Why Narcissists Want Children - Yet Scar Them For Life. Expert on Narcissism Explains

[Music] hi welcome to my latest youtube video i'm ross rosenberg i'm the author of the human magnet syndrome and the creator of the self-love recovery treatment program otherwise known as a codependency cure today i'm here to address a question that i get all the time people wonder why do narcissists have children or what i would call pathological narcissist now just to be clear because i'm not sure if all of you have read my book the human magnet syndrome the narcissist codependent trap but i define pathological narcissism as narcissistic personality disorder borderline personality disorder and anti-social personality disorder and then there are the subcategories of them and and i'm not going to go into all of them but one category is covert narcissist and there's many others but why do these severely psychologically damaged people have children if you just use logic you would think well why does a selfish person who's entitled who always wants to be on stage and having everyone look at him and appreciate them and to be enamored with what they say they do why would they want to have a child to come into their life and take all that away from them why would they want to have a child that eventually they're going to feel burdened by and perhaps neglect abandoned or abused well let me explain why before i begin i should say that a good portion of what i will be talking about is in my book the human magnet syndrome on chapter 8 the origins of codependency before i tell you why these entitled harmful grandiose vain people want to have children let me first explain about personality disorders in the mental health field we diagnose individuals who have psychological problems challenges disorders it's very similar than medical doctors if we're going to treat someone provide a solution that could potentially help them we have to classify them correctly so we know what we have so if someone has a persona disorder and there are and i'm going to guess and i apologize for those who are really well read and studied but i'm going to guess 11 to 13 of them probably more but if you have a personality disorder the key central feature is you don't know you have it you see the problems that you have in others most personnel disorders especially those that i consider pathological narcissists they do not know that they have them and if they should be told they get very angry very defensive they have a narcissistic injury there is an eruption of anger retaliation and sometimes abuse they are so fragile but they don't know it that they are unable to look in the mirror both metaphorically and realistically and see who that person is with all their flaws and accept that and want to do anything about it and if you should try to send that person to treatment or therapy the probability is extremely low that they will go and if they should go they will have a narcissistic injury an eruption of shame or rage and they will quit the therapy therefore therefore the prognosis to help these individuals is very very low and in some cases close to zero so a person who is a pathological narcissist wants to be in love just like the sld the person with self-love deficit disorder or self-love deficiency which is my term i use for codependent and codependency and that seems very hard for people to understand pathological narcissists especially those who have borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personal disorder want to be in love they don't want to be alone they have a substantial and incredible amount of anxiety and fear about being alone and i call that and many of you already know this pathological loneliness [Music] they have core shame that goes all the way back to their childhood that is so big so monumental the brain devised the strategy for them to not have to be encumbered or bothered by it it removes the memories that created the core shame mainly those during their attachment phase of their life or because of attachment trauma they sequestered these memories in a part of the brain called the amygdala it is part of our limbic system and it stores memories of trauma which the brain has determined that it cannot handle or the mind cannot handle and it removes them from the thinking part of the brain into a part that's below it so from the cerebral cortex or the prefrontal cortex the thinking part of the brain to a part of the limbic system that is not necessarily connected to our everyday conscious thought that is why pathological narcissists don't remember their childhood that is why they will not want to talk about their childhood or what they remember about their childhood is candy-coated it's a glorified whitewashing of history because if they could remember their childhood they would have a psychological meltdown and that is a clinical fact this pathological narcissist who is not conscious of the core shame who's not not conscious of the debilitating pathological loneliness who is addicted to relationships the same way the sld is and i have many videos and educational seminars on that topic i say this because they have a fantasy just like all of us healthy and people who are suffering or have mental health dysfunction they have a fantasy to get married to have children and to live happily ever after whatever that means and how that ends up only the people with antisocial personality disorder or sociopaths are very very conscious of this and for the most part this video does not really address sociopathy or the person with antisocial personality disorder so the narcissist wants to be normal wants to be happy wants to have what he or she never had growing up and that part is conscious but what they don't know is the need to have children is this very unsuccessful way that their mind is trying to work out their trauma and help them feel good about who they are and what they can become so i call this the good parent fantasy for the most part it's universal everyone who wants children has a fantasy of when they grow up and want to get married and have a child but for those who are not pathological narcissists it is rooted based in reality a healthy person does not dream of having a child to make them feel better does not have a fantasy that by being a father or a mother and having children will take away their pain from what happened to them when they were young healthy people people with self-love abundance they want children because of the wonder the beauty that i you know i i'm at a loss of words because having my son was the best thing that ever happened to me but just for the wonder of it all and bringing a child into this world and helping that child be a happy productive satisfied individual mentor guide and love that person little person to a big person and experience the satisfaction that only a child can give to you which is which is about them not us i don't have to tell you guys this but an example with my son ben when ben got a it was i think it was a 33 score on the a.c.t college placement course