Childhood Trauma from Exhibitionist Narcissistic Parent Enmeshment: Censure or Pity?

Hello my friends. Today in my childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parental enmeshment and abuse, I'm exploring a very uncomfortable and fraught space: living with an exhibitionist parent. I'm looking at how society has dealt with these bizarre parent behaviors. Historically, folks like this were called histrionic, "hysterical" or melancholic. Now they may be called the attention-seeking "pick me." I'll touch on Munchausen's, Munchausen's by Proxy and Factitious disorder as they relate. I'll also share anecdotal experiences living with this exhausting and cringy parent behavior. 

Exhibitionism: what it is and isn't

So there are  several reasons why a person might behave in an exhibitionistic manner, depending on how you define exhibitionist. Strictly speaking, the DSM-5-TR definition refers to a person who exhibits their genitals to a non-consenting person. (My mother has done that,  often). The broader definition includes persons who routinely act in a dramatic (or melodramatic) provocative or exaggerated manner to attract attention, admiration, pity or public notice. This doesn't include people who for reasons of an illness or condition, draw attention to themselves inadvertently, by exaggerated gestures or tics such as Tourette's Syndrome. It isn't melancholia (depression) or anxiety (wrongly called hysteria). It's histrionic attention-seeking for its own sake and to make others uncomfortable. 

Exhibitionism is exploitative, intentional and purpose-driven

The type of behavior engaged in may be as normal as crying but the situation and intensity are what make it exhibitionist. The person crying may be doing it loudly in a place where everyone else is quiet and looking around to see who's watching. Or it may be situation appropriate, such as crying at a wedding. However the person is angry or "ugly crying." The day we got married, husband says my MIL "ugly cried" from the moment she got up throughout our wedding ceremony and reception. She wore a pouty, petulant "notice me" face and wouldn't speak to anyone. She did this just to "outshine the bride" (me) by making people ask and wonder if she was okay. There was no reason for it, except that she was an enmeshed mother who didn't want to share her son. So she made everyone miserable. Exhibitionist behavior is done strategically and specifically to garner attention by exploiting normal like concern, pity, modesty or privacy. 

Malignant narcissistic parent exhibitionism

Exhibitionists are often, if always, narcissists. They crave attention for narcissistic supply. If they are malignant narcissists, they prefer it to come at someone's expense, by upstaging them or making them look foolish. Their favorite tactics are humiliation, mockery and mean pranking (hazing). My narcissistic mother, out of the blue, threw a pie in my face and smashed my young son's face in his pie, at her company work party. She, her husband and her daughter laughed manically, literally jeering at us. No one else was laughing.  They just looked on disdainfully and I believe she was chastised by supervisors. This caused her narcissistic injury (that's not a real injury, it's ego injury or wounded vanity.) She got very angry and petulant. 

Bizarre Roots of Exhibitionism

Jealousy and a desire to humiliate are some of the deeper roots. It's not just covert or vulnerable narcissists who are pathologically jealous. Grandiose narcissists are too, even and especially of their children. Narcissistic parents resent the child's innocence, sweetness and lovability. My parents resented my being given gifts or cherished. They sabotaged nice things I'd received by stealing and selling them. I'd come home to things mysteriously missing. Narcissistic parents are liars, cheats and thieves. And they do weird things in exaggerated ways to undermine and destabilize the child. They get into huge rages over nothing. My parents have taken my things out of my hands and given them to someone else. My dad once went into a narcissistic rage at me at Christmas, for going to the bathroom to try on a sweater from my grandparents.  My narcissistic "pick me" stepmom preened herself seeing me get humiliated. I saw her narcissistic smirk through my tears and confused apologies. 

"Pick me" mothers

These women will do freakishly awkward things for attention. From shoving her face in every picture of the child, to purposely falling or limping and even blatantly walking out into oncoming traffic (my mom says she does this). My mother will shout "AMEN" in church at a funeral (where they don't do such things). She waves her arms and yells "hallelujah" when she visited our Catholic church. My mother tried to outshine her sister at her own wedding by wearing a very inappropriate dress. She flirts with anything in trousers and even in skirts. She encouraged one of my boyfriends to tell her about his testicles. She talks about her own genitals in front of my husband and asks to fondle his stomach. She wears nightgowns in public, figuring, I guess that  if she can't be the sexiest, she'll be the most pathetic. 

Exhibitionism isn't always sexual but often has notes of it

Flirting, cozying up to, making out with boyfriends publicly, "hitting on" younger people, telling dirty jokes in front of me, describing sexual things to a child, wearing situation inappropriate clothing, making suggestive or "lewd" comments, talking about genitalia or "privates" all these are forms of exhibitionism I've experienced with my parents. My mother dressed as a "hooker" (her words) to a church costume party. She tells everyone she sleeps naked. She was caught running around naked by her husband's friends, knowing full well they were coming over.  She walked out naked at my house near where my kids were watching TV. The hypocrisy was that these people were both self-proclaimed ministers who were always preaching "morality" to others. 

 

Exhibitionist Shame Spiral Vengeance

In the pie throwing incident, I think my mom actually thought people would join in and laugh at me. And it was definitely a planned ambush. She wanted to have a pie eating contest but no one at her workplace was on board. She sulked while everyone ignored her. I finally let my kids participate because no one else was, but wouldn't participate myself. She blindsided us with the pie-throwing. I recall gasping and nearly choking on the pie. My son started choking too. Now everyone really was judging her! She took this as narcissistic insult. Instead of backing down, she doubled down on me as the eternal scapegoat. She triangulated her husband against me so not only did he mock, he yelled at me for, what I have no idea. I suppose because they both felt as foolish as they looked. Even 25 years later when she "apologized" it was just gaslighting to DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim offender), blame-shifting responsibility onto me. 

Factitious disorder exhibitionism

Exhibitionist behavior is fake and performative. Factitious disorder or Munchausen's (or MBP) is exhibitionism for sympathy, pity, money, to get out of something or to steal attention from the person who is by rights in the limelight. I've watched a narcissist purposely fall in the street and lay there holding up traffic, just for pity. They will fake symptoms of "illnesses" that can't be verified. They will doctor hop when they get close to being caught. All my mother's mystery ailments involve sexuality or genitalia. She will describe herself and her body in great detail. She talks about her "big breasts" in a very suggestive and seductive manner. She looked on fondly when her boyfriend mocked me for having "small t8tties." It so gross and just one reason I finally went no contact. 

