Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW
(Photo: Heronswood Botanical Gardens in Kingston, WA)
I’ve noticed a recurring theme in my counseling practice, and it goes like this: Children of narcissists often take inappropriate levels of responsibility for the wellbeing of everyone around them, because they were raised by a parent who took zero responsibility for their actions or the effects of those actions.
Just like when a car comes veering across the midline, when we course-correct we swerve wildly in the opposite direction. Rather than taking a bad example and learning a nuanced position from it, it’s like we become allergic to it and polarize to the opposite extreme.
Children of narcissists feel an overabundance of responsibility towards others and have a difficult time identifying boundaries for their own balance and wellbeing. So, if you were raised by someone who was never wrong, never said sorry, never noticed you as separate from them, never put their own wants and needs on the back burner when you were in need of attention or love or medical care, someone who physically abused you because they were feeling angry and out of control: this blog is for you.
First a reality check: you alone cannot solve global warming, or the inequal distribution of resources or anything that involves other people, known or unknown to you. You alone cannot make your partner stop drinking/drugging/gambling or acting out when they are feeling distress or discomfort.
Co-dependency, or the over-focus on others, is a natural reaction to growing up ignored and/or abused, because if you’re a kiddo and the adult in the room is narcissistic, keeping them happy is how you kept safe/relevant.
Recovery for the other-focused means time spent in solitude and without the ready distractions of work or people or tasks. It means letting your neediness out just a little bit and trying out different activities that might be stupid or uncool or boring or great fun or transfixingly delightful. It means being open to wasting time. It means turning the satellite dish of your attention away from the outer world and into yourself like a fat caterpillar burrowing into a ripe tomato.
Here are three exercises to play with:
- What’s something cool you used to do as a kid?
- What’s something cool that other people get to do, that makes you jealous?
- When you imagine yourself as an old person, what do you hope to look back on?
Hint: Lots of people focus on making gobs of money or becoming prominent in their fields or well known and admired by strangers. But also—those rich and famous people are often profoundly lonely and disconnected, because they don’t feel valued on a core level. The performing and effort it takes to become rich and famous is antithetical to the being and reflection it takes to connect with our core selves.
So, just for today, just for a moment, can you find the pleasure of being—without music, without food, without other people, without an electronic screen propped up in front of you? If you can, that’s magic. That’s taking responsibility. That’s….enough.