and his dad who did not get anything like that that's me i was so proud of him i was proud of him not because my son was so smart and it had to do with me because truth be told i don't know if it had to do with me but you know if it did that's cool it's just because he was smart that brought me pride and it had nothing to do with me whereas a narcissist they will need it to be about them they will need it to be a reflection of them so we've established that pathological nurses have personality disorders we've established that pathological narcissists mainly mpd and bpd dream and fantasize about being a parent and having a child i want to establish that narcissist and pd and bpd they actually love too many videos and books and educational resources out there are wrong when they say narcissists cannot love they don't have empathy they don't have remorse what they're describing is sociopaths or people with antisocial personality disorder but npd and bpd individuals i hate to call a person by a diagnosis but people with these disorders when they really want to be in a relationship and love in the beginning for them it's love and of course for the sld the codependent it feels like love and of course this is not a fair topic for me to talk about in this video because it's really the whole thesis of my book human magnet syndrome they come together because they are naturally paired they fall in love they have this honeymoon period or they experience limerence and then all heck breaks out but the narcissist wants a child to make themselves feel good to somehow heal fix or overcome the shame the the trauma that has been pushed down in their unconscious go away or sue them they have a one-dimensional fantasy about being a parent they are the dimension it is all about how this child will make them feel even though they have within their fantasy life these ideas of having a child a child loving them they loving the child but when the rubber hits the road when it actually happens they become apparent it becomes all about that we interrupt our program to bring you this important message [Music] and now back to your regularly scheduled program but to understand this one-dimensional fantasy you also have to know that it is a repackaging of everything that is hurting inside of them everything that is feeling bad inside of them that they're conscious moreover it's all of the unconscious baggage that they keep that they can't even think about because it's too painful the shame the trauma that they endured the self-hate that they can't imagine so what they do is they repackage their life they create this fictional story this fictional account of where they came from how they became who they are and this idea this fantasy about being a parent and that gives them hope that gives them hope to find even deeper happiness and meaning for which they don't have an ability to actualize so they repackage themselves they conveniently forget what happened to them they have no ability to understand that pervasive selfishness that pervasive neediness that personality disorder pathology so they find a way to repackage all of this garbage that they're unable to face to what i call a good parent narrative the first good parent narrative is god giver of life in this narrative they fantasize they don't know they're fantasizing but they are fantasizing about being this beneficent all loving all accepting all nurturing person like a god who has the power to bring someone into the world to give life let me explain it by just reading a couple sentences and i'm going to do that periodically as i go through these narratives the god-giver of life narrative narcissists adopt a god-like persona reinforced by their holier than thou and sanctified creator of the child life story line their head is in the clouds as they float in their grandiosity and entitlement about the miracle of life that they produce many of you might know one of these pathological narcissists who believe that they are part of something magical and holy and godlike and for someone who has no self-esteem that is overwhelmed unconsciously by core shame this narrative allows them to at least temporarily escape the next narrative is the opposite parent the opposite parent adopts the unrealistic and illogical view that they will love respect and care for their child in a way that their parents never did they reduce the quite complicated task of wearing a child into the simple belief they will be a good parent if they raise their own child in the exact opposite way than they were raised this narcissist has this illogical and fantasy-based belief system that if they just do the opposite then they will be happy and their child will be happy and they can live happily ever after together and their pain will go away but the problem is and they don't know this is it doesn't work that way you just can't listen to a child and have empathy and want to play baseball with them or to play with dolls just because of your fantasy you actually have to pull it off and once the narcissist is encumbered by the child's needs then that fantasy blows up because of how it makes them feel and the narcissistic injuries that are part and parcel of this experience the next good parent narrative is vindication everyone was wrong about me [Music] in this narrative you have a narcissist who is hurt and angry about everyone's judgment about them and in truth the judgment is often reality-based it is about what they did badly or harmful or hurtful to others throughout their life or at least up to that point this narrative helps them quell that nagging thought that maybe they are a bad person but of course as we know about pathological narcissists they can't keep that thought consciously for long it's just too painful it's pushed in the unconscious mind or part of the brain so they believe by having a child they can prove the world wrong about all of their pronouncements and judgments about them about being a loser a bad person now i'm using the terms and and the phrases that probably the narcissist has in their mind certainly not mine being selfish not caring and they're going to prove to the world that by being a parent it's all false and of course like all of these narratives it falls apart because their narcissistic impulses come forward and because it's a personal disorder cannot be managed and ultimately rule and ultimately take front and center in their life and of course their family the next good parent narrative is look at me now i was always good the philosophy is adopted by narcissists who are or were shy and introverted children and adapted to their severe attachment trauma by disappearing into the background in other words good parent narrative somehow in their mind conscious or unconscious fixes the idea that they should now be seen appreciated understood that this child will bring them to the attention of all the people that have not wanted to be in their lives or not considered them as a full person as a friend of course this falls apart because the child it will and and i know this