Exhibitionism humiliates and destabilizes children

I don't just share these things to expose my "good Christian" parents. I don't have to. Their behavior is so awkward it's obvious and it's driven a lot of people besides me away. But these are stories that need to be told, to heal the toxic shame inside me. Unfortunately, a parent's bad behavior doesn't just affect them. It taints their children by association. All these weird, icky things they did to and around me, now live in my trauma brain. I have CPTSD trauma nightmares in which I'm the one who has done them. Trauma bonding caused damaged attachment issues and betrayal blindness. And that's what narcissistic parent exhibitionism is, a betrayal of the parent-child relationship. It is grooming in the worst sense of the word. 

Emotional fracturing from exploitative enmeshed exhibitionists

Exhibitionism violates the parent-child bond by forcing the child to pick sides. Even in its non-sexual iteration, attention-seeking has an exploitative nature. It forces a child into unnatural adult drama. It's also boundary-crashing and privacy invasion which is a hallmark of parent enmeshment. And it polarizes needlessly. The child has to choose sides in a manufactured crisis. Either the child stands by the parent in her self-created humiliation hell or leaves her to face it alone. This is a dangerous lose-lose situation for the child. If the child follows her own innate propriety, she must also by default, disassociate from the parent. Which creates cognitive dissonance and a dissociative split. The child feels FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) to side with the parent in her shameful behavior. How many dilemmas of this sort I've faced. And I always took their part. EVEN WHEN I WAS THE ONE THEY WERE HUMILIATING! 

Pity or censure? 

In college I did a play called "She's more to be censured than pitied." It was a melodrama. And it begs the question of these theatrical "extra" people. Should we just feel sorry for them? I mean what harm can they do? It's only themselves they  make look silly. They can't help loving attention, right? Here are my answers. 

No. That's what they want is pity but don't you dare make them feel pitied. Because you can't win. They want special exemptions but also privileges. They believe they are entitled and you'd better make darn sure you give them the fluffing they demand. You have to make exceptions for them without letting them know you are. Because then they take narcissistic insult and call you condescending. It's an exhausting merry-go-round. 

What harm can they do? If you have to ask that, you've never gotten on the wrong side of a narcissist. And yes, exhibitionism hurts the innocent too. We get tarred with their brush. It damages, humiliates, belittles, dehumanizes and destroys.  The best thing for them is to face the consequences of their actions. The best things we can practice are 

• calm detachment (let them suffer their narcissistic insult and feel the embarrassment their actions caused. Don't take on yourself the humiliation. That belongs to them. 
• radical acceptance (they won't change but you don't have to be hurt by it)
• realistic no-nonsense honesty (maybe not to them but to yourself. See it for what it is.)
• self-care (keep yourself safe from fallout of their actions)
• clarity (it is what it is, and you owe them nothing). 

How enmeshed narcissistic parents destroy and sabotage their scapegoat child

Hello my friends. Today in my childhood trauma recovery journey, I'm looking at how narcissistic parents destroy and sabotage their scapegoat child. Enmeshed parents not only abuse us but also our healthy attachment to them AND their parent role in general. This isn't accidental. It's intentionally done to cripple and entrap us in forever servitude to them. 

Enmeshed parents abuse their power. 

Parent enmeshment is a relational dynamic where the boundary between a parent and child becomes blurred or nonexistent. Instead of supporting the child's developing independence, the parent shames and punishes autonomy. The enmeshed parent, who is also narcissistic by nature, demands that the child meet their own emotional, psychological, or social needs. While the parent denies the child healthy development. The child only exists to provide narcissistic supply.

Key Characteristics

• Lack of Emotional Boundaries: The child is expected to feel what the parent feels. If the parent is anxious, angry, or sad, the child must mirror or fix those emotions to keep the peace. My MIL emotionally coerced her son into cutting ties with a beloved grandparent because mother was took narcissistic injury over innocent things said.  

• Attachment exploitation: Enmeshed parents take advantage of the child's need for and reliance on them. They give or withhold basic needs based on the child hopping through their complicated hoops. 

• Role Reversal (Parentification): The child is cast into the role of emotional confidant, mediator, partner, or caregiver, taking on adult concerns that are developmentally inappropriate.

• Discouraged Independence: Autonomy, personal choices, or forming outside relationships are viewed as betrayal or abandonment by the parent.

• Fear, Obligation and Guilt: Guilt is frequently used as a primary lever of control. Expressing separate opinions, setting boundaries, or pursuing individual goals is framed as selfish or hurtful.

• Conditional Approval: Love and validation are tied to compliance, performance, and keeping the parent centered, rather than accepted unconditionally.

• Neglected skill development: Since everything revolves around the narcissistic parent, they teach the child only the skills that serve them. Self-care is punished and needs are shamed. We'll talk more on that later. 

Common Signs in Adulthood

Adults who grew up in enmeshed family dynamics often experience:

• Difficulty Setting Boundaries: Struggling to say "no" or feeling intense guilt when establishing personal limits with parents, partners, or friends.

• Identity Confusion: Unsure of personal preferences, values, or life goals independent of family approval.

• Chronic Over-responsibility: Feeling responsible for other adults' feelings, mood regulation, and well-being.

• Fear of Conflict: Avoiding disagreement at all costs because conflict in childhood threatened safety or connection.

• Entangled Decision-making: Feeling compelled to seek parental approval or consultation for routine adult decisions.

• Hypervigilance and chronic anxiety. Life is never peaceful and predictable, it's a chaotic battle zone, fraught with very real threat and danger and managed with coercive control. 

• Exhaustion and burnout way too young. We are always tired from too much pressure and responsibility. 

• Failure to launch. Because we were groomed only to serve, we're often unable to do basic tasks that would help us. Our success at anything that only met our needs was sabotaged. We were artificially crippled by their coercive control. 

Impact on Development

In healthy families, boundaries provide a safe framework for a child to differentiate—discovering who they are as a distinct individual. Enmeshment interrupts differentiation, forcing the child to remain fused with the parent's emotional system. This can undermine self-esteem, make emotional self-regulation difficult, and hinder the development of healthy interdependent relationships in adulthood. 

Healthy parents serve their children. Children of narcissists serve their parents. 

The parent power differential trap

The fact that the parent IS the parent and adult is used to protect kids in normal families but exploited by narcissistic parents. Healthy parents maintain control of themselves and only control the child to guide, support and nurture. The rules they set are for the benefit of all. However toxic parents  weaponize the natural power differential. They practice no self-control while overcontrolling the child (parent enmeshment). They set double standard self-serving, flip-flopping Draconian rules to harm the child and help themselves. 

