7 Signs You Were Raised by a Covert Narcissistic Parent

Some people grow up in homes where love feels conditional, rest feels dangerous, and being fully seen comes with a cost. Over time, that kind of environment can shape everything: perfectionism, hypervigilance, guilt, people-pleasing, even the strange feeling that other people’s emotions are somehow your responsibility. It can leave you deeply capable on the outside and quietly exhausted underneath, which is a rough bargain, honestly.

What makes this pattern so difficult to spot is how subtle it can be. The damage does not always come from obvious cruelty. Sometimes it comes from coldness, moodiness, envy, silent punishments, and the pressure to adapt so completely that you lose touch with your own preferences. Then later in life you may wonder why intimacy feels unsafe, why visibility feels risky, or why doing “enough” never quite feels like enough. There is an answer for that, but it usually starts in places people were taught not to look.

Transcript

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You're a perfectionist, you feel like you can't ever let yourself rest. You self-sabotage, you're hyper-vigilant to other people's emotional states, and you feel responsible for their emotional states at all times. Today we're gonna get into the signs that you were raised by covert, fragile, narcissistic parents and how some of these rules that we've internalized can still affect us to this day. Today we're gonna look at seven of them. There are more, but these are the top seven. My name is Richard Granin. I specialise in helping people overcome the effects of narcissistic abuse. If you like this video, please like and subscribe and share. So the first thing we need to understand is when we're talking about a covert narcissist parent, covert or fragile or vulnerable narcissism is distinct to grandiose narcissism. The grandiose narcissist thinks I'm amazing and that's obvious. I deserve to be treated differently, and largely speaking, they can convince most people that they are wonderful and amazing and they do get treated differently. The covert, fragile, or vulnerable narcissist, they're just as entitled and just as delusional. The problem is they struggle to convince people that they're amazing and unique, and so their psychological stance is more typified by I'm amazing and nobody sees it, or I'm truly unique. And the cause of my suffering in my life is that you won't see how wonderful I am. And so they're quite spiteful, they're quite resentful, they're also plagued by more emotional dysregulation, so they tend to be more moody and they have um more of a sense of inner shame in the face of their grandiose delusions. They are aware, more aware than the grandiose narcissist, that some of their delusional outlooks um are delusional. Number one, when we're entrained in an environment that's being run by a fragile narcissist parent, we're gonna learn to fear being seen and we're going to fear judgment because that fragile narcissism is very envious and it's very easy to provoke. It's not a strong, robust, resilient structure. Narcissistic injury can occur very, very easily with a fragile narcissist. So, in my opinion, they're the more dangerous subtype. I think it's more destructive to be in a relationship with a fragile or covert narcissist than a grandiose narcissist. They're harder to see coming, it's harder to see that they're really that way because they're not outwardly haughty and bullying and exploitative. They could have a very humble exterior, but what's going on beneath that fake humility is lots of entitlement. And with their children, they can be very, very judgmental, very, very bullying, and that breeds a kind of perfectionism in the child where the central nervous system is learning I must excel in order to get one little granule of validation from my parent. The second thing is a fear of being seen. Because the love is conditional with a fragile narcissistic. When you are seen, when you um do do well, even though you're being told that nothing you're doing is good enough, it effectively puts you in a double bind. Nothing you're doing is good enough. Ah, thinks the child. I'll learn to excel, I'll learn to be perfect. And then when you do excel and you are seen, then you are punished. Either with withdrawal, uh coldness, or displays of derision and contempt for the things that you've done and for who you are as a human being, or with something more aggressive, with something more proactive. But ultimately, this the nervous system isn't trained to associate being seen, being visible, doing well in the world in sight of other people as being adjacent to danger. It's not safe to be joyful, it's not safe to do well, and that's the rule that we learn. Number three, intimacy feels very, very threatening. So there is a push-pull that can occur with the uh children of fragile narcissistic parents where they deeply crave connection and they deeply crave intimacy, but they're afraid of it. So you have um approach avoidance. So, you know, one foot is down on the accelerator whilst the other is tapping the brake the entire time. Because as much as you would crave intimacy, the central nervous system has a rule that says intimacy is the source of guilt, intimacy is the source of manipulation, intimacy is the source of coercion, intimacy is the source of fusion and blending with this tyrannical figure that's gonna compel you to do things and think things and feel things and adopt a worldview that is not yours. And so it forces you to adapt. So then intimacy is no longer a form of emotional freedom, it's a form of emotional imprisonment in which you're forced to adapt to somebody else's