[00:00:00] Raven: Welcome to the Empath and the Narcissist podcast, where you regain your sparkle back after narcissistic abuse. I am your host Raven Scott,
a trauma informed spiritual mentor, certified meditation teacher, and human design expert. I’m empowering empaths in recovery and healing from narcissistic abuse childhood trauma through human design self-care mindfulness advice and expert interviews Subscribe now This is season five
Episode 92, the Art of Evasion, how narcissistic parents escape their responsibilities.
Do you ever think, I keep trying with my parent, but it just isn’t working and maybe they seem to use the same language with you. It just doesn’t seem to get through to them. They just don’t listen to me. And all they do is bring their drama and excuses into gaslighting away my emotions and how I’m trying to share with them how I feel and what I want from the relationship.
If you are like me, you have experienced either a emotionally crippled parent due to their insecurities or a narcissistic parent. And narcissistic parents are driven by their self-centeredness and inflated sense of entitlement. Often they display a remarkable ability to evade and shirk their responsibilities as caregivers.
Finding excuses and just telling you that’s in the past. Get over it. All of these phrases are extremely toxic, and they are in a form abusive because they are not holding space for the emotions and they’re not validating your feelings. And so in this episode today, we’re gonna cover all the ways that they do shift blame.
And as I know from personal experience and from listening to you in our coaching sessions, that narcissistic parents may have. Well-intentioned of covering up their insecurities, but it’s extremely damaging to their relationship with you as the child and your own emotional wellbeing because the pattern continues on and you seem, you choose toxic narcissistic partners thinking that it’s normal.
So the narcissist primary goal. Is to focus on maintaining their own image, dear Empaths and fulfilling their own personal needs, leaving their children, i e you, to bear the brunt of their neglect and indifference. And I really truly think and believe that this stems from their lack of emotional tools, their own trauma, that they haven’t healed, things that they’re still hung up on in their past and their deep insecurities that they have not.
Rewritten and conquered, and as devout as they may be, or as spiritual as they may seem, or as mature or confident in, let’s say a really big business, , successful business person, they haven’t addressed the root. Those are all just band-aids. They’ve covered up, and when you don’t address the root, this is where the narcissism takes over.
And that is the core of narcissism is they escape their responsibilities and they push it off onto you and they shift the blame. They are excellent at deflecting blame onto others, skillfully maneuvering situations to make it appear as though their children or external circumstances are the cause of their neglectful behavior.
Yeah, always putting others before their children, making sure they look like a good citizen. Yeah. Putting even their own financial plans and needs in front of their children. I mean, it’s just this constant shift of responsibility. They absolve themselves of any guilt or accountability. They’ll rationalize it out through, , justifications, scriptures.
, like real life, like, well, , I’m the adult and, or like, I have responsibilities or whatever, and you leave the child confused and burdened with this false guilt. And as much as it’s heartbreaking to see this when it’s done to small children, it’s also equally heartbreaking when we see this done or we feel this done to us as an adult child because, I feel like, and maybe this is wrong, maybe this is still a, young, naive theory, but the parents who have this mindset that I am your parent until you’re 18, and that I’m not your parent anymore, they think that that’s a good intention. Like they’re giving you independence. But what that really is setting it up for is like, well, Now that after all the abuse I’ve done and all the confusion I put you through and all of my own insecurities that I poured onto you, now you’re 18.
So now you handle it. Now you do with it. Now you go, you do, you do you. And it’s like, wait a second. And that’s why if they don’t work on themselves, counseling, therapy with a parent, just as with a narcissist partner, it. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t help because the other person has to work on their emotional maturity and the, as an adult child, you are still an adult, but you also are a child in relationship with your parents.
So, , a parent should always consider themselves a role model, a parent, a mentor. Throughout their entire child’s life. Like you have a kid, you’re not done at 18. You go through all the way, all the way until you are passed and you help them with their children. It’s, it’s just, I don’t know, maybe it’s a cultural thing or just a selfish thing, but it’s, that does the way to just say, oh, you’re 18 and I’m done.
