If so, it might be familiar to you, that neither were your emotions respected nor your personality acknowledged and you might have been unknowingly pushed into a role, which was not aligned with your natural development.
As women, when we grow up, we move through different stages of being a child, being the maiden, the mother and in the last stage of our life, being the crone. In the natural flow of our development we are experiencing all those different natural stages, which come with womanhood.
Of course everyone is free to choose, whether one likes to experience them or not, yet what happens in an environment coloured by narcissistic relationships is, that we do not have a choice and we get molded into a tool, that fits the needs of those who fall under the spectrum of narcissism.
A narcissistic person is not interested in the emotional state of someone else, except if it would benefit their needs in a certain way and therefor if your parents had narcissistic tendencies, they most likely would not care about your emotional state at all and would even use your vulnerability against you. Not trying to sort things out or find a way, to help you understand or make it more pleasant for you, but maybe additionally guilt or shame you for your response into "sucking it up" and most likely take care of their emotional instability.
I do not imply that they wanted to hurt intentionally, since the level of self reflection and consciousness might not even be that far developed in a narcissistic person, they act out of a tiny range of behavioural patterns, suitable to their limited way of viewing the world, which is focussed on meeting their needs. They might even be mentally intelligent or skilled in manipulation or have complex strategies, yet their emotional intelligence is very shallow.
When a child grows up in an emotionally unstable and highly manipulative environment, where it is not safe to show what goes on inside, they carefully tread around any triggers which could slightly cause an unpleasant reaction by the parent.
By that, the child learns to read the emotional state of the parent constantly, trying to appease their oftentimes unpredictable behaviour in a manner of fawning, which is people pleasing and trying to harmonize their surrounding constantly, being as unnoticable as possible, so they might not have to endure an outburst or emotional attack.
The outcome of such an upbringing is oftentimes the inaccesibility to the own self and by that to the experiencing of the natural states. In a hostile environment like this, the child can not freely live the phases of being a child, growing into a juvenile and experiencing their own emotional sphere and own internal self.
It does happen quite often, that the flow of life is completely reversed in such kind of relationships. The narcissistic parent expects the child to take on the role of someone who attends to them, which can be seen as the crone, who is the mature part, to care for them and serving them as their supply.
If one had to endure such an intense programming, there is most likely a feeling of not having had the chance to live life in a normal and natural way, in a balanced flow. Something feels like missing and it can very well be, because the normal stages of development were not accessible and not allowed to be experienced.
Living life according to our nature is actually the most beautiful and precious thing to experience, but if our ways are impacted by being pushed into a role, which was actually not meant for us at that time, we might suffer a great deal of disconnect from our inner self, because the most healthy reaction at that time, in order to survive was, to comply and follow along.
But be assured there are ways out, you can overcome this, your inner self always has the chance to heal and to return to harmony. Because when you heal inside, you will recognize, the time is now and it is always possible to rediscover the inner child and juvenile and integrate them into your heart, which opens new doors of embracing life.