Social gaslighting

You might be asking how in the heck these messed up people get away with such cruelty. First, they use social gaslighting to set the stage for child abuse under the guise of "normal parenting." Normal parents wouldn't dream of doing the things enmeshed narcissists do. So they don't expect other parents to either. In fact, if a childhood trauma survivor tells them what they experienced, most people are dumbfounded or even, sadly, don't believe it. And the malignant narcissist relies on this betrayal blindness to shield their audacious behavior. 

Curated reality

Narcissist parents curate a distorted version of reality that outwardly sort of resembles real reality. But behind closed doors, it's utter chaos and rampant abuse. They say and do things that could ostensibly be plausible but which break down under scrutiny. They spout trite cliches that mean one thing to others and something very different to the child. Say "spare the rod, spoil the child" and most people will nod their heads, yes, correction is good. But parent bullies don't mean gentle reproof. They mean smacking the child around for invented offenses, just because it makes them feel powerful. 

And the trauma bonded child absorbs this abuse as normal, never realizing that it isn't. 

Hidden hypocritical double standard agenda

Dark tetrad narcissists believe that they are above rules but also entitled not only to enforce but also write rules that everyone but they must follow. They believe they're the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government all it one. And again this Parent Warrant Card gives them license to do so, supposedly. But this slippery slope of arrogance sometimes is where it falls apart. They get caught in their own web of deceptive double standards. My mother actually said that adultery was wrong for everyone but her. Loudly and proudly. She told me that her cheating with a married man was good because it was "leading him to Jesus." 😶 His wife didn't see it that way and beat my mom up good. Which never stopped her but it did devastate me. Parent enmeshment is really insidious. We kids end up taking all the blame and the punishment for things they did to us. 

Infantilized and Parentified and Adultified 

Narcissistically abused kids aren't infantilized by being spoiled or bubble-wrapped. We are under-protected and overworked. They treat us like idiots who can't tie our own shoes. But then they parentify us with all kinds of adult mental load demands. It's not role reversal as much as having to play all roles. Adulting, caring parent, obedient child, scapegoat, surrogate spouse and parent, servant, slave, the demands are endless. And yet with all the work expected of us, they neglect to teach us basic skills. And there's a reason for that. 

Narcissists sabotage our success at anything that serves us but not them. And there's a very direct agenda in that: to enfeeble us so we don't have the life skills to leave them while still being utile enough to cater to them.

Dependent Drudge Dilemma

On my childhood trauma recovery journey, a lot of issues come up that I've never really thought about before but now that I do, I see the inherent, tailor-made narcissistic abuse. I just realized around my 62nd birthday what my husband has been telling me all along. That for all the the heavy drudge housework expected of me, I was not taught basic life skills. In fact, they prevented me FROM developing skills I could actually use, by keeping me tired and overburdened. 

They created nonsensical "chores" that were only for me. Like folding baskets of everyone else's laundry that they could and should have folded themselves. Like ironing mountains of clothes that didn't need ironing. Or mopping the floor and scrubbing toilets on hands and knees because they were too cheap to provide a mop or a toilet brush. While buying themselves all kinds of luxuries. And lugging around an insanely heavy vacuum because my dad thought it worked better, though they themselves never used the thing.  And having to scale snowbanks to take frozen diapers off the line in winter. Nobody cared that I slipped and twisted my ankle performing this stupid task. Plus the dishes. Plus co-sleeping with whoever was the baby at the time. 

Because my dad's wife "had a bad back" it was expected that I would do all these chores which neither of them would do that way if they had to. Nobody worried about my back issues which included spina bifida, scoliosis and residual effects of congenital hip dysplasia. I was made to sleep on a junk mattress in the corner of the baby's room while they had a waterbed, AC and a suite of a room. The disparity was Cinderellian. 

Cinderella Syndrome

Oh and I also just learned that being employed unpaid around age 14, in their adult foster care home, was illegal. My mom had a foster care home too, that I was made to  "foster parent" in, at age 11. Not only does it violate child labor laws, it constitutes child abuse if it is your child AND even if you bypass all this, you still have to pay the child. I was worked as housekeeper, live-in nanny, cook, bottlewasher, entertainment and server for all their residents. In a closet of an unheated room with the baby. 

Useless and utile

That would be bad enough, but they also failed to teach me any useful skills that would translate outside their narcissistic cult. Like safety, self-care, cooking, how to drive, sports, arts, hobbies, a trade. They even sabotaged my schooling by keeping me so busy that I was too tired to do homework. We also lived so far out (off the radar) that I had to get the bus at 5:45 am. After I helped with the AFC resident care and childcare. I was allowed one after school activity, the church choir, but only to make my life look more normal. And I had to pay for my own rides out of what babysitting money they let me earn, when I was finished with all those chores. Sound like any put-upon princess we know? 

My aha moment

My birthday present realization was that all this was a scheme to render me unfit for anything but loyal servitude to them. No one taught me to drive so I wouldn't drive away. No one helped me buy a car, after stealing my savings account. No one supported me through college and insulted my career choice and told me I'd be no good at it. So I would remain the uneducated drone. They sabotaged my self-confidence so I'd be too broken to actually attempt something else. They also, all four of my narcissistic parents, systematically deprived me to keep me pliable. 

Planned Deprivation

My mom kicked me out of the house at 16, after stealing my child support to fund her lazy, unemployed husband. After getting her foster care home shut down for abuse and letting her live-in boyfriend abuse me sexually. Then she stole my savings bonds. Both sets of parents claimed me on their taxes when I was living with neither of them nor being cared for by them. They almost lost me my college grant money and got themselves in trouble with the IRS which they both claimed was my fault. 

They undermined me in my job, by starting trouble with my supervising teacher. They claimed they'd gotten me the job and I should "show my gratitude." My mom stole my car. Then she gave me money to get a cheap apartment, as a gift then claimed it was a loan with interest, after I literally caught her going through my purse. She steals anything she thinks she can get away with. Like my son's new shoes. All this theft and deprivation wore down my resilience and resistance. That's why it took me 62 years to see it. 

How it hurts and helps me now

So all this enmeshment and abuse did a number on my life skills development. I don't take care of myself, not because I choose not to. I just often don't know how or that I should. I get taken advantage of because I was taken advantage of by people who were supposed to care for me. I'm a target for bullies, crybullies and narcissistic abuse. 

