Narcissism Legacy in Relationships

The list of abuse tactics is SO long.

I am an empathic person who grew up in a family with three other narcissistic sociopaths. One may label me a "codependent" however I do not identify with the traits listed for codependency. I do not admire any of my family and do not love them in the sense of a positive, equal and healthy love. I did not adopt their behaviours or enable their behaviours, but got on with my life in their presence. I did not participate in the abuse, only to suffer violence and random attacks.

Not knowing what narcissism was however, was the biggest problem. I dated other guys for fun for short periods and did indeed find myself in the hands of narcissists albeit briefly. I am going to outline for survivors below some clues I've uncovered that can help increase awareness of what has happened to you, particularly if you are like me and never had one single witness or resource around. This happened to me until the age of 30 years old in fact. The only influences I had around me were narcissists.

Ingredients that create the narcissistic survivor's state

(I add the disclaimer that these are suggestions not fact, and based on my experience)

1. You were ignored.

This is probably the biggest factor in all survivors's lives after being raised by narcissistic parents. The "you" that is truly you, that is your feelings, observations, needs, were completely ignored. They were "tapped into" for abuse.
This single act is abusive enough to send the identity into a coma. What is not exposed or used, fed and encouraged, cannot grow. It may grew in spurts to feed narcissistic ego but is then bashed back down when the narcissist becomes jealous.

Effect: you may be like me and have somewhat of a detached and frozen relationship with yourself. You hesitate, because you are unsure whether your next move may earn you a bashing. Possibilities are narrowed, your voice, body movements and the way you interact with space may change. These are psychological chains tied to depression and being a hostage with nobody to hear you cry. You have learned "bright and shiny" or "make me look good" are the only positive states. It will take intense healing to get that small child back into YOUR arms and earn back her or his trust, particularly if you have been in more abusive situations as an adult. No abuse, no way.

2. You were forced to adopt the wounded child character inside the narcissist. This was the only way they would treat you well.

The narcissist offers positive reinforcement for recreating their failure. They can then demonstrate to you that they can act in the opposite way, and appear superior.

The flow is as such:

Denial of your true character --- Behave differently, like damaged narcissist to win narcissist's approval ---- Receive something that looks like love ---- Feel good but know that something feels wrong because you are unnatural ---- Learn negative association with being yourself ---- Think the narcissist is right because they are demonstrating a solution to the implanted problem ---- Trust the narcissist over yourself ---- Lose awareness of how to naturally protect yourself, be yourself etc and place trust fully in the narcissist, thereby living out Stockholm Syndrome.

This causes shame, depression, fatigue and illness in the child. He or she thinks, "I'm wrong! I'm bad" and does his best to please the abuser.

Effect: Your identity and whole world centres around the narcissist. They invade your character and your world and you are doing your best to stop drowning. This all comes at a huge cost - your own life. The panic creates catastrophic thinking and a need to alleviate this. It is by removing the behaviours and words that surrounded you growing up and seeing there is no need to panic, that you can find your grounding and peace. Recognise their flaws and lies.

3. Because you have adopted this wounded child character, you see a narcissist partner in adulthood and you think "that's me." Guess what? 
That is actually your parent, who implanted their nature into you so you would be so busy working on fixing these fake problems, they could hide their abuse while you were distracted. 
The reason this works so well is that often victims are aware something is wrong but cannot put their finger on it. Trying to fix the narcissists flaws by adopting their traits offers some illusion of control. In reality the victim's true nature is not used or expressed and fades away.

I really think that narcissist and codependent relationships are as simple as this. Codependent has a fake problem after brainwashing, because the abuser took advantage of their need for a parent, and then believes it to be their character, acting that character out their whole lives. Ideas like "I don't belong in society, I could be abandoned at any moment, I'm alone and nobody cares" force the victim to concentrate on fixing these false problems. Why do they believe these ideas? Because the EVIDENCE provided by the narcissist assists the victim to draw the conclusion.

Example: narcissistic mother isolates child and does not allow friendships. She must be the only friend. Then she drops in criticisms about how the child has no friends, and that she has social anxiety that she needs to work on. She then pretends to be the caring role model of social behaviour and offers to help the child improve her confidence. The child thinks, "she is right. I am isolated with no friends, and I must have a problem." She is too nice to blame the mother for the outright game she has been played in which is to deny the child encouragement and support to meet other people.

The anxiety really does develop, but the anxiety is actually from the underlying feeling of being in the hands of a lying predator and the lack of friends to help.

Effect: The panic and feeling of shame makes you run to the only people open-minded and non-judgmental enough to not be "put off" by all your problems. The ones with no values and no soul. The ones who seem to accept you the way you are, because they plan to sink their fangs into your neck.

I will continue writing as the memories resurface. The main hurdle is the shock - my entire existence meant nothing and was only a game to the parents who robbed me of absolutely everything I was and what I wanted to be. There was no safe outlet to express "me." I lived a hostage life of control.