Welcome to the Sexy Nurse Chronicles, a mental health podcast on love, relationships, and your mental health. I am your host Nurse 2 Keys and thank you so much for tuning in. In this episode, we’re going to have a conversation about behaviors that you may display that may be the result of childhood narcissistic abuse.

Sign #1: Do you always find yourself sacrificing your emotional and physical needs to please your mother and/or significant other? Well, if you do, this is a common trait of someone who’s been abused by a narcissist.

You just don’t know how to say no, huh? Well, I was a yes person all my life and I thought it was just because I believe in being loyal, and I always wanted to be that person that everyone could depend on. According to Warren, as most children grow up, they sacrifice some of their needs to please their mother, and although it’s natural for children to be selfish, in a healthy home over time, the child normally outgrows that selfishness. But, growing up with a narcissistic parent, you are required to sacrifice your needs and do whatever you have to do to keep the peace, even if it’s only for a brief moment. And it’s sad to say, but as you grew up you noticed that the more you did what your mom wanted you to do, the more love you received. This is called conditional love. I love you as long as you do x, y, and z and the more you go against the grain, the more you are being told that you’re selfish, a burden, toxic, and just plain out crazy. And then here comes the smear campaign.

I found an article on mindbodygreen.com that says “Some adults grow up but remain stuck in the role they had to take on as children. They continue to be extremely self-sacrificing in their relationships. Their voices, preferences, opinions, desires, dreams, etc., all get inhibited,” Behary says, “because that’s what was expected of them by their narcissistic parents.” (The counterpart or opposite of a narcissist is sometimes referred to as an echoiest, which tends to attract narcissists.)  And, people who grew up with narcissistic parents might feel the need to accommodate others to an extreme in adulthood. Generally, this occurs at times they should be upholding boundaries. “This is a result of there being no room for your own subjectivity growing up,” Spinelli says. “Or you were made to feel guilty by the narcissistic parent.”

Sign #2: Do you isolate yourself?

While the narcissistic mother may isolate you herself, many children withdraw from people because they don’t want people to know about the abuse that they dealt with, so instead of asking for help, you simply avoid people and spend your time alone. And then there’s being super independent. Over the years you may have become counter-dependent, meaning you are extremely independent and feel ashamed to ask people for help, even in times that you should. When I would ask my mom for lunch money, I got bitched out and frequently told that I was a burden so I went without. Have you been told the same thing? And as far as isolation, do you isolate yourself from family members, friends, classmates, and coworkers?

Sign #3: Do you find yourself destroying your self-esteem or do you participate in self-sabotage?

There may be two reasons why you constantly participate in self-sabotage. The first reason may be because you’re always used to hearing that you are a disappointment, you never do anything right, you are stupid, you’ll never amount to anything, your selfish, ungrateful, or any negative comments, so you start to believe it. And I mean, your inner critic is loud! A narcissistic parent is often judgmental and critical and this attaches to one’s own internal messaging. This inner critic of yours may manifest itself as perfectionism and lead to self-doubt and lack of confidence.

Now don’t get me wrong, as kids, we can do some dumb stuff. Even with my children, especially my oldest, I have to catch myself when I’m angry in the heat of the moment from telling her she’s dumb because she’s not, she’s smarter than me when I was her age, so instead I say “Baby you are not dumb but what you just did was dumb as hell, get your shit together.” Now some people may agree and some won’t and clearly, I don’t give a damn.

The second reason that you may participate in self-sabotage is that it’s a coping mechanism.  So, if you find yourself constantly telling yourself that you’re worthless, then childhood narcissism could be why. It wasn’t until I went to see a therapist that I had to rewire my brain to understand that I am not worthless, I am worthy, I am not selfish, I am selfless, I am not a burden, I am needed on this earth to share God’s light that he gave me. Look at me, everything my mother told me was a lie, and now I live in my truth.

Sign #4: Do you find yourself protecting yourself emotionally and mentally from the abuse by telling yourself that your mother isn’t that bad?

I did this growing up as a coping mechanism to suppress traumatic memories and I didn’t know any better. I often had mistaken abuse as a mere form of punishment. It wasn’t until I went on my self-healing journey that I had to come to terms with how traumatic my childhood was. I wanted to see my childhood from an adult’s point of view so I spoke to some of my childhood friends’ parents and yes, they confirmed that I wasn’t going crazy and that I had to grow up fast. Before my healing, I thought it was normal to have to watch, practically raise, my younger sibling while my mom was missing in action. I thought it was normal to have to fend for myself and my sister and that I deserved whatever my mom would dish out when I was wrong, but as stated in prior episodes… neglect, verbal abuse, manipulation, slander, withholding, and emotional blackmail are types of abuse.

Sign #5: Do you struggle with physical problems d/t your abuse?

Coping with chronic emotional and psychological abuse can affect you physically. Signs and symptoms of this type of abuse may cause you to develop an eating disorder, have high blood pressure, have an abnormally high heart rate that can eventually turn into heart disease, so now you’re taking blood pressure pills, and you may become sick more often because stress lowers your immune system. Stress from narcissistic abuse has caused your body to act negatively towards it.

Additionally, mindbodygreen.com says being raised by a narcissist can also lead to:

• Anxiety
• Low self-worth
• Depression
• Self-doubt
• A tendency to be codependent in relationships

As my pastor once said, “If I’m gonna have high blood pressure, it ain’t gonna be because of what someone said or did to me, it’ll be because of some fried chicken, pork chops, turnip greens, mac and cheese, sweet potato pie.”

Sign #6: Do you find yourself dissociating yourself, or withdrawing yourself from your environment so you can better cope. You become numb. 

This is a coping mechanism that helps you push out negative memories of abuse and event that took place between you and your mother. It’s not that you don’t believe that the abuse happened, you just dissociate yourself to not deal with it. Instead, you find other ways to cope like addiction or allowing the effects to take on a life of their own within your personality. You may remain very child-like because there was so much of your childhood taken away from you, therefore you find yourself trying to nurture your inner self. And then there’s identifying your feelings. You may become incredibly angry towards your abuser and unable to explain this anger. As an adult, you struggle to identify your own emotions simply because you were never allowed to have emotions or express them. Coping with a narcissistic parent often creates the need to dissociate for self-preservation, and as a result, identifying emotions and being able to connect with your feelings is more of a challenge.”