BUT having once seen the abuse for what it is, makes me very aware and cued in to it now. Not in my life, so much, but in others. There's the empath. It gives me a distinct discernment that makes me almost gaslighting-proof. I hear the sirens and see the red flags. I think I always did? But again, when you are a child of narcissists, it's not safe to do anything but your ingrained trauma responses of fawning and people pleasing. 

But I don't have to do that anymore. Thanks be to God. 

Healing CPTSD by deposing the tyrannical enmeshed narcissistic parent

 

Hello my friends. Today in my childhood trauma recovery journey, I'll show how healing CPTSD starts with deposing the tyrannical enmeshed narcissistic parents from their imaginary thrones. Enmeshed parents abuse power they never earned, to coercively control us. These arrogant entitled hypocrites used all the dirty tricks of double standards, deceit, manipulation, neglect, abuse, narcissistic rage, parentification, triangulation, scapegoating and gaslighting. And that gaslighting was the most insidious and "sticky." 

The parent power differential trap

The fact that the parent IS the parent and adult is used to protect kids in normal families but exploited by narcissistic parents. Healthy parents maintain control of themselves first and only control the child to guide, support and nurture. The rules they set are for the benefit of all. However dysfunctional parents  weaponize the natural power differential. They practice no self-control while overcontrolling the child (parent enmeshment). They set double standard self-serving, flip-flopping Draconian rules to harm the child and help themselves. And they get away with this, by virtue of their role as parent. They use social gaslighting to set the stage for abuse under the guise of "normal parenting." Normal parents wouldn't dream of doing the things narcissists do. So they don't expect other parents to either. 

Narcissistic Parents' Delusions of Grandeur 

Narcissistic parents don't just have delusions of grandeur (being above it all, entitled, arrogant, beyond consequences, etc.) They groom their child to believe this about them, using a complex
"smoke and mirrors" gaslighting con game. Gaslighting isn't just lying. It's orchestrating a false reality which is obviously easier to accomplish with children who are codependent upon their parents. And the fake reality that enmeshed parents indoctrinate children into is a narcissistic fantasy cult in which they are gods to be worshipped and the scapegoat child is just a loyal, devoted pawn in their narcissistic cult. 

Narcissistic Parents' Delusions of Persecution

All narcissists, especially the vulnerable narcissists, feel put upon all the time. Even grandiose narcissists with their main character energy, have a sense the world owes them a mammoth debt that it's failing to pay. They go around with wearing "victim of injustice" mantles. Their perpetual wounded pride sees insult everywhere. Healthy people know this isn't real injustice but ego insult or narcissistic injury. But the child, being a child and their child, doesn't know her parents are just "butthurt" and thinks someone really has harmed their parent. They believe mother's malicious lies. And do they exploit that, especially the malignant narcissists. For them, it's cake and eating it too. Dark tetrad parents get to crybully plus get the sick pleasure of traumatizing their child. Yes, bullying parents get off on terrorizing kids. Yes it's disgusting. 

Who's the real victim?

If the child is already an empath, like I am, this idea that our parents have been hurt, causes us existential crisis and core cognitive dissonance. Our common sense child mind can't see that any harm was done to them but it's not safe to say so. And our compassionate nature wouldn't let us anyway. Because our all-powerful, influencer parent is pouting and we assume they must be right and we must be wrong, or worse insensitive.  And narcissistic parents are very good at playing the victim. They exploit our compassion and deceive us about slights they've supposed suffered. Ironically all while causing us insane, intense, intentional suffering both in their hurtful actions and by making us feel sorry for them. It goes beyond DARVO blame-shifting to werewolf-ish shape-shifting. 

Trauma Bonding Causes Betrayal Blindness

What's most upsetting isn't that the narcissist parent believes they're bulletproof and special but that their child believes it. Traumatized children carry this bizarrely distorted image of their arrogant, entitled parents as deities, into adulthood. Even if we go no contact with our abusive parents, that false notion of their invincibility and center-of-the-universe-ness remains, embedded in our trauma brain. We cannot fathom, that they weren't always right and superior. That is some heavy duty gaslighting accomplished with bread crumbing, future faking, DARVO, FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) and terrorizing us. We're trauma bonded to them and that causes betrayal blindness. We couldn't see how they destabilized and sabotaged us no matter how hard we try. 

We can't see the abuse forest for the all the trees of harm. 

The Childhood Codependency Conundrum

Codependency is a term used to describe a relationship where two persons have an unhealthy drug-like dependence on each other. It's not one of symbiotic reciprocity and mutuality. It's one-sided demand and take and the other, fawn, humor, placate and people please. Which weirdly does describe the narcissistic parent-child dynamic but not normal parent-child relationships. Children are logically dependent on parents for survival. But enmeshed parents weaponize and manipulate healthy attachment by making love conditional, parentifying us (parent-child role reversal) exploiting us for personal gain and need-shaming. They force us into unnatural roles of confidant, protector and caregiver. 

Deposing the dictator

I will probably never shake the false narrative that my four narcissistic parents were rulers to be blindly obeyed. But I can begin to stop letting them rule me. 

• I can talk back to their malicious disingenuous voices in my head. 
• I can poke holes in their irrational delusions. 
• I can stop worshipping at my narcissistic parents' altar. 
• I can push past the discomfort of doing something new. 
• I can work to defog and de-gas the noxious fumes of gaslighting. 
• I can pry my hands off my eyes and see their deception that was staring me in the face all along.
• I can admit now that it's safe, that they weren't powerful leaders, just weak, cowardly usurpers.
• I can leave and go no contact with  toxic people. 

 

Childhood trauma recovery: family estrangement and going no contact with narcissistically abusive parents

Hello my friends. Today in my childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm sharing a heart-breaking fact. There are no prizes for going no contact with abusers OR for continuing to endure narcissistic abuse. There are no winners and most of the trauma our abusive parents implanted will never be healed. And that's pretty bleak. But there is a kind of winning which I'll get to later. 

The deserted desert island of isolation

Nobody gets childhood trauma like a victim of it. Family, religion, friends, psychology, society at large, has pretty much nothing but victim-shaming and gaslighting invalidation for us. Bullying parents abandoned us to the pain and damage they caused. They isolated us and cut us off from help. We were alone on a deserted desert island then and we still are. Just remember that if you choose to go no contact. They cut ties with you first by hurting you and then leaving you defenseless. My parents left me behind, didn't keep me safe and then illegally kicked me out at 16. Estrangement from them now is just accepting that they slammed the door on me and not keeping my foot in to get it slammed again. Sadly trauma bonding and betrayal blindness kept me from seeing clearly till 61. 