Like that is not, that is totally. That’s not okay. It, I, I just don’t feel like that’s the right mentality to have, but that’s my own personal opinion. Take it with a grain of salt. So the other thing is that the narcissist parents, because they’re hiding all their insecurities, they’ve been doing it for years now they have children, so they gotta do it with you.
And it’s almost like breathing to them. I don’t think they realize they’re manipulating you emotionally as children because of their manipulation is in everything else in life. I feel like it’s like breathing, right? The subconscious kicks in, and they exploit their children’s vulnerabilities. , always putting guilt trips on gaslighting and just saying all these lies that just aren’t correct, and they’re emotionally blackmailing to avoid fulfilling their parental duties because they are not grown up emotionally either.
So by making their children feel responsible for their happiness or wellbeing, that right in of itself is manipulative. And if we go back to the human design element, That can happen with a defined emotional center that is unconscious. They make everyone else feel responsible for their feelings cuz they can’t make sense of why they’re feeling low when they’re in their low emotional cycle.
And so then they set the tone for the room. It’s really uncomfortable. And let’s say the open emotional solar plexus child says, well, I don’t wanna feel this. This feels really uncomfortable. I hate this. So how can I make mommy or daddy happy? So that we can shift out of this really like amplified sad or mad feeling, right?
And so it automatically, subconsciously, energetically shifts the child to be responsible for the happiness of the parent. And that is not okay. The child should never be responsible for anything with the parent. The parent is supposed to take care of the child and. I’m sure with some extreme cases, the narcissistic parent manipulates the child into shouldering the burden of their neglect.
Like, oh, well I don’t, , spend time with you because so many different reasons, right? Because you have all these activities you wanna do and I have to work and pay for them. Let’s say that’s like a covert way. It’s like, oh wow, thanks. Like I didn’t, that’s not my fault, right? As a child, you just wanna do stuff and the parent could always say, No, I can’t afford five things for you to do, but we can do one.
And that way you could still spend time with your child. But no, they just use that as an excuse because honestly, they want the kid to do the five things cuz they don’t wanna spend time with their child. They don’t wanna sit and read books with them. They wanna do what they wanna do because they’re selfish and they’re childish.
And that is the ugly truth about narcissistic parents. They project an illusion out into the world that they’re a perfect parent and that they are successful and they take all of the Christmas card photos and they look beautiful as a family and they take vacations and like I said, they take the kid to all these different activities.
They’re very no active. Academics are really big, depending on. Their, viewpoint on the world or it’s church is really big. They’re very involved in church. So there’s this investment as of significant effort in creating an outward appearance of being a good family, a perfect family, responsible, caring, but behind closed doors, they neglect their parental obligations, which really I feel the, the foundation of a parental obligation.
Is the emotional wellbeing of your child developing autonomy in your child. That is number one paramount, and that’s what I always focus on in my household because honestly, I am still rewriting a whole bunch of mirror neurons. That are very self-centered from the way I was raised. And I’m speaking a lot from personal experience, not to label anyone a narcissist in my sphere.
However, I’m just, this just all really resonates, right? And it doesn’t matter what we call them. It doesn’t really matter. It is what it is and this is how we evolve emotionally and heal. As us in the millennial generation heal our children and their generations and still there’ll be more healing to come in the next generations.
So be humble and be open to the feedback that you’re very emotionally, , self-aware child gives you, because that is something to pay attention to cuz there’s probably something subconscious that you’re still doing that your parent did to you, that you’re doing to your child. And the best thing that you can do is say, I hear you.
I’m sorry. I will work on that because you yourself can realize, oh, that was, that, that was a mirror neuron. That was subconscious. That was something that was conditioning me. And now I can change the way that I parent my child. So going back to projecting the false sense of self to the outside world, it really is to evade scrutiny.
