Rules children follow in a narcissistic home

hi everybody I hope you're doing well and I've had a good week and the video today is going to be about some of the most common rules that are found in a dysfunctional family home now these rules are something that a child learns from a very young age these are constantly mirrored to them from their mom or their dad these are the messages that they constantly hear which eventually leads them to grow up and only know these rules as being what is supposed to be healthy so I'm going to go through the rules I have about let me just check I have about nine there's probably a couple more but these are the ones that I think are the most important I've just written a list here in a Word document so I'm just going to go through them so the first one that is very common in a dysfunctional family home which states change reality to make things look respectable and this brings up the subject of gas lighting so for instance as a child you might have seen something that wasn't very nice or wasn't considered respectable like your father might have felt falling down the stairs because you'd had too much to drink and the mother will say well actually no that didn't really happen you must have made a mistake and will tell you no that's not how it happened that's not what you saw and also it's not something that you want to talk about with anybody because if you do then they will think you're crazy or they will not like you anymore so change in reality is something that narcissists do a lot they like gas lighting they like making you think that things were not as you think they were because this protects their image to the outside world so reality has constantly changed in a dysfunctional home why one or both parents are narcissistic now rule number two is that you always keep the family secrets now this is also where this gas lighting comes in gas lighting is in a way to control you so you don't talk about things that you may have seen in the home that you may have seen your parents do and that is because they always want to keep the family secrets so a child is taught from a young age that they have to protect the family image and that they always have to talk about their parents in a positive respectful way so you always have to watch what you say and be very careful not to talk about the things that mummy and daddy might have got up to and you know you're taught that if you stay quiet that if you're loyal and that you keep mommy and daddy secrets then you will get a reward for that but if you do go out and tell somebody what mommy and daddy might have said or done then mommy and daddy are not going to love you anymore so that is how they control the child and to always keeping their mouth shut essentially that is what parents always do in a dysfunctional home now rule number three in a dysfunctional home where parents are narcissistic is that a child has to always act and be like an adult now this is completely unreasonable how can a child act and be like an adult they are a child children are children you can't expect a child to be an adult they're not supposed to be they're supposed to be carefree and they're supposed to have fun they're supposed to you know have a tantrum one minute and then be really happy the next children and children and in a dysfunctional home children sometimes are parentis I'd the adult might have so many immature needs that they will end up making the child look after those needs so for instance a child might be made to take care of the parents emotional needs when the parent is having a meltdown about something that daddy did to mummy or the the way around if a parent talks the child about certain adult issues and expects the child to support them emotionally and that's that's inappropriate another thing that might happen in in this sort of scenario where the expect a child to be an adult is that they expect a child to do certain chores in the house for the mom or the dad they expect their child to do the cleaning and take on responsibilities that are not really something that a child should do and I'm not talking about you know giving a child pocket money by saying well if you wash the car with Daddy then this will earn you ten pounds you know I'm not talking about that there's always a way of teaching a child responsibility of teaching them that in order to make money when you're older you have to do certain things and to do these certain things this will earn you a little bit of pocket money that's a different scenario I'm talking about making a child overly responsible for the parents needs generally the message that children get from this is that their feelings are not important that they always have to be stronger and bigger and they always have to do what mommy and daddy wants that mommies and daddies needs are more important if mommy's sad then you have to make sure mommy is happy rule number four is it's basically one of the worst in my opinion this is what causes cognitive dissonance in a child and they just don't understand what is going on and rule number four is that parents always send mixed messages to their children especially when it comes to relationships so for instance a child might go to her mommy and and the mom might say to the child I love you darling but can you please just go away now I'm busy don't bother me anymore and the child will think well okay mommy just said she loved me but why did she just tell me to go away that's a small example but I'm talking about things that might be for instance more constant more frequent so you know the child might go to the daddy and bring the daddy his you know his cup of coffee and constantly trying to get daddy's approval daddy's attention daddy's lovin the child is sort of standing in front of the TV while daddy's watching his football game and daddy says I'll thank you darling and he says I'll come on get out the way now I'm trying to see this match and and ompletely dismiss as a child and doesn't give him a hug doesn't ask the child to come and sit on the sofa with him he just tells the child to go away and that's another example and a parent says that they love the child or it shows them that they love the child in spoken words but their actions say something completely different so their actions show that they don't really care then the child doesn't know what to feel the child has cognitive dissonance you know they've got these two sort of conflicting beliefs of mommy and daddy told me they love me but mommy and daddy don't want me near them mommy and daddy told me to go away so the child doesn't know what to think so that is rule number four that the child eventually learns to avoid that it's safer to avoid people in relationships it's safer to not expect anything and not to trust anybody so this causes very low self-esteem and codependency and it causes people pleasing the child constantly learns that if only I do this for mommy and daddy only then will I get a bit of attention only then will I get a little bit of love and it's a horrible thing now and one of the other rules in a narcissistic home is that you are not allowed to feel your feelings as a child and you're not allowed to express your feelings and this is very common a child might for instance cry because her bunny died and her father will be like for goodness sake what are you crying for you should feel like that it's just a bunny it's not a big deal grow up and the child is like what the hell like the child doesn't know what to do with this feelings and feels like oh my god I'm not allowed to be upset now I'm bad because I'm upset now because my bunny died I shouldn't be upset and any display of emotion um basically might reveal that the family is weak and if the parents have this this idea in their head that oh my goodness no you shouldn't be upset and you shouldn't go to school and be sad because your bunny died and you shouldn't do this and you shouldn't do that because it's not good that we talk about our feelings and it's not good that we show our emotions then the child will end up stuffing down these emotions and these will then later resurfaced in the future when you're you know the child has become an adult and this will cause anxiety this will cause depression so this is one of also the main reasons why a lot of adult children of dysfunctional families end up having mental illness because they were always told that they weren't allowed to express their feelings they were told that it's not okay to be upset but it's not okay to be angry that it's not okay to talk about anything so that's rule number five number six is that as a child you learn that it is okay for people to invade your boundaries especially the people that love you and I'm saying that because obviously the parents aren't the closest people you have in your family and okay you might have siblings as well but if in that family your parents are constantly invading your boundaries then that's kind of what you know and number seven is that you have to be hyper vigilant this is another thing that parents teach a child in a dysfunctional home but the child always has to be hyper vigilant so the child might constantly be reminded that the world is a dangerous place they might class be reminded that well you shouldn't trust that person because they might hurt you you know never believe what anybody tells you because they probably want something or they're probably lying so yeah for instance a child might want to go and play with another little boy in a park daddy will say no no no don't do that don't go play with that little boy you don't know you don't know where that little boy came from you don't know what his parents is like don't do that it's better that you just stay with us or I don't know it could be something as simple as a child trying to climb a climbing frame that is suitable for his age and the mom and dad are so scared that they're like oh no no don't do that you're gonna fall off you're gonna hurt yourself if that is happening all the time if that is repeated to a child constantly that the child just has no confidence the child doesn't learn how to figure things out for himself or herself if the parents are constantly sort of making the child scared like no no don't do that don't speak to him don't do that because this is gonna happen and if they're always selling a child well no no no you can't do it this is gonna happen something Bad's gonna happen something Bad's gonna happen and that's constantly the message they get then the child grows up with no confidence they have no confidence in their own decisions they are too scared to do anything they are too scared to try anything new because they're so afraid that they're gonna hurt themselves or that they're gonna fail so they're always living in this protective bubble the lesson learned is that they always have to be on guard that they always have to be over-prepared and they shouldn't trust anybody and if they do they might get hurt and you know of course that isn't a very helpful way to be is it you don't want to be this person you don't want to be very very scared all the time and have no confidence number eight is that the parents expect the child to constantly be perfect so rule number eight is you have to be perfect otherwise you are not lovable so if a child for instance is doing homework with their father or their mother and they're having trouble trying to figure out some aspect of that homework and the parent gets impatient and you know the parent starts thinking oh goodness my child is stupid my child doesn't and they start telling the child but why can't you solve it you have to solve it you're not stupid you're clever come on try and do it please do it and the child is sitting there going well okay I can't figure this out like if you're not able to be perfect then you must be stupid you're only lovable if you can solve this problem and this is really destructive the child grows up thinking well if I don't do this right I'm not going to be loved if I can't solve this problem I'm not going to be liked they the child grows up to be fearful of trying anything new because they're scared that they're gonna mess up and that people are gonna laugh at them and people gonna criticize them because this is what their parents always did so yeah that's number eight that you have to be perfect and what you do has to be perfect and that you have to solve everything and if you can't then you're not lovable so number nine is a bit similar to number eight that narcissistic families want their kids to be perfect because they want to look good to the outside world and they don't want the outside world knowing that oh well maybe my child is a bit silly because they can't figure this out number nine is that you're not allowed to make any mistakes so this is similar to the narcissistic parents expecting the child to always be perfect if a child is pushed aside if a child is rejected because they tried to solve a puzzle and they couldn't do it and the parent was like oh for God's sake why can't you do that but it's easy if they make a mistake and the parent just gets really angry at them and makes them feel really worthless and incompetent the child will then never ever try and do anything new ever again it will completely destroy their self-esteem and their self-worth every time they try and do something they'll think oh my goodness if I do this and I make a mistake then what am I going to do how am I going to fix it how are we going to get them to love me it stays ingrained in their head they aren't able to move past that so that's rule number nine child children in a dysfunctional home are not allowed to make any mistakes I think that's it I hope you found it helpful I'm sorry if I wasn't connecting so much with the camera because I was just kind of going through the list of all these rules that I wrote down and I have them in a word file just next to the camera here so I hope it was helpful anyway and that you can hear me well and if there's anything that you could resonate with and please let me know if there's anything else any other rules that you can think of that might have affected you in the way that you think about the world because of your upbringing then please let me know thanks very much for watching everybody I'm sorry this videos a bit longer than my other videos but I just hope that people can find some sort of comfort in it knowing that they're not alone please click Subscribe if you haven't already feel free to leave comments and if you haven't followed my blog and my facebook page then please check them out there on the link at the front of my youtube page thanks very much everybody have a good week and I will see you next Monday