Nobody gets buy-in on your recovery choices

As if  narcissistic parent abuse wasn't bad enough when it was happening,  the repercussions in adulthood magnify the problems in trauma responses like hypervigilance, people pleasing and fawning. And our abusive parents are quick to jump in with their DARVO gaslighting about how we're too sensitive and over-reacting.  Then to add insult to injury, our suffering is minimized and toxic-splained by blind guides who didn't go through it. And the cherry on top is when these enablers and flying monkeys take our abuser's part against us. Victim-shaming is so frustratingly common it's no wonder we keep quiet so long! But anyone who wasn't there for us then, doesn't get a say now. No one gets an opinion on your experiences unless they've consistently shown up and supported you. And even then, holding space is much more effective than shooting your mouth off. 

Time to redress the imbalance

Another sucky part of childhood trauma recovery is that all the work of it falls to the injured party. It's like we're constantly being blindsided and we're the only ones hurt and paying all damages.  Our narcissistic parents waltz off scot-free. Because again, society, religion, psychology, family and friends insist that we have to "fix ourselves" and not worry about them. They tell us to:

• Rise above.
• Be the bigger person. 
• It doesn't matter who caused it. 
• Forgive and forget. 
• Let it go. Move on and get over it.  
• Stay calm. Love them. 
• Try to see their side of things. 
• Make peace with them. 

These are all very unsafe things to do with narcissists. 

• Rising above will only get you cut down. 
• Being the bigger person eggs on narcissistic rage. Because they make it their mission to demean people who show them up as the petty little bullies they are. 
• And context matters! They started the problems by being arrogant, hurtful and cruel to us. Fixing what they broke will only entitle them to damage more. 
• Same with forgiveness. The persecutor isn't sorry and has every intention of continuing the abuse. So you forgiving is the definition of insanity, doing what you've always done and expecting a different result. 
• And I'd love to let it go, move on and get over it. Problem is, it won't let me go! I trauma nightmare every night. And this isn't just in the past. So long as we stay connected, narcissists find new ways to hurt us. 
• They will take narcissistic injury if you stay calm because it shows up their dysregulation. They'll do everything their power to dysregulate you so no one will see they're the unhinged ones. 
• You can never make or even keep peace with antagonistic people, especially passive-aggressive and covert narcissists.  They undermine and sabotage every attempt at peace. 

So it's time we re-center the imbalanced care ratio that enmeshed parents threw out of whack. They made it all about them, with FOG (fear, obligation and guilt). They said they owed us nothing and we owed them everything. We scapegoats were servants, surrogate parents and spouses and parentified possessions. Self-care was selfish, they said. Well now it's time to whack that false narrative back into  perspective. It's time to do whatever we need to do to get healthier and if that means cutting ties with toxic people, so be it. 

Should I stay or Should I go? 

So we come to the question, to go or not to go no contact with abusers. If and when the scales fall from your eyes and you see their abuse for what it is, you then have a big decision to make. I know, again, it sucks that the work always falls to the victim. But since we can't trust them to have our best interests, we have to go it alone (I don't recommend family therapy with narcissists as they are so good at twisting the narrative.) So there are three options along with questions to ask yourself.  

• Ignore the abuse and try to make it work. 
• Has ignoring, forgiving, being the bigger person worked before? 
• Or was it a "do what you've always done, get what you've always gotten?" 
• Have they taken advantage of you?
• Do you feel seen or like a tool they use the get their way?
• Have you just soothed them at your own expense?
• Has the narcissist gotten better or worse with time?
• Have they tried to apologize or just made excuses and denied responsibility?
• Has their abuse escalated?
• Do you feel better or taken advantage of? (don't just trauma respond, really ask yourself)
• Stay but at arm's length. Use grey rock and detachment and set boundaries. 
• Can you actually do this or will it just turn into more humoring and placating them?
• Is grey-rocking sustainable? (People who've tried it generally say it's not with chronically narcissistic parents.)
• Will they respect or push any boundaries you set? (which is why you had to set them in the first place). 
• Can you maintain this "emotional distance" relationship?
• Is it really a relationship if you have to walk on eggshells? (which is what this amounts to).
• Is this relationship worth it?
• Go no contact. 
• What will be the consequences? (Post-separation abuse, losing other relationships by default)
• Will there be collateral damage? (kids, grandkids, loss of inheritance)
• Will others suffer or actually be helped by you cutting ties? In my case, going no contact with my narcissistic stepparents and parents when they kicked me out, would have been so much better for everyone, including my husband and kids. 

Whatever you decide, don't make a big announcement. They'll just weaponize it to humiliate and shame you. Just quietly do it. 

More enabler nonsense to ignore

• You can't cut them out. They're your parents. I actually can. They never cared for me. I was just useful, like a broom. So this broom is going to fly away. 
• That's too extreme, just set boundaries with them. *shakes head* You mean like the ones set previously which they just ignored and trampled? I wouldn't need to set boundaries if they respected me in the first place. But since they don't, it will just be an invitation for more hurt. And anyone who would say this clearly knows nothing of your situation or they'd know this.
• You'll miss them. You can't miss what you never had. And you for sure won't miss the pain they caused. What you probably will feel is some grief and anger that they didn't love you as they should. That's reasonable. And it gets easier in time. 
• You should just forgive. If by that you mean accept  that the past will never be any different, been there, and doing that. If you mean roll over for more abuse, no thank you.  
• You'll regret it. If parents' behavior was bad enough to warrant the child cutting ties with them, I doubt it. What I feel is a huge burden lifted. 
• Have you tried telling them how you feel? Why would I need to tell a parent that abusing, neglecting, exploiting, abandoning, endangering, humiliating, letting your boyfriend or girlfriend do these things too, is wrong? They know how I feel and that's why they do it, to make me feel bad, duh. 
• There are two sides to every story. Yep, the right one and the wrong one. 
• What if they say they are sorry? They never have. They've only blame-shifted, lied, twisted facts and gaslit me. If ever they did, it would only be to make themselves feel better not me. And it would still be lies, distortions and evasions and I don't  have that much fabulous to navigate it all. 
• What if they die? You'll miss them. They will die anyway, it's inevitable. What I will miss is the fact that I never had parents to love me. 

Don't expect empathy but be glad when you find it. 

