Narcissistic parents and revenge

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Especially after all I learned from Alan Mocellim videos (non english speaker). I've noticed something about all those victims of narcissistic parents. They are severely traumatized, both the parents and their children. When the children become adults and start advocating against narcissistic abuse, some pattern was cleary visible to me.

Are those posts explaining all the abuse that their parents inflicted upon them reflecting the hate, envy, disdain? All the negativity that they have experienced throughout their childhood and continue onto their adult lives? There are very enlightening professionals (example: Dr. Diana Diamond) that teach how a narcissist sees the others as extension of themselves. They project their unfulfilled dreams and their own inner demons onto their children and then you have the scapegoat vs. golden child family dynamics.

I noticed a pattern of vengeance and "I want to unmask the narcissist for the whole world to see the truth!". Have these traumatized children unwillingly and unconsciously absorbed all the negative emotions from their parents? And are now projecting all that outwards in hopes that they have some closure? Could this be the same motivation for all the actions that these children's parents themselves took? They often tell how their parents almost ended their lives and it's truly terrifying to know how that has happened in their past. Another question: if those parents hated so much that child, wouldn't it had been easier to end it all? What prevented them from doing so? Shame? Fear? I think that often is that they didn't really want to end that child for good or even pleasure in the case of a parent who is pure evil. They were trying to end whatever they perceived as bad or as a threat in the child. So, what does a child mean to that parent? What did that child represent to them?

There is one source of profound disappointment, sadness, envy, jealousy, disgust, distraught, confusion, appalling, that I've came to notice in people telling how they were mistreated by their narcissistic parents. It's when they tell that other parent's children were never mistreated and even in front of them! How can that narcissistic parent mistreat their own children while treating with kindness, or at least being gentle towards, children of other parents? So when the other children were there in that narcissistic home nobody would notice how abusive that parent is. When the other children are gone, the atmosphere shifts completely. That makes me question: It's really something that makes you feel that reality is somehow wrong, that there's a mistake, that it cannot be. That abusive parent is capable of treating well other children but not their own? Is there something wrong with me? What in the world is happening? I think the answer to such questions depends on the previous paragraph. What do narcissistic parents expect from their own children? What do narcissistic parents think that having kids is? You know, something that I asked myself: Can a parent be pure evil, machiavellic to such a degree, that they purposely want to have kids just to torture them? Do such a thing exist?

Now something made me wonder. Narcissistic parents were also traumatized in some form or another. Are they projecting onto their children their own hate and negative emotions? Hate from what? I once saw an adult woman, now a graduated therapist herself, telling how her mother literally burned that therapist's most cherished belongings and clothes. Here is the question: that mother is surely projecting hate, seeing some memory from her past, onto the now therapist's clothes and belongings no? Have these parents somehow learned to despise / suppress / repress some or most of the emotions and when they see / feel / identify these unwanted emotions in their children, that's a trigger for them? Could we extrapolate the same mechanism of projection to all other personality disorders?

When I see the criticism and campaigns in an attempt to make the whole world aware to narcissistic abuse. Sometimes I get a feeling that those campaigns get mixed up with rage, revenge and hate. Even arousal at times. Isn't this reflecting the narcissistic behavior itself? Because narcissists have one trait which is to crave for attention and validation. Now imagine yourself being invalidated and not getting attention for your needs your whole childhood. Is the excess of criticism and contempt directed towards narcissists also related to the need of validation by those have suffered so much? I personally don't think that portraying narcissists as enemies of the whole society is the best way to define them. After all, they are already perceiving enemies everywhere they go.

Sometimes I see these people telling how they sent a postcard or gift, small or large, cheap or expensive, to their parents and how their parents mistreated that gift and never said "thank you". What causes this duality to hate that parent and, at the same time, want to send love to a person who does not accept it and often times is that hollow shell, void, which is how a narcissist is described as being? Can this also be interpreted as an attempt to manipulate the parent to win over them? Because another trait of narcissistic parents is how they manipulate their children. Have these narcissistic parents at one point in their childhood, unconsciously said to themselves "I don't need or want anyone else's love"? Even though that's what they needed the most? That surely is a deep paradox and explains a lot of how insane a narcissist can be. Can't we also say that the fact that a narcissistic parent, while projecting all their negativity onto a child of their own, by not kicking them out or ending it for good was also an ambivalent relationship?