conditions. Number four, you become hyper-vigilant to other people's emotional states. So the fragile, covert narcissist is much more emotionally dysregulated, so their moods shift very, very rapidly, and it's very, very easy to deliver a narcissistic injury because that skin that they have, they're very, very thin-skinned. So anything could be a narcissistic injury. So the central nervous system of the child is learning I must be hyper-vigilant of my parent or parent's emotional states in order to stay safe and not be over punished for a minor incursion. Of course, across time, that also leads to a sense that if I shrink myself, I'm probably safer. And so there's a general rule that gets applied at the unconscious level that is um it is safer if I shrink. That can become what is called in transactional analysis a driver. I must not be seen or a superego injunction. Do not be visible, do not be, do not be. It is not permitted for you to be. Number five, you feel unduly responsible for other people's emotions. Now, this is probably because you were coerced and compelled into playing the role of emotional regulator inside of your family unit when you're dealing with fragile, covert, narcissistic, this is the norm. You may have been the black sheep of the family, you may not have been able to do right for doing wrong, but ultimately you will have been put in the position where the adults in the family unit put their emotional states and responsibility for their emotional states on you. It then becomes your responsibility. And obviously, as a rule for the nervous system to then carry forward into the future, this makes life quite difficult. It makes it very, very hard to say no to other people as an adult. Like a simple no becomes this major emotional challenge because a no in childhood could have been very, very dangerous and have had catastrophic results because fragile narcissistic don't permit their children to set personal boundaries. And so we learn it's probably easier if I just accept the burden of other people's emotions on their behalf. Number six, you're never allowed to rest. This is typically because instead of having an inner parent that's guiding you from the place of the healthy superego, what you end up with is a very, very harsh inner critic that's constantly punishing you, that's constantly criticizing you, that's constantly deriding you. And the push is always going to be do more, do more for me, serve me better, do more, uh, get up and do something. And in a sense, this is a rule that we've internalized that safety only lies in constantly taking action, in constantly serving, in constantly working to suit the needs of a tyrannical, fragile, narcissistic parent. A caveat to that is that you feel like rest is never deserved. So there's therapeutic work that needs to be done there where you would work through in a therapeutic or coaching setting and say, okay, how can I learn to internalize the idea that not only do I deserve rest, but rest is absolutely necessary for me because I am a human being. We'll get into some other therapeutic interventions in just a moment. Number seven, and this is the last one for today, you know your roles better than your preferences. So you would have a very, very clear idea of what your role is, but you don't really know what your preferences in life are if you are the child of a fragile narcissistic. This is very, very commonplace. And there's a conflation between the roles that you play and your actual identity. People who were raised by fragile narcissistic parents have a very, very weak relationship with the authentic self, and they learn to believe that their hyper-adapted self, the the persona that they developed that was an adaptation to a very cruel, very punishing, very dismissive uh psychological and emotional environment in childhood, is the real self. So then there can be an openness uh to identity fusion, meaning your your sense of self can very, very easily blend with a person who comes along who's who's just rigidly self-centered, tyrannical, demanding, who really need somebody to serve their needs, there can be a great vulnerability to identity fusion there. So, how do we deal with these things in a therapeutic environment? So that fear of judgment and the need for perfectionism, the work that I would do with somebody is I would uh coach them through relearning that what they are doing is good enough. And I know that that sounds um it's deceptively simple, but for people who've adapted to an environment where nothing was good enough, it is a very soothing balm to the soul to be told and re-entrained into what you are doing is good enough. And when we have learned that what we're doing is good enough, then we can deal with another one of the rules or another one of the drivers from childhood. You do have the right to rest. You have value even if you're not performing, you have value even if you're not performing a role or a service for somebody else. Now, this is a YouTube video, and I'm just a guy saying words, and so you might hear that, and the superego may just, your superego injunctions may just flat outright reject it. You can't consider this therapy. Watching YouTube videos isn't therapy, watching YouTube videos isn't coaching. You'd have to actually work through this with another adult who understands what it is that you're trying to do. So that fear of intimacy and the drive to perfectionism, these are things that are have come from a rigid adaptation to a frightening, dangerous, and chaotic environment. So, what we would need to do if I was coaching somebody, I'd say, okay, first thing we have to do is establish a safe environment. You need to be able to bond with the person who's coaching