We know that child abuse of all kinds is much more common than it should be. And yet if an adult child of narcissists cut ties, everyone clutches their pearls in horror. Because as a whole, society is hard on victims while making excuses for perpetrators. Empathy is thin on the ground. And then there are the judgmental, self-righteous hypocrites who love to make up rules for others that they don't follow themselves. You'll be able to spot them because they're the ones saying the nonsense I listed above. There are no loving cups awarded for ditching your family like they ditched you. You'll be called petty, immature, vindictive, yada, yada. But who cares? Because there are no trophies given to victims who stay harnessed to enmeshed parents either.  Society is messed up when it comes to helping children of abusers. 

About that winning I spoke of...

There's a lot that sucks about childhood trauma, having to estrange from parents and do all the recovery work alone. But there is one little Hope Candle and that is that once you see, hear and know, you'll never be able to unsee, unhear, unknow again. Every step forward you make is a win. Every time you banish the shame they put on you, the narcissistic fantasy cult takes a hit. Your estrangement may not feel great. And your parents will hate it. But they can also thank you for exposing their evil behavior. I'm serious. Narcissism is deadly. It's selfish, self-serving, immoral, unethical, deceitful, exploitative and debauched. Narcissists are liars, cheats and thieves who blow through relationships like sand blasters. You revealing them to themselves might just be the lifeline to save them if anything can. But that would just be a bonus. It is finally all about you and your right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!

May you find lasting joy, peace, love and fulfillment. And may all your by and by's be sweet. 

38 Devastating D's of malignant narcissistic enmeshed parent abuse and CPTSD

Hello my friends. Today in my childhood trauma recovery I'm looking at the 25 devasting D's of malignant narcissistic parent abuse and how they create our CPTSD. There are more but these are the main ones. Sadly each time I revise this, I discover more. Each is in itself a unique bespoke form of child abuse. 

The 38 Ds of malignant narcissist parental abuse

• Deceit: The entire premise of narcissistic parent abuse (neglect, exploitation, manipulation, endangerment, scapegoating) rests on lies. It's a house of cards they construct that looks real but is just a hollow travesty. But this narcissistic cult is all you know. 

• Double standards. Double speak, hypocrisy, two sets of ever-shifting rules: everything is one-sided demand with no reciprocity. They take your good and give you bad. They future fake, renege on promises, then gaslight you, saying you made it up and are too demanding (!) and selfish.  

• Disingenuousness. These people are fakers, scammers and cheats. My narcissistic mother actually prefers a con to an honest day's work. She loves scoring off people. But she's the first to tell you she's a Christian. I call these Pyramid Scheme Christians. 

• Deviousness. My narcissistic mother once conned me and my husband into buying her piece of junk car for $900 AND selling her my very good car for $100. She flipped the title and offered no help when that car stranded me and my kids. She trashed my once-good car and let it go to pot. I think I knew I was being stung. But I still thought she loved me and that I must have missed something. Because whose mother would scam them? Mine.  

• Devaluation. They don't prioritize their children and value us only for our usefulness, not our individuality. They belittle, mock and humiliate us. They nit pick over non-issues while ignoring enormous wrongs they've done to us. 

• Demeaning. Narcissistic parents dress us in silly clothes. They cut our hair in ridiculous styles so they can outshine us. They are jealous of our childhood charm and competitive with us. They will do anything to make us look foolish. They do and say humiliating things to us and then lead the jeers. My mother threw a pie in my face and shoved my son's face in a pie at her company picnic. 

• Disregard not only for feelings but rules. Narcissist parents live by their own bizarre set of user-created rules that apply only to them. They believe they are beyond consequences. They use children as cat's paws and shields from accountability. They blame-shift. The immoral, illegal, unethical and outrageous things my parents subjected me to, boggles under the cold light of reality. 

• Defeat. You can't win for losing with malignant narcissists. They see you as a challenge to overcome. In fact the more you succeed, the more you rise above, the more they drag you down. When I graduated college was my narcissistic father proud? No. He sniffed his haughty nose and "humpf, college isn't for everyone." 

• Disdain. They don't just downgrade what you do but WHO you are. They say the most disgustingly uncalled-for insults. They let their kids walk on you and then laugh.  When I breastfed my babies he said sneeringly "not all women are cows." I don't remember he or my narcissistic stepmother or mother ever saying a kind thing to or about me, that didn't have a sting in the tail. 

• Discard + Demand. Narcissistic parents ditch responsibilities to you. BUT they also demand buy-in on you. It's ludicrous how they're able to con everyone including you into thinking you owe them, after they dumped you. 

• Discrediting. They take credit for our good actions. Then they find fault with innocent things to vilify us. They make up nonsense about us to make us look bad. They discount our good intentions, always looking for a way to make us appear as failures. 

• Denouncement. They arrogantly "call you out" feeling entitled to weigh in and run their mouths against you. They don't do it to teach or help. They're nowhere to be found when you need them. But if they can get narcissistic supply scoring off you, they'll jump in twist your words just to humiliate you. 

• Disparagement. You don't need to have done anything to earn their vicious scorn. They lie all the time and they will happily lie to character assassinate you. And they do it in such a backstabbing way you never see it coming. And these are your family who are supposed to love you. Why would you think they were out to destroy you? Very often, you don't see their gaslighting and catfishing because trauma bonding has given you betrayal blindness. 

• Diminishment. They are always looking to cut you down. Narcissistic parents get ahead by kicking you to the curb. They use people like ladders to make themselves taller. No one is every as smart, special or entitled as them. 

• Dismissal. They dismiss your feelings and invent tales about how you're too sensitive if you contradict them. They minimize you and brag themselves up. They act like totalitarian dictators who control you with the snap of their fingers. (this one really makes my blood boil.)

• Disrespect Trap. Narcissists are always squawking about respect they are "owed." They aren't. No one is. Respect is earned. But the child who deserves their respect just for being their child, is treated with abysmal lack of respect. They are crybullies. 

• Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Narcissistic parents manufacture endless dilemmas to trap you in. There's no winning, no low to which they'll stoop, no crazy enough hoop configuration they'll set for you to hop through. Narcissists want their scapegoat to fail.  

• Dream trauma. They stole our healthy dreams and aspirations and replaced them with CPTSD and trauma nightmares. They ruined our rest and made everything exhausting and frightening. But the dreams are never as bad as the reality. 

• Deception and illusion. Nothing is real except the harm and danger they put us in. Family is for us to serve not to be a loved part of. Home is a facade. It only poses as a shelter, like the witch's candy house. Inside it's scary and fraught. The monsters don't lurk outside. They live with us.  

• Denial. They denied us basic necessities and rights, then denied abusing us. It's just more of their lies. 