And then when they go behind closed doors, it’s like, I, I am me. Right? They let their guard down. They are. Click back into their subconscious. They just are like, I’m here to relax in my house, and the kid has to fend for themselves. Or if a kid gets upset, it’s always like, stop crying. , like lecture, lecture, lecture versus holding space and figuring out what that child needs because.
Two narcissistic parents. The child is like a toy. The child is something to worship them. And so when the child especially starts to get older and realize that there’s a lot of BS going on, especially if they have a more someone like you who is teaching them, like, this is how we act properly and this is not how we act.
Especially if it’s a split, , household where they’re not living with that narcissistic parent all the time. They can see through the bs. And so you have this like, oh, discard, right? The narcissistic parent discards the child who finally sees it just like they discarded you. And they will only focus in on the children who worship them, who don’t see their flaws yet.
But again, behind closed doors, it’s, there’s still like they don’t have time to deal with the messiness that children bring and children. Just bring honestly, the most raw and open ego. They are our mirrors. They trigger us like heck. But that’s how we grow and we mature. But if a parent who may be narcissistic doesn’t want to, they’re not gonna mature and they’re going to, push off little, they’re just gonna like, I don’t even, can’t even think of the right word.
The narcissistic parent will figure out how to get rid of that problem fast without considering the feelings of the child.
Narcissistic parents often delegate their responsibilities to others, such as partners, family members, or even their own children. This is something because they like to sit on their butt a lot. They don’t like to do stuff, or they’re working, they write, they work outside of the home, and they come home.
They’re exhausted. It is just always up to you, right? To clean everything, to do everything. And also if they are living alone and your child is half there, half here, then they also put those responsibilities onto a child who’s old enough. Kinda like in the olden days where kids used to work, like when they were age nine, I mean, life was a little different cuz you lived shorter back then.
But anyways, that like in the modern days, so like, oh, kids worked at age nine so they can work. In the house now, like anyways, so they exploit these individuals taking advantage of their sense of duty, right? Their open-heartedness, their kindheartedness or their desire to please. Okay, so narcissist parents also prioritize their self-interest. Well, duh. But anyways, this just goes to show like their ambitions, their hobbies, things that are fun for them are priority or looking like a good citizen or doing their duty as a Christian. Those are a priority over. Maybe the more boring things of what their child requires, like attention, guidance, support time, and especially as the child goes into adulthood.
And the last one of course is narcissistic Parents lack empathy, so they cannot hold space and even say the phrase I know, and letting their kids cry and just be upset. That’s what kids need sometimes, is just to be held, not fix anything, not cover anything up. , like really just feel into the empathy of the moment and saying, I know.
And it makes it really difficult for the narcissist to even comprehend or respond appropriately because they don’t have empathy to their child’s needs. So the child gets lecturing, the child gets like, yeah. And a verbal barrage, ment of horribleness just to get them to stop crying or be quiet and their inability to connect with their children on an emotional level.
Really further reinforces their tendency to escape their responsibilities, maybe only coming around once in a while if they’re not the main caregiver, but as they fail to understand or prioritize the significance of their role as caregivers. Because remember, narcissists, emotionally are still children.
So to be a caregiver, a proper caregiver, you need to be emotionally mature, which narcissists are not. So they don’t, they don’t, they just fail at it because they haven’t grown up themselves. And some of us can have children emotionally immature and then really do the work and mature quickly, and some of us cannot.
And this is the divide between the two and path and narcissist. So really, in conclusion, this is a really difficult topic and it’s a really sad one, and I’m so grateful for. So many of our lovely, narc, Avengers and coercive control advocates out there advocating for children, in the court system because the court system still is so antiquated and outdated that they don’t see emotional abuse as physical abuse, and it’s really hard to prove.
But I think if we can get some brain scans, then yes, we definitely can prove that now, because the amygdalas chemicals from emotional abuse is far more damaging than, instance where they get hit or a blow. And so there are so many working on also not, there’s this, Oh my gosh. I don’t know what the law is called, but there’s a law, I wanna say it’s Jamie’s law, but I could be wrong about, banning these reunification camps with children and their abusive parent because the abusive parent has.