you forward, leading you forward in a way that feels safe to you. So it's not enough for me to just tell you I don't need you to perform. I don't need you to show up here and be the best client that's ever cliented. I just need you to be. And if you could be um self-compassionate in that and authentic, I'd appreciate that. But beyond that, I don't need anything from you. Now, with people who are raised in high-risk environments, what length of time and how much exposure to the other person would they need before they believe that? It varies from person to person, but this is a show, not tell protocol. You need to demonstrate to people, no, I don't, I don't need that from you. You're not here. You were not put on this planet to make me feel better about myself. You were not put on this planet to make other people feel better about themselves. That's their job. Each of us as individuals has a responsibility to regulate our emotional states, to process our own grief, to process our own trauma, to move forward into a future that we want, that we would enjoy, that aligns with our values. And that's a key thing as well. I think in the coaching therapeutic part of this, a good coach, a good therapist, a good counselor is going to say to you, okay, can we safely and organically in a non-performative way? Because your default setting is going to be to perform. So if the coach or the counselor says, Today we're going to explore what your true values are, the adapted child part will then say, ah, I'd better give them what it is that they're looking for so that I can get a tick and a gold star as a really, really good client. So even in therapy, a hyper adapted child who's now become an adult can still perform in that narcissistic unless the coach, the therapist, or the counselor is smart enough to know that that's a potential problem and say, Hey, please don't do that. That's not necessary. I don't need you to do that. There's no one in this room right now that needs you to do that. I just am trying to help you connect with your more authentic self. And that takes time, it takes trust. Sometimes when I'm working with people, uh, whether it's like a one-on-one or a group coaching or an intensive, I would uh change the frame of the question itself and say, oh, okay, well, maybe it's time we talk philosophically rather than psychologically. Do we believe that a person, not you, but a person who looks and sounds and acts and has had the same experience as you, do we believe that that theoretical person should be or could be for other people's res uh should be or could be responsible for other people's emotional states? So when you say, let's make it a philosophical question, there's nothing personal to get defensive about. So those unconscious defenses can't be like, hi yeah, and chop you. They'll just go, oh, well, we're only talking philosophically. Yeah, it's just philosophical, it's not even about you. We're talking about a theoretical person that doesn't exist. It's like uh fiction or a creative writing exercise. Let's just look at a person who's like you but isn't you? Are they responsible for other people's emotional states? If yes, how can you be responsible for something that you have little to no control over? At a philosophical level, who should be responsible for their emotional state? And presumably you would say, well, the person themselves. Now, again, I'm just a guy talking in a YouTube video. You can hear these words and you can nod along and agree and then forget about it. And the philosophical exercise alone done once is not enough, of course. There's a lifetime's worth of entrainment that needs to be unraveled, but it doesn't need to be difficult, it doesn't need to be very complex and very um uh very heady, hyper-intellectualized. Too much intellectualization is not good because if we don't somatize and put it into the body, if we don't embody what it is that we're learning and what we're trying to do, it won't show up for us spontaneously in our lives at an unconscious level in the way that we would most like. So I have a way of doing this kind of work with people. Um, if you're interested in knowing more about that, uh you can head over to richgrannan.com. There's like free things you can get there, there's free stuff that you can pick up there. But generally speaking, nowadays what I try to focus on is helping people to get in contact with their authentic self beyond the adaptations to highly pathological and predatory personalities so that they can metabolize and grieve the past and grieve the unpleasantness of the past and start to consciously select a new way of thinking about themselves, philosophically, psychologically, a new way of thinking about the world because you're carrying beliefs like people are mean, people are selfish, love is very scarce, love is fleeting, I have to fight hard to get even a little crumb of love and attention, that kind of thing, in a way that feels organic, feels safe, and feels authentic, so that you can start to unravel yourself and get yourself in stock, and you can have these thoughts on your own without somebody saying to you, Oh, it's time to think about this, or it's time to challenge that thought, or it's time to challenge that emotion. You just learn to do it yourself and say, okay. How do I know that love is scarce? Is there any evidence that actually it's not scarce, that it's actually out there in abundance, so that we get beyond our own traumatized perceptual filters and start to build a better trajectory for our own lives? Okay, I think that's enough. Uh, ladies and gents, thank you very much for your time and for your attention. And I look forward to speaking to you again very soon. Thank you.