from personal experience if you have a child especially when they're really adorable everyone wants to talk to you and especially when they're young but of course you know that does not change anything especially when the child gets past their toddler years and if you're lucky it lasts for longer but to a narcissist that has a look at me i was always good narrative it never is enough to quell that core shame that is always scratching at the walls with the pathological narcissist they will not be able to keep it up and what they don't realize is soon people will be looking at them and understand that they're really not nearly as good as who they are or if they become a covert narcissist and that's a whole other topic they will be appreciated and adored for their good parenting but behind the scenes there will be chaos and horrible horrible harm that befalls the child and the family the next narrative is this will heal my trauma by being what they believe is a perfect parent who raises a perfect child the attachment trauma they were aware of will miraculously be healed this narrative applies to the pathological narcissists who are conscious of the trauma and the harm that they experienced as children they believe that by having a child and being the good parent having that narrative drilled into their mind that by bringing a child into the world and loving nurturing and respecting that child which they ultimately cannot do it will somehow take away the pain of all the trauma that has happened to them it will relieve them of the depression and the insecurity somehow it will just magically be this pill of sorts that will just cure them of everything that they have been running so fast and furiously away from the trauma and outrun it for the rest of their lives but it cannot and does not work number six is let me show you my perfection narrative this parent's narcissism is so severe they aren't even conscious of their core shame these are the folks the narcissists who have this internal mandate that they must be perfect they must do everything right with their child because if they do that and this perfection will help them solve this pain this nagging shame and doubt incredibly poor self-esteem it will show the world especially them that they really can do something so well they can be perfect and these narcissists have this idea of what a perfect little girl looks like what a perfect little boy looks like and there is much variation on on what this ideal role looks like but they parent this child in a way that is near perfect to not only their standards which are high but the standards that most people have when they consider a good or remarkable parent and the truth of the matter is in public they are adored and appreciated for their parenting but what some people cannot see is that this is not about the child this is not about love for the child for who they are and who they're going to be but it's all about them number seven is someone finally needs me exclamation point they've spent their whole life burning bridges these pathological narcissists angering people engendering relationships that ultimately in a traumatic and sometimes extremely uncomfortable breakup or termination more often than not these are people that leave them and all of these adult relationships are reminiscent of what happened to them during their own attachment trauma for which they have no memory by having a child they believe that finally they'll have someone that loves and respects and cares for them who will never leave them they will never feel the searing pain of rejection and abandonment this is common for the pathological narcissists who have the borderline personality disorder diagnosis my child will make me immortal [Music] this narrative is for the narcissist who has this grandiose idea that by having a child they will live on forever the name of that child the legacy of that child will always point back at them and they will be enshrined in everyone's memories it'll be like in some movies or in actuality there will be this huge portrait on the mantle piece that will be forever in the house of this child who will pass it on to their child and they will always be this miracle person who raised this child and they will never be forgotten sometimes this is a result of someone's fear of not going to heaven or being rewarded in the afterlife because of their narcissistic and harmful deeds they want to somehow find a way to make their life have meaning and of course like the other narratives it crashes and burns because it was never about the child so in summary i've answered the question why do narcissists have children to take their pain away want to escape the trauma that has dogged them their whole life the feeling of being a loser a bad person a disappointment or even fighting those conscious thoughts that they have of themselves that they are not good enough not lovable enough not respected narcissists have children to make their pain go away because it is not about the child and because the child can never take their pain away the narcissist will never escape it and the child is crushed by it how i will end this video will be the beginning of the next chapter of the book which says well what does a child have to do in order to survive a narcissist who has this good parenting narrative they have to mold themselves into the fantasy and if they can they will get more from their parent than anyone else in the family and that will save them from being crushed and broken and ending up as a narcissist when they get older i hope this explanation helps you understand the complicated but fairly logical question that so many people have how could selfish grandiose entitled people want to be parents when they don't really care about anyone but themselves well there you go you have it again if you want some more detail about it check out my resources my book my online seminar videos that are between four to six hours that you can find at self lovercovery.com and please consider subscribing to this video so be well and again and i can't say it enough thank you thank you for watching my videos thank you for your kind and supportive comments please i love reading these comments other people read your comments and often the comments section of each one of my videos becomes a place where people can talk about their own experiences okay guys take care and i look forward to our next video [Music] you

Channel: Ross Rosenberg

Views: 114,302

Keywords: narcissists, narcissistic personality disorder, narcissism, personality disorder, mental health, narcissistic abuse, ross rosenberg, human magnet syndrome, lack of empathy, sense of entitlement, narcissistic mother, narcissistic parents, narcissistic personality, narcissism expert, emotional abuse, narcissistic mom, toxic mother, emotionally abusive parents, children of narcissistic mothers, children of narcissistic parents, narcissistic mother daughter relationship, npd

Id: Kfjr028KuhY

Length: 26min 16sec (1576 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 16 2021