Done the magic, done, the smoke and mirrors convinced the court system that they are the correct parent or they are the responsible parent and they are not abusive. And then I was reading through some, some comments on Instagram. This one lady said that she experienced it as well about how her children, was in this camp with the narcissist father and the therapist.
We’re both gaslighting the kids in telling them that, , the kids were bringing up, well this happened and that happened, and the therapist would say, no that didn’t. Like both the abuser and the therapist was now abusing, which is totally against their certification. They should not be doing this.
But guess it’s happening and it happens in the world misuse of power. That telling, , gaslighting the kids into the fact that that did not happen. Right. And it’s like kind of like trying to erase their trauma and the evidence through like brainwashing through these camps. And so I think they’re trying to work on banning these camps, or at least for sure they’re trying to work on changing the laws on what constitutes abuse.
Because coercive control is what they’re trying to really get the court systems to recognize that coercive control is abuse. And they have in a couple of states I probably need to research more and have her back on. But one of our guests in the past,
Dr. Ola, . She was on our podcast. Last season in season four, so I think it’s time to have her back on and, you can find her on Instagram, Dr. Ola underscore Coercive Control. she’s just a really, really amazing advocate for all of this because she herself experienced it.
And Colorado. Here we go. I know. I was like, I remember this picture . So in Colorado, a piece of legislation that prioritizes the safety and wellbeing of children. Has finally recognized that. And there’s, she’s, there’s a picture of them signing that legislation to protect the wellbeing of children.
She said one state down 49 more to go. So we have such a long journey to go in this. So if you have any information you wanna follow Dr. Christine Ola, and just start getting. Your little ripple effects and your hands in this movement. I’m gonna also be contacting her to figure out how to do so, but I’ve got so much on my plate, but it’s definitely something on, on my mind.
So if it’s on your mind, just like me, just start following her, start sharing her content, start reaching out to her and saying, how can I help? Whatever we can do to help is important. And I also wanted to let that summer break is now upon us, and so this is the end of season five. I will continue to post episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the summer, but I’m ending the interviews.
So any interviews you hear, like the one I’ll be re re airing with Dr. Co. Will be reruns, which I think for all of you new listeners who really enjoy because that was like way back in season four and that’s hard to go back that far in the podcast library. So I’ll be replaying those on Sundays throughout the summer.
So just so , a heads up, that’s what’s happening and I’ll be taking a well-deserved, although I’m still be producing two episodes a week break this summer, I’ll also be working on. My new workbook that I have going the How to Heal From Toxic Relationships Workbook. So we’ll get that out and published by hopefully the fall.
And if you have any other questions, I’m always here to answer them via email. Raven Scott show at Gmail and also sign up for your free call with me. I can listen to you, I can help gain, give you some clarity on your brain frog that the narcissist has placed onto you. As well as go through your human design chart and when you do get that, when you do book the free call, you’ll be have a chance to get a shout out in the episodes on Tuesday and going through your chart a little bit more.
And if you have your free chart and you’ve done the free call and you’re wondering, oh gosh, like now what? What do I do? How do I dive deeper into this? You could either book a one-on-one call package with me, or if you’d like, we can, you can join the Empath Healing Membership. So what I’ve created this for is to answer your questions you have on your chart to give you on-demand videos.
I’ll directly send that to you. It’ll also be in the member portal, and I post blogs constantly in there about narcissist awareness healing. And human design like the transits each month. I have that in there as well of understanding if you don’t have a certain gate to find when they transit and they come around just like planets do in astrology, then they activate and we amplify that energy during that week, and they’re usually here for about five to six days.
And then we have monthly healing group circles. In the Zoom and weekly guided meditation via Zoom. So if you’d like to dive deeper into your healing journey, join the Empath Healing Membership today. The link is in the show notes.