• Derailment. Their crazy-making behavior can drive us off the rails and into insanity. They do this intentionally to undermine us. They purposely break plans, sabotage events and keep everyone confused. 

• Discord. These people invent problems where none existed. They could set off a Quaker meeting with their pot-stirring machinations. 

• Dysregulation. Narcissists are the unstable ones but they use every underhanded trick to dysregulate the child who could no more survive their onslaught than she could hold back the ocean. 

• Dismantlement. The child is born an extant individual but the enmeshed parent begins early on to dismantle natural boundaries. She invades the child's space and takes over. She violates modesty and privacy. She pirates the child's brain to serve her own selfish ends. 

• Disruption. Abusive parents do everything in their power to keep their child anxious, nervous and hypervigilant. They flood the child's life with gratuitous chaos, moving her around, switching schools randomly, making and breaking promises. Dragging all kinds of dangerous, unhinged people into her life and making her subservient to them. If she says anything, they claims she's the problem or she remembered it wrong. 

• Deprivation. We were not just neglected. We were systematically deprived of sleep, comfort, peace of  mind, nourishment and care, to make us weak, tired, vulnerable and pliable. 

• Debauchery. They were debauched, dirty-minded dark tetrads. We were just kids caught up in the crosshairs of their sick narcissistic fantasy cult. But they drilled their shame into us by doing things normal kids and even adults had no framework for. How could we tell them? Why would I as an empath, put that on them? So all their ick made a home in our hearts. 

• Degraded. We were physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually molested. They made us do bizarre, disturbing things that poisoned our minds and destroyed our childhood and selves. We were innocent but being forced into it made us feel ashamed by association. Guilt by proxy. 

• Debasement.  This shit made us feel dirty. Shit we couldn't tell anyone because they'd think we were the freaks. Their shit we were blamed for. We weren't allowed to set healthy boundaries. We were punished for defending ourselves. Who'd believe us, they said. But it seeped into our relationships like carbon monoxide. I let people hurt me because I didn't know that I should protect myself. Sometimes I acted inappropriately because I was taught to. It made me look weird and there was no one to support or comfort. Shame loves company. 

• Deformation. Dark Tetrad parents deformed us with abuse, neglect and chaos. I have several disabilities that are directly attributable to autoimmune deficiencies and child abuse. 

• Defamation. They lie to and about us to damage our understanding of self. They twist and destroy our character. They spin false narratives and launch smear campaigns. 

• Destruction. These malignant narcissists don't construct they destruct everything they touch. They tear down your boundaries, reserves, strength till you're just a fragile, broken egg shell. They thwart success and joy. They feed off your good. They make Zombies look like Girl Scouts. 

• DARVO. They deny, attack, reverse victim offender. They're like human twist ties, twisting round and round, flipping scripts to make themselves look like victims and their victims, persecutors. I just shake my head and the number of times I fell for this and felt so much FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) that it almost suffocated me. 

• Destabilization. All this rotted the foundations our selves were built on. Nothing was secure. Every moment was a terrifying game Stay Alive with each step threatening a fall into a bottomless pit. 

• Disabling. I'm trying to put these in order of severity but they're all just terrible. Our abilities were stripped from us. We were infantilized and parentified. Our capabilities were not only not fostered they were crippled, by ruthless demands, bullying, coercive control and violence. 

• Debilitation. We became helpless and hopeless because help was denied and hope was stolen. The only thing we could do was robotically trauma respond with fawning, groveling, people pleasing and self-abasement. 

• Dehumanization. At the core of it was a complete obliteration of our own humanity. We were told self-care and being ourselves was selfish. So we became selfless little shadow ghosts hovering in the fringes, awaiting the next command. No life, thoughts, wants, feelings, needs, boundaries. We were possessions not people. 

Prescription for healing 

I won't patronize you with a cutesy little wrap-up promising quick fixes for this sufferings. It's real and deep and visceral and historic. They do these things over a few weeks. It was lifelong devastation. But I can offer you one little Hope Candle and that is that knowledge is power. Once you begin to see the past for what it was, you're on the radical acceptance path. 

They may or may not change (chances are they won't.) But you have been changed forever by your new understanding what love is and isn't. You may choose to stay or go no contact. You may stumble or get side-tracked.  But whatever you choose, once seen never forgotten. You know that you know what you know. And you can never unknow it again. 

Trauma recovery is the yellow brick road AWAY from home

 

Hello my friends, today in my childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm creating metaphors for the suffering that I'm trying to get out of me. All my life I've walked a yellow brick road that was supposed to lead to Kansas and safety but lead only to danger and pain.  

Along the way, I've experienced flying monkeys (blind guides) and Wicked Witches of Narcissism. I've been burned by toxic shaming fumes from her cauldron of abuse, neglect, invalidation, parentification, endangerment and abandonment. The Good Witch that was supposed to give me ruby slippers, only tripped me up, by DARVO and refusal to see my trauma. 

I've been lead astray by the Wizard of Gaslighting and trauma bonding. I've been blinded and blindsided in the dangerous woods of Betrayal Blindness. I've been trapped in the quicksand of parent enmeshment. I've had little rotten apples of self-doubt, toxic shaming and narcissistic abuse lobbed at me by the menacing trees of family chaos and scapegoating. 

I've been deceived by four narcissistic parents who posed as helpful companions but who led me into, not away from pitfalls of parentification. Everything that is supposed to be good, safe, sweet and light was flip-flopped to bad, fraught, sour and dark. So now, even the brightest days are haunted by ominous clouds of FOG (fear, obligation and guilt). It doesn't matter that none of this actually exists now. It lives in the reality of my memory. My then is now my now. 

Where I go from here is not a one-size, once and for all, answer. It's a daily rescue swim out of the rip tide. Some days the water is choppier and harder to navigate. Sometimes I just tread water. Sometimes I drown a little. I don't think to call out for help because not only was the life ring pulled away, my head was pushed under water. So I try to keep my head low so as not to attract attention. It is a double bind. 

I see threatening portents in the most innocuous of things. Everything seems to trigger trauma responses because fawning and people pleasing was the only thing I knew. It was as integral as cellular respiration. Childhood trauma responses WERE my life ring. Sort of. They were also the things that dragged me under and handicapped me. 

One thing that helps is asking AI to create metaphorical images to "show me" myself. You can see a gallery of them in past posts. Sorry I've nothing more helpful to say today. One day at a time. 

Situational spectrum narcissistic behavior vs. pervasive narcissism vs. NPD: does it matter?

