Experiencing your childhood in a narcissistic bubble

Hi there dear guys and girls. I'm Petra for the new subscribers. I'm a life coach and advocate for survivors of narcissistic and emotional abuse. Welcome back again and thank you for your continued support of this channel. I am absolutely grateful to all of you. So today a very important topic as all topics are when it comes to narcissism and when it comes to healing from narcissistic abuse. There are very two important values that we take with us from childhood and we carry them with us through adulthood as well and that is fear and love. But when you have been growing up or experienced your childhood from a narcissistic bubble, from a narcissistic cocoon, you have not been taught how to have unconditional love. It is part of your essence, yes, but it has been suppressed from the time you were little. So all the good things in life, all the good values, all the juice of life has never been shown to you in a loving way, if anything that has all been repressed throughout your life. And this is what happens with anyone who has experienced their childhood through this narcissistic cocoon, is that you will develop certain behaviour patterns, certain thought patterns that keep you paralysed for a very long time until you become aware of the pattern that has been implanted in your mind, in your brain from a very young age. So what it boils down to is that you have always associated love with conforming to the demands and the wishes of the narcissistic parent. So you have been taught and conditioned and programmed to give in order to get nothing. So this is why when we leave a narcissistic home as adult children, we only know how to give. We are always putting others before us. We never put ourselves first because we have been taught that this is selfish, that this is not the way to go, that you need to put others' needs before your own needs. So there is also a lot of devaluation and under-appreciation that goes into growing up in a narcissistic cocoon. You will always be devalued by your parent, whatever way that is. To use my husband as an example, he was raised by a narcissistic mother and was always given from a very young age, was given chores to do. Now there is nothing wrong with giving chores to your children, but it is the intent of giving those chores. She simply saw her boys, she had two boys, my husband and his brother, she saw them as extensions of herself. And this is very often the case for a narcissistic parent. They see their children as extensions of themselves. So they will control their children's behaviour in a very destructive and a very evil way. So the chores that are given, if you as a child, and I know this was true for my husband as well, when he would say, but I don't want to do my chores, I want to go out and play with the other kids, that would be met with anger from the That would be met with beatings. They would be locked, the boys would be locked in the cellar in the dark. Now you can imagine what that does to a very young child, is that fear is instilled in them. And even though later on in life, when you are no longer in that cellar, you still feel that fear within you, it has become a part of your everyday life. So it can be fear showing up in very many different ways. It can be fear in the workplace, can be fear in relationships, fear in interactions with others, in friendships, whatever the case may be, that fear is always there. So to maintain their very fragile self-esteem, in the case of the narcissistic parent, they will do anything to control their children, to abuse their children verbally, physically, mentally, psychologically. It's all about abuse. It's all about treating the child not as a human being with strengths and limitations, but treating that child as an object. And that is a very sad and destructive way to grow up. So this is one of the reasons why adults who have endured childhood abuse have a very challenging time in releasing those beliefs that were put into their brains at a very young age, and giving themselves permission to stand in their truth, to speak their truth, to design and consciously create the life experience that they wish for themselves. This has everything to do with your thought patterns. And your thoughts affect your feelings, and your feelings affect your emotions. This is very important to understand, because when we speak about healing, it is about becoming conscious of what you are thinking, and how that relates to your feelings and your emotions, and ultimately your action. So the guilt and shame that your narcissistic parent has instilled in you, and this is what all narcissistic parents do, they instill in their child fear, no love, but fear, shame, guilt. So when you are bombarded with these very toxic emotions as a child, you will get to the point where you feel paralysed, and you will develop within yourself a way to keep yourself safe, a safety mechanism, which ultimately causes you to repress your feelings, your emotions, your thoughts, all of that, in the hope that you will gain some form of love from your narcissistic parent. This is what is taught to you, and this is why so many adult children of narcissistic parents have a very challenging time maintaining relationships, and I'm not talking about relationships with narcissists, I'm talking about when those healthy relationships show up in your life, and you have not healed your core wounds, then you will not know how to handle a healthy relationship. So you will go about on autopilot, repressing the feelings of love and affection, because this is your normal, this is what you grew up in. And yet, still on the other hand, hoping that that person, your healthy partner, will see through your core wounds and love you unconditionally. But oftentimes this is not the case, because it really comes down to you. If you are willing and committed to healing those core wounds, that is when you are open, that is when your heart opens to being in a healthy relationship where you are valued, where you are loved unconditionally, and where you are respected and appreciated. So ultimately, you have been taught by your narcissistic parent to have an unconscious denial of your true essence. So when you were born, every child has their true essence, that is the truth of who you are, and that is your authentic self. But again, you have been taught to have this unconscious denial. And having this unconscious denial is what perpetuates self-loathing, self-sabotage, reprimanding yourself, thinking of yourself as being unworthy, as being unlovable. And this shows up in people-pleasing, this shows up in not setting boundaries. And again, this is a denial of your own needs. Every single human being has needs, wants, desires. This is part of who we authentically are. And this is also what we need to be very active in our lives in order to fulfil our life's purpose. Everyone has a life purpose. And if your thoughts, your feelings and emotions are not aligned with your life purpose, then this is where the inner conflict is created. So you will go through life with blindfolds on, listening or feeling that there is an authentic self to you, that there is a truth within you. But again, the fear and the shame and the guilt that the narcissistic parent instilled in you is what is going to keep coming to the surface. And this is what ultimately paralyzes you in moving on, in making decisions for yourself, in being