. It's a different beast. It's a very different, it's much more treatable. There's an evidence base. There's a lot more happening there. Now, because we know borderline and narcissistic pathologies can overlap probably half the time. There's probably a pure borderline, pure narcissistic, and then the overlapping, which is a lot of it, a lot of that can show up as quite narcissistic, right? And that might have evolved in managing all the sort of the dysregulation and the overwhelming emotions and in the lack of provision of proper mental

health care for an adolescent with that, which happens in many families, right? So I think in that case, when I've gotten that, I'd say, can you look deeper into your family tree? Are there family members who might have been experiencing high levels of dysregulation, a grandparent, aunt, uncle, someone who was like, you know, second degree relative. Are you seeing any of that? So there's, that's one conversation, okay? Then there's the second conversation where, yes, the whole model family and then this happens, that's confusing. Because now remember two, though, Whitney, one of the pathways to narcissism, it's not adversity and neglect. A primary pathway to narcissism is overindulgence, exceptionalism, you're better, you're special,

you're the star, we're the perfect family, right? And so because of that sort of the special path, that's Von Vries research, that is Brumelman's research, we're seeing multiple studies starting to point that out, that that might be what happened in that family. Now, those parents will push back and say, but my other kids aren't like that, but I'll say your other kids may not have had this temperament. So that temperament with that, you're so special, you're the most special, we're the most special, you're more special than them, the parent may not recognize that level of entitlement. They might have thought they were being a good parent by telling their child they were more special than any other kid.

They, you know, the parent may have also been narcissistic themselves. And while what might have seemed to them to be this perfect family tableau was very performative and like we said, that false self being portrayed. So that would be in some cases. And then the third scenario on this are the people who reach out and say, I have a narcissistic child, I did my very best. I was as present as I could have been, but the co-parent was narcissistic. So there was the turmoil from that. There was the chaos from that. And there might have even been, again, narcissistic parents, especially in the wake of divorce, can be very manipulative.

And they can try to buy that kid off, you know, and say by 15, 16, you're dangling new cars and all kinds of goodies and electronics in front of a kid. Not all kids can be bought off, but some kids can be bought off. And now I'll pay your rent. I'll pay your this. Just stay on the right side of the fence with me. And so that can create a sort of a distancing and an estrangement from that parent who's now experiencing their child is narcissistic. So I think because it's so multi-determined, there is, you know, I would really want to say, what are you calling this? Listen, in some cases these parents are reaching out, and it sounds like their child might actually have bipolar disorder or something like that, in which case they need more intervention.

And in the final scenario, these can be. these can be young adult children who are living with substance use disorders. And substance use can have a lot of the same top notes, the manipulation, the getting the money, the lying, all of that, the denial, the rationalization. That can look like narcissism. And so it's also asking the right questions to find out, is substance use on board? Or are we seeing mania? Like, what other stuff could be happening? Because especially in young adults, it's often where we see the first onsets of manic episodes and even psychotic episodes. So we have to monitor that in late adolescence in early adulthood. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me, and I really appreciate you

kind of illustrating those different paths. I think the thing that I come up against is that a lot of these parents that are calling their adult children narcissistic are quite defensive, right, and on guard about any role that they could have played or could play in the future. And I think this is where the dynamic gets really shifted. We're talking about a romantic relationship with a narcissistic person or a friend, it's a little bit different to me than a parent with a child in the way that we maybe speak to that child or connect with them over this. And I'm wondering if there is a parent who's listening to this and saying, wow, my adult child falls in to one of those camps, if you could speak to how they could be most helpful to that child or if there is any way

they can be helpful. I mean, at the end of the day, whether the parent, had something to do developmentally with the child's onset of narcissism, there is also the issue that they're going to hit the same walls that you'd hit in any narcissistic relationship with the additional shame for some parents that they feel a sense of complicity. Now, you're going to have one camp of parents that are defensive. Again, those parents might be antagonistic themselves. You're going to have another group of parents that feel a tremendous sense of shame, complicity, and grief. Those are very different groups clinically. And so that first defensive, like, you know, I did my best. And, you know, it's to explain that you may have done your best. But one of the classical pairings here is a person's married to a narcissistic person, managing the turmoil of that relationship, not knowing they were married to a narcissistic person, knocking themselves out to be everything their spouse wanted. The parent bearing up against this wasn't narcissistic. But what they were doing was they were giving their A game to the narcissistic parent. So in

they were sort of abandoning their kids because everything was organized around the angry, clangy parent. We need to sue them. We need to calm them. We need to do everything they want. So there was an abandonment. There was an adversity. It may not have clocked as an adversity to the world because a kid was still being taken to soccer games and there was no physical abuse. And the parent was genuinely trying and actually made the choice to stay to avoid the division in family court. like they might have made some horrifically difficult decision, staying 25 years in a terrible marriage because they didn't want their kid to have split custody. Now they're facing a narcissistic child.