Hello my friends. Today in my childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm exploring the difference between situational narcissistic behavior and pervasive narcissism and full-blown NPD. Situational narcissism is a term I coined to describe self-centered behavior patterns that occur in temporal situations and are not integral to the overall personality. But which nevertheless can cause a lot of problems. I'll show how this differs from rigid, "hard-wired" narcissism and NPD (narcissistic personality disorder). I'll also explain why these difference do and don't matter. 

The "Two Faces" Metaphor
Situational narcissism reflects a temporal shift: warmth, compassion, and open arms when energy reserves are intact versus withdrawal, irritability, and self-preservation when chronically depleted, burned out, or navigating shift work sleep disorder (SWSD).

First a note on NPD: I'm not a clinician and never make any attempt to diagnose NPD. I only share observations and experiences with narcissistic behaviors, specifically as a child of narcissistic parents. However, there is a polemics trap that those hearing our stories will often set to undermine us. And we need to be aware of this so we don't get side-tracked in our trauma recovery. Ironically, these traps are a form of gaslighting that is so prevalent in narcissism. 

The uniquely bespoke victim-shaming of the narcissistic parent

Childhood trauma is usually a product of narcissistic (selfish, entitled, arrogant, remorseless) parent behavior. And childhood trauma responses (fawning, freezing, people pleasing) from narcissistic abuse, are generally not understood by people, not in family, society, religion, school, even psychology. And the common response of those who don't understand is to question and second-guess, unfortunately. I call these underminers, "blind guides" who enable abuse by victim-shaming. It's no exaggeration to say that the world gaslights us that it didn't happen, we're making it up or are too sensitive or critical of our parents. We carry this shame and keep silent until one day, maybe, we don't. And then they level up the gaslighting. 

The Diagnosis Trap & Blind Guides
You do not need a clinical diagnosis to validate your experience of harmful behavior. External critics ("blind guides") may attempt to shift focus onto credentials or definitions, but the impact of trauma remains real regardless of the label applied to the abuser.

The double blind guide blindside

When you call out the narcissistic parent abuse, neglect, exploitation, child endangerment, abandonment, invalidation, hypocrisy, parentification, humiliation, triangulation, scapegoating and cruelty for what it is, the blind guides set more traps. They pooh-pooh the abuse without even hearing us out. Or they completely overlook the fact that we just told them our parents left us in a strange city with strangers for a week. They make all kinds of excuses for what happened. And God forbid we call our parents narcissists. Blind guides (also called flying monkeys and enablers) jump down our throats with accusations of "diagnosing" saying we aren't qualified to identify our parents as such. And because we've been demeaned all our lives, we believe that we are wrong to call out the abuse and our parents as abusers. So we remain silent and that puts us in a double blind guide bind. It tightens the trauma bonded, betrayal blindness blindfold. 

Enablers ask "is she diagnosed with narcissism? And if not, how dare you call it that?" Which is the double blind guide blindside: they know narcissists never seek therapy let alone admit their own seflishness. So we, their kids, are stuck, damned if we do or don't. 

Red rags and red flags

If a child who's grown up with abuse isn't qualified to call it what it is, no one is. But don't expect society to affirm you. They're more likely to victim blame and shame. And using the word narcissism is like a red rag to a bull with a lot of folks. It just triggers all their most judgmental, least empathetic disrespectfulness. But let this very unkindness be the red flag you need to see their hypocrisy and judgementalism. See that this was always how your parents manipulated you, with DARVO shame, blame and scorn. Be careful who you tell. Guard your dignity and sanity against this further "leveled up" abuse. 

Seeing through the gaslight

So who do we call out their abuse to? The calling it out is something I do within myself and with a very short list of trusted people. It's more of a quiet seeing, hearing and acknowledging. It's the recognition that all the smoke and mirrors they terrorized us with, were just illusions. It's radical acceptance of the fact that it happened and what they did was wrong, no matter how anyone tries to minimize it or gaslight us. All the excuses in the world can't reduce the impact of childhood trauma. 

Situational vs. Ingrained Narcissism
Situational self-absorption is temporary and driven by crisis, exhaustion, or overwhelm—not an intentional desire to exploit. Ingrained narcissism or NPD, by contrast, relies on a persistent pattern of entitlement, grandiosity, and seeking narcissistic supply regardless of circumstances.

NPD or not to be, isn't the question

But back to the question of NPD or not. It doesn't matter whether you are qualified to diagnose someone with NPD, because it doesn't matter whether they have the full-blown disorder or just act very narcissistically. The narcissistic abuse is the same. They get narcissistic supply from shaming you. Nothing changes with the diagnosis. Expect possibly that if they truly have NPD, you might be tempted to make even more excuses for them than you've already made. I've said it before, the last thing my self-centered mother, stepmother, stepfather and father needed is a doctor slip giving them permission to be so. 

Situational spectrum or ingrained narcissism matters (but also doesn't)

So situational narcissists are my way of referring to people who are not full-blown permanent narcissists. So we're all selfish sometimes. "Spectrum narcissists" are extra selfish but not to the point of fully self-serving.  Their "extra" only occurs occasionally, such as when they are in crisis or fully depleted (exhausted, hangry, very ill).  People with SWSD (shift work disorder) often show what looks like narcissism because they are chronically tired and always on an off schedule. Actually some of the situational narcissists I know are better in crisis mode. So are they actually narcissists? No. It's a spectrum, like autism. And the biggest difference is that they aren't intentionally cruel, just less careful than they should be. I think self-absorbed might be a better term. However...

The key difference in situational selfishness and narcissistic selfishness is that narcissists EXPLOIT and MANIPULATE then GASLIGHT you. The narcissistic abuse is specific to you. Situational selfishness occurs across the board. 

It's not you, but it is about you

Regardless whether someone is situationally or always self-absorbed, regardless of why a person behaves is a consistently selfish, self-serving way, is not your fault. You're never the reason they act haughty, rude, spiteful, malicious, aggressive, antagonistic, thoughtless, disrespectful, malignant, petulant, cruel, self-righteous, hypocritical, entitled, self-centered, Machiavellian or any of the many nasty personality traits associated with narcissism. It doesn't matter if they ever get better. And research shows narcissists won't anyway. But healing IS about you. Setting boundaries on what you'll tolerate, grey rocking or going no contact, healing trauma responses, getting stronger are tasks you can do. 

Make it all about you. 

Focus on Your Healing
Regardless of why someone acts in a consistently self-serving way, their behavior is not your fault. Healing shifts the focus back to your own boundaries, protective measures (like grey rocking), and personal recovery.