I kind of understand why these traumatized people often call their parents criminals. Because in multiple ways, the description of what happened is truly a crime. On the other side, isn't giving in to so much contempt and criticism a misguided effort? Can't life be better than that? You know, once I wanted so much revenge on some person who had some very very mild similarities to a narcissist and it just hit me "What if I wanted to kill every evil person? Suppose I wanted to end all narcissists or psychopaths everywhere in the world? Would I become a serial killer or something? Hmm... there is something in this reasoning. Maybe this explains the extreme actions that dictators throughout human history took in the name of justice or something?" One very common pattern that I've read in all stories of toxic and abusive relationships with narcissists is how common it is for a narcissist to be vindictive. Do you know what I've found about that particular person which I wanted to get revenge on? That person never held grudges and had no hatred at all. It was more akin to indifference because that person never took any offense as personal. There were many other issues related to ego, passive aggressiveness, manipulation tactics and lack of empathy, but no hatred which I've found curious.

I read a lot about narcissism and ego and also about many mental health disorders in general. It seems clear to me that we cannot separate narcissistic people from cognitive impairments or deficits. I see no other way to explain how can narcissistic personality disorder have such severe distortions in the perception of reality and in processing emotions. When I read about all which encompasses development issues and learning disabilities. So much of that seems to overlap with what describes narcissist's behavior. There must be a link, some unknown connection there. It's not just trauma alone, is it? All other personality disorders seem to overlap too with cognition, development and learning. There is one common issue across all personality disorders and not just disorders alone, but it can affect almost all people in general. The concepts of good and bad, right and wrong, positive and negative, acceptable and unacceptable, are in many ways, flipped upside down or severely distorted somehow.

To give a practical example. Suppose the child is bad at math, bad at writing, have poor motor coordination skills or bad at remembering names of people. Do the narcissistic parent also suffers from some of those? Do they mock their own children for that? If yes, are they trying to mock themselves? Are they trying to get revenge on what happened to themselves in the past? Because another description of narcissists in general is how, behind their mask, they hate themselves in extreme levels. Extending a bit to other personality disorders. I think that mockery is not the only response. There may be parents who want to "teach" their children to hide away, to ignore it, to despise it, to run away or to avoid. Responses which aren't addressing that particular problem either. When it happens it isn't always as straight as "I forbid you to...". It can be indirect, subtle, a passive aggressive question "Why do you waste your time studying math? [insert reason here]" or advices such as "Don't play games with other kids, you'll have a much better future if you stay at home studying". Even prejudice such as "I don't want you to be [insert profession here] because they are losers / immoral / arrogant / ugly / something." It can also be by their own behavior, not saying anything, but showing it, giving the example.

After all this discussion about narcissistic parents, some other idea came to me. What about the opposite? What if the parent projects an excess of love, an excess of kindness, an excess of compassion? What if the relationship between the parents and their children is like an emptiness, a void, the absence of emotions, an ocean without waves at all? Both of these can't be healthy, can they? To give an example: I've learnt some about borderline and almost all children of borderline parents tell stories of how their relationship was erratic, unstable, the ever shifting moods and states, from hate to love in the most unpredictable ways. Which is as harmful as the relationship being close to non-existent, pure coldness, as if emotions were all gone with no interactions / reactions to anything.

"I want my children to follow on my footsteps". That's not narcissistic at all from all which I've learned. That's just normal. As much as wanting your children to not follow on your mistakes or shortcomings. All that learning, which the funny thing was triggered by hate and revenge, lead me to one belief. Parents have some control over their children, but not to the extends of willingly and purposefully / deliberately causing specific disorders. I mean, they may be aware that they are mistreating, being abusive or even encouraging crimes for the matter. But I don't think it works like this: "I am aware that I am a narcissist and I want my child to be a narcissist too". Maybe the closest is something like "I am aware that I am evil and I want to raise evil". But that still leaves the question: What is considered evil and what isn't for them, the parents?

References (portuguese only)

• Vingança Contra Um Narcisista: por que buscar vingança é um problema? - Alan Mocellim
• Perdão egoísta: perdoar para ser mais feliz - Seiiti Arata
• Por que é difícil perdoar? - Pedro Calabrez
• Mãe narcisista é tudo igual? Os relatos dos filhos mostram que sim - Luci Gameiro

References (english only)

• You Seek Revenge Against A Narcissist? - Dr. Leslie Carter
• This is THE REASON you can't get REVENGE on a narcissist - Dr. Ramani Durvasula
• Serving the narcisist up some cold revenge - Dr. Ramani Durvasula
• Narcissists Revenge: Signs YOU are in DANGER - Professor Sam Vaknin
• The forgiveness project