life-fulfilling. Because that, you know, my job as a life coach is to assist you in consciously creating your life's vision. It is within you. Sometimes you need someone to help you see yourself from a different perspective. And when you see yourself from a different perspective, that is when the truth of you comes to the surface. That is when your essence is revealed. And that is when you get to make those very true choices that belong to you in order to get your life back into motion, as opposed to having your life on pause all of the time. So again, the narcissistic parent will never truly see the child as a unique human being with wants, wishes, desires, strengths, limitations. You are never seen that way. The narcissistic parent simply sees you as an object. And this object is there, you as that child are put there to be abused. This is a very sad, but very true truth. You are used as an object. You have to conform and you have to fulfil every desire of the narcissistic parent. There is no love involved. If you are, you know, as a child, wanting certain things, I've said this several times, where you wanted a certain colour in your bedroom, or you wanted to wear a certain type of clothing, but all you got to hear from your narcissistic parent is, you're so ugly, you're so horrible, you don't deserve to have your room painted in the colour that you wish. You will wear the clothes that I give you, you will not have a choice in that. You know, to an outsider, hearing this, it may sound frivolous, it may even sound untrue, but this is the very truth of what a child goes through when being raised by a narcissistic parent or both narcissistic parents, is that you are not taught to develop your emotional intelligence. You are not taught to develop your strengths. You are not allowed to show your limitations. Everything is shut down. And then you reach a point of numbness. So you go from living, you know, as a baby, you are unconscious, so you just be, you just are. You go from living to being numbed out by all the pressure that has been put on you and all the untruths that have been instilled in you by your narcissistic parent. And when you reach that level of numbness, then you put your life on hold. You are simply, you see yourself simply as a function of the desires and wishes of another. So all your wants and needs and desires and vision for your life is put on hold. So what fear actually is, is truth on pause. Fear is truth on pause. Empowered action is your truth in motion. And these are very, it's very important questions to ask yourself, is what is it I truly want? You know, it is a very simple question when you verbalize it. What is it you truly want? But it is a very challenging question to answer. And in order to answer that question, you have to get real about what you have been through. You have to speak that truth. And when you have spoken your truth, you are releasing that fear, the fear that was given to you by the narcissistic parent. You get to release that fear and then discover for yourself what your truth is, what your authentic self truly looks like. And there is never equality. You know, when you are in a in a narcissistic home, being raised that way, or when you as an adult have been through a narcissistic relationship, there is no equality in that relationship. There is no truth in that relationship. Again, you are confronted with the desires and the demands of the narcissistic partner in your life or parent in your life. And this also has to do a lot with with your loyalty. You get into a loyalty conflict, as I have heard so often. And I know that my husband also went through this. He was a grown man. We had just started out in our relationship together. But he felt a certain sense of loyalty still to his narcissistic mother. So he would still do for her and visit her. It may not have been very often, excuse me. But the truth is, is that he did because he was having this inner conflict with himself about being loyal to his mother, and yet also acknowledging that he was not raised in a loving way. He was raised in a very destructive way. He had that that conflict going on. And there comes a point where you have to release that conflict by realizing that it is all fear based. The reason why we are kept paralyzed in life is because we are fearful, fearful of being successful, fearful of really being able to do the stuff that we truly desire for ourselves. We are fearful of being judged by others. What if I shine my light so bright that others will judge me for that? You know, these are all the answers that you receive when you ask yourself this very important question, what is it that I truly want? And then to check your answers, because your answers are based on your thought patterns. Whatever the narcissistic parent taught you about yourself, this is what your answers are based on. And nine times out of 10, they are fear based answers. So it really takes looking at that fear and saying, right, the fear that I am holding, it's actually a belief. And when you are holding that belief of fear, you are really saying, I value you. This is valuable to me. So when you release that value, that is when you are able to really get down to the nitty gritty, where you can see that it is all about allowing your authentic self to shine through, not denying that anymore. Seeing where you self-sabotage, seeing where you self-loathe, seeing how you speak to yourself on a daily basis, it's usually your inner critic that is speaking to you. But again, this all ties in to your belief system, to your thought pattern. So growing up, you know, just to come back to the topic of the video is your whole childhood has been experienced through this narcissistic cocoon. And when that cocoon is burst, when that bubble is burst, that is when you get to make different choices. And it really is about making different choices for yourself. That is not selfish. It is self-care. To quote one of my clients, you know who you are, if you're watching this, this is something we spoke of last year. And it is not about being selfish. It is about being self-caring towards yourself, taking yourself seriously in that department. So when your narcissistic bubble has been burst, you know, growing up in a narcissistic then it is really up to you to consciously create a new bubble because even though the bubble has been burst and you are no longer in that situation where you are being, excuse me, I have a very dry throat, where you are no longer in that situation of literally being abused by your narcissistic parent, even though that is no longer the case, you are not physically in that situation anymore. The memory is what you still carry with you. The beliefs are what you still carry with you. Your thought patterns are still there. So healing is all about recognizing your thought patterns, recognizing how your thoughts affect your feelings and how your feelings ultimately affect your emotions and your actions in life. So I hope that has been of some help. Share your story of growing up in a narcissistic home, if that is what you wish to do. Thank you again for all your emails. And I take, try and take time out every day to answer every single one. So again, if there's been a delay in response, then please know that I cannot keep up all the time. So thank you for being patient with me. Okay, take care of yourselves. Wishing you love and light and speak to you all very soon. Bye bye for now.