So many of you out there have been raised by a narcissistic father. The thing about having a toxic parent is that you have no say in the matter; none of us were asked to be born.
It takes kids growing into adults years to fully comprehend the scale and magnitude of what it was like to daily see these 7 things from your narcissistic father, and I don't think any child should be seeing them.
Let's get into it, because I really think this affects a lot of you.
And I want to say this upfront. If you're reading and nodding, none of what you saw was normal, and none of it was your fault to carry.
1 Yes… your own dad
The pain of having a narcissistic father is real for so many people, survivors, who have endured years of neglect and abuse due to their toxic dad. Your father is supposed to be the man who raises you to show you what safety looks like.
They are there to comfort you and show you the world is less scary with their presence in it. A father is supposed to love their child without condition, and without judgement.
One of the first things you see, and that will remain etched in your memory even if you don't consciously remember it, is seeing your narcissistic father talk down to your mother. He will make her feel sad, isolated and low.
He won't hesitate to talk down in front of you, whether you're all sitting at the dinner table, or in the car on your way to vacation. She can't do a thing right. Your mother is lucky that I even care.
Please don't end up being like her when you're older. Whatever the comments are, your stomach will drop and drop every single time. Kids absorb all of that, even if they don't really understand it. It's all filed away, and it becomes the norm for them. Your own dad.
Can you imagine what that must be like? Maybe some of you don't have to imagine it, because it's your reality.
And it doesn't just sting in the moment. It rewires how you see love, how you see women, how you see yourself. That damage runs deep.
It will be the first time you get your heart broken.
2 Emotional explosions out of the blue
No child should have to witness explosions in the house they live and grow up in. When it comes to having a narcissistic father, the children will dread what other children don't even know exists, and I think that's a very heartbreaking reality for many.
The moment a narcissist father comes home from work and through the door, those children learn to scan his face for signs of threat or danger. What sort of day did he have? What mood is he bringing home? What does that mean for you, the child?
It could go either way, and that's a very real problem for the child who then has to accommodate that mood and live with it for the rest of the evening.
One minute everything might be fine, the next, he is yelling over something so insignificant like a cup being left on the side, or the TV being off when it should be on for the news.
I had a client tell me her father once flipped because the butter was on the wrong shelf. She was eight, and she still checks fridges in other people's homes.
Someone laughed too loudly. The whole house shifts, and it does so with great speed. It's terrible for any child to witness, and no child should have to be in the position where they're walking on such fragile eggshells.
See also 7 Weaknesses Every Narcissist Has That Will Destroy Them In The EndThis is the type of setting that breeds hypervigilance, and that hypervigilance sticks around for a very long time after childhood ends. You've moved out, you've got your own life, but that part of you remains, and you never know where it came from. Perhaps you did.
All hypervigilant roads lead back to the narcissistic father.
3 Where did Mom go?
I know it seems like a quiet one, but don't think for one second that it doesn't come with a strong punch. Over the years of being together, a child of a narcissistic father will spend their lives watching their mother shrink.
She will get smaller and smaller as she stops having opinions, and says she's sorry for things that aren't even her fault.
She will look at her husband, waiting for permission to speak, and she won't feel that she's able to do anything independently, because she'll have been made to believe that's impossible. As a child, you'll be sitting across the table watching every part of this.
Nothing will pass you by as you see this is what it means to love and be married to someone.
You'll learn that the person who talks the loudest and creates all the drama gets to call all the shots, and that's a hard thing for any child to have to endure. You continue to grow into an adult and watch your mother stay small.
If she's lucky, she will get out and start healing, but for many mothers, they remain, and it's painful to witness.
I had a client tell me she still remembers her mother mouthing "sorry" across the dinner table, for nothing, just for existing. She was seven. She never forgot it.
4 Narcissistic fathers make you as their kid choose
You as the child of a narcissistic father will be put in the middle of so much growing up. You're on my side, right? Don't tell your mother. I can see your mother is starting to turn you against me.
A child hears these comments and has to carry the heavy weight of the parent's emotional baggage, which of course, isn't right and hurts like hell.
And the worst part? You're a kid. You don't have the tools to hand it back. You just absorb it and think this is what love looks like.
Being triangulated like that teaches you that to be loyal to one parent means to betray the other, and that's not how the world should work.
No wonder when you're older, it becomes so difficult for you to know who you are, and how to be your own self away from this dynamic. You're not imagining any of it, trust me.
5 "Is this love?", the assumption that toxic dynamics are normal
Many victims attest to reflecting on their time growing up with a narcissistic fathers and seeing it be love. They think abuse is love, and no child should have to see that. Love isn't making someone feel purposely pained because it makes him feel good.
Love isn't criticizing your spouse daily, eroding their confidence and self-esteem. When you have one parent who is healthy, and another who is a narcissist, it will never make for normal dynamics.
Instead, it just means you view it as what every marriage and every mother and father act like when together. To hear your own father call your mother drab, or exhausting, or needy. To see him slam doors, yell, give your mother the silent treatment? That's just as bad.
It gets even more confusing when the next day, your father calls your mother the love of his life. You see him hug her tightly and tell her how lucky he is to have her.
So which version is real? The child's brain scrambles to make sense of it, and usually lands on, "I guess love just feels like this sometimes." It doesn't.
This is a constant, miserable rollercoaster of a ride to be in, but it is also the same to witness, too.
You grow up with the assumption that this kind of love is what everyone experiences, and so you are far more likely to end up looking for that hot and cold in your own relationships. I find that the saddest aspect of all, and it's no joke.
Seeing that dynamic daily is something no child should ever see.
6 The performance in front of guests
The doorbell rings and suddenly he's a different man. Warm voice, big smile, an arm around your shoulder that never sat there ten minutes ago. "There's my kid," he says, ruffling your hair like it's something he does.
You freeze because you don't know this version. You know the one who was snapping at your mother in the kitchen thirty seconds ago about the wine glasses. You know the one who called you useless yesterday for spilling juice.
But the guests see a lovely dad. They tell you how lucky you are. And you nod, because what else are you supposed to do?
That performance teaches you something ugly. It teaches you that love can be switched on for an audience and switched off the second the door closes. It teaches you image matters more than you do.
And it teaches you to distrust your own memory, because everyone in that room saw a good father and you're the only one seeing the other man.
That's a heavy thing to carry as a child.
7 What he taught you about apologies
An apology, in his mouth, was a weapon. Not a repair.
See also 5 Creepy Things Every Narcissist Hides Somewhere in Their HouseIf he ever said sorry, it came with a tail attached. "Sorry, but you made me." "Sorry you feel that way." "Sorry, okay? Can we drop it now?" That last one usually meant the subject was closed forever, and if you brought it up again, you were the one holding a grudge.
So you grew up thinking sorry was something you said to shut a person up. A password. A get out clause. Not a moment of actual reflection.
And then look at what he demanded from you. Full apologies. Eye contact. The right tone. Say it again, say it properly, say it like you mean it. Meanwhile his own sorries were vapour.
You learned that accountability was for smaller people. For you. Never for him.
It takes a long time to unlearn that. To say sorry and actually mean it, without flinching, without adding a "but", without waiting for punishment. That word belongs to you now. He doesn't get to define it anymore.