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Views: 1,141,288

Rating: 4.8029718 out of 5

Keywords: narcissistic family, narcissistic abuse, narcissistic parents, child abuse, emotional abuse, dysfunctional family, dysfunctional parents, most common narcissistic rules, narcissistic family dynamics, abusive families, rules children follow in a narcissistic home, narcissistic emotional abuse, covert narcissistic parent, overt narcissistic parent, extreme criticism, rules children follow in an abusive home, child emotional abuse, my mum hurts me, my dad hurts me

Id: oHe3I6sPIiQ

Length: 16min 42sec (1002 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 24 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Shy-Knight]

....All of this. For me, personally, especially number 7 and 8. They’re things that I’ve just come to terms with (in being afraid of everything) and I’m trying to deal with it in therapy. I grew up being constantly told that if I went out, or literally did anything.. I would get raped, chopped into little pieces, and never seen again. That the world and the people living in it are beyond dangerous. I always thought I was alone because I was told and made to feel like I was delusional. But to read through all these posts and be like “holy shit my mother does the SAME. EXACT. THING!!!” Is beyond helpful in its own way. I’m finally taking a stand and trying to experience things I was never able to before. Mind you, I’m still terrified, but hopefully I’ll come out even stronger for pushing through it. And I wish the same for anyone else going through things like this.