So not only did they suffer in the marriage, now they're suffering at the hands of this child in perpetuity. And they're like, are you kidding me? Like I made this choice because I thought it was going to be better for my kid. And so that's a very unique form of grief that the parent will then become quite defensive and say, I thought I did the right thing. by not getting a divorce, so this kid didn't have to be raised in two separate homes. And then it could just as easily be the parent who said, I got a divorce because I didn't

want my kid to see such a messed up marriage. Whatever the choice that was made, you may still end up with a narcissistic child. And tremendous sacrifice was made in some ways to say, I thought I was doing what was right from my kids. The hard thing in working I found clinically with these parents is to say, you did believe it was right and your child still experienced it as an abandonment. And that is not fair and it is unjust and it feels terrible. And we're going to work through that grief. But your child had an experience and not being defensive in the face of their experience might be one of the most

important things you ever do if there's any form of restoration and reparative work that could be done. So if you have a child who's not narcissistic, but is really like, please own that this wasn't okay. Even if the parent feels I feel as though I did what was right at the time, it didn't clock that way. Hold space for your child to say that and be present with it. It's one of the hardest things a parent would ever be asked to do, but that is what parenting is, is sometimes to recognize our best intentions still led to harm. Okay, that's one thing. Now, if your child is actually narcissistic, defensive, not defensive, it doesn't matter. And now you start getting into risky territory because these narcissistic kids may be exploitative, manipulative.

They may use, well, you didn't do right by me, so give me another $10,000. You didn't do right by me, so pay my rent. You didn't do right by me, so pay for my car. And these parents, so riddled with guilt, will buy the car, pay the rent, will clear out their retirement savings. And before they know it, they're looking at destitution in older life and their narcissistic kid just kept dangling the carrot. We'll be close, but you just need to take care of me. So I have watched some older parents of narcissistic kids get wiped out, literally wiped out at the level of what I would call elder abuse. And it was harmful and terrible. And yeah,

it was clear what went wrong in that person's childhood. But I have to say that ultimately, the most dangerous thing they ever did was to continue interacting with their child. Yeah. Yeah. I think that it's so important to remember that each of these dynamics are very nuanced and unique, right? And so I think that's the problem sometimes when I speak about these things. They are speaking to a certain subset of what you just described and they don't apply to these other situations where you truly may have an adult child that for a variety of reasons is engaging in abusive behavior. And it sounds like boundaries are allowed and should be set in all those situations, whether the narcissistic person in your life is your child, your husband, whatever. But I do want to highlight the point you made

about that, like, when you are married to someone who is narcissistic and you have children, that there are so many impossible decisions that you're making and you don't know how they're going to play out. So you could get divorced and then your child is spending 50% of their time alone with that person. Is that going to be worse than me staying here and giving all myself to this person, but maybe protecting them from some of the damage? And I have deep empathy for people who are in a situation like that because there are no good options. And your children are probably going to end up hurt in a different variety of ways, no matter what decision you make. And I think whenever we can accept that that is the outcome and we need to, like you said, sit there and listen to as many

children are you have in their different flavors of pain from that situation, it gets a little bit easier. Like, it lowers the shame some to be like, this is going to hurt us. There's no, there's no good way out of this. We can only do our best. Yeah. And that's incredibly painful because, like I said, this is where the adult narcissistic child kind of world, like you said, in some cases, it's being weaponized. It could be weaponized by a narcissistic parent who's trying to shame their own child for not doing what they want. Like I said, it's so many layers of this. So, I think that we can't talk about it in absolutes. It's sort of we have to dig into the story and see what is happening and why this terminology is being used. But I think that that's why

I receive every story, the patterns that are being presented and recognizing that people are often using words that may or may not apply, but also to help people understand that. You know, none of this is perfect. And I think that we punish people who make choices that they didn't fully understand, like getting married to the wrong person, and punish them for the rest of their lives, including the impact it had on their children. And that's got to end at some point, too, because nobody's ever taught. So much of house people get into successful marriages is luck. It really is. It's absolute luck. And anyone who gives and writes one more manual about how I figured out marriage, I'm like, no, you didn't. You went into a liquor store and you bought a

lottery ticket and you won. It's luck. And so I think that there are certainly, there's tweaks we can do But it is also that not only luck, but it's the luck of the parents you were born to. It's the luck of who you met. If some people are lucky and the narcissistic person leaves them, some people don't figure it out until they're already pregnant. So there's so many ways that this can go down. And I think my work has always been to break that shame of all of us are attracted to narcissistic people. We're actually told that they're who's great on paper. And then or we shame people, narcissistic people have more money.

So then we shame people who don't have money who actually married the sweeter person, but struggle financially. So nobody can win because the standards we put people under are impossible to me. Absolutely. Well, Dr. Romani, I so appreciate you being here today and sharing your expertise. I think this podcast will be helpful to adult children, parents alike. If you could please let us know where people can find you after listening to this episode. Yeah, so please, I'd love, please buy my new book.

It's not you. There's all kinds of tidbits there to help people understand. understand and heal, most pointedly heal from narcissistic relationships, you can go to my website, Dr. Romney.com, where we have information. We have a healing program for people who are experiencing narcissistic relationships and all kinds of other offerings that are always coming up that you can go check out. And I have a YouTube channel. Every day we have new content that's uploaded there. And you can find me on all social media at Dr. Romney. Amazing. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you.

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Oh, Thank you.