You Were Trained to Abandon Yourself: What Growing Up with a Narcissistic Parent Does to You

Feb 11

I can’t count how many clients have sat across from me over the years and shared things like:

“I can’t relax. I’m constantly on edge, waiting for something to go wrong.”
“I second-guess everything I do, even the smallest decisions.”
“I always feel like it’s my fault when something goes wrong.”
“I feel responsible for everyone’s emotions — like it’s my job to fix them.”
“I don’t know how to say no without feeling like I’m doing something wrong.”
“I always need reassurance that I didn’t mess up.”
“When someone’s upset, I assume it’s because of me.”
“I feel guilty for wanting things — like I’m being selfish.”

These aren’t unusual statements. They’re patterns.
And if you grew up in a narcissistic or emotionally immature family system, chances are they’ll feel familiar.

Because you weren’t taught to trust yourself. You were trained, through thousands of small, daily interactions, to abandon yourself in order to stay loved, accepted, or emotionally “connected.”

What Self-Abandonment Looks Like (Even If You’re High-Functioning)

Self-abandonment doesn’t always look chaotic or obvious. It’s often hidden under competence, achievement, helpfulness, and intellect.

Take “Renee,” for example, a client in her late 30s who came to therapy because she was feeling “burned out.” On paper, she was successful: ran a team, owned a home, took care of her parents financially. But emotionally? She was flattened.

It took time to tease out that this wasn’t about work stress. It was about early wiring. Renee had spent her entire life anticipating others’ needs. She called it being “tuned in,” but in reality, it was hypervigilance, a leftover survival skill from childhood.

Her mom was moody and fragile. Her dad worked long hours and expected gratitude, not additional obligations. Renee learned early: Don’t cause problems. Don’t have needs. Keep everyone happy, and you’ll be okay.

As an adult, she was still running that same emotional script, just now with a polished resume and chronic migraines.

I see these patterns all the time in my group coaching program, Anxious to Anchored. Clients show up feeling like they’ve “checked all the boxes,” but underneath, they’re disconnected from themselves, running on fear, wrought with anxiety & self-doubt.

Why This Happens in Narcissistic Families

In narcissistic or emotionally immature families, relationships are often organized around the parent’s emotional needs, not the child’s developmental ones.

That means your feelings, questions, or boundaries might have been seen as:

A threat (“Don’t start with that again.”)
An annoyance (“You’re too sensitive.”)
A rejection (“I guess I’m just a terrible parent, then.”)

You learn fast. A child doesn’t stop loving the parent. They stop expressing themselves.
To stay attached, they suppress anything that could make them feel uncared for, burdensome, or invisible. That’s not dramatic, it’s neurological. The brain is designed to wire around threat and maximize connection, even if that connection is conditional.

So what forms instead of a solid sense of self is a functional role:

The Golden Child earns praise by being perfect
The Caretaker earns safety by managing others’ emotions
The Invisible One avoids pain by staying quiet and small
The Scapegoat absorbs blame and keeps the system stable

These roles work in childhood. But they become cages in adulthood.

The Long-Term Cost (And It’s Not Just Emotional)

Over time, self-abandonment doesn’t just shape how you feel, it shapes how you function.

A few examples I’ve seen in clients:

Chronic indecision – because when you’re never asked what you want, that muscle doesn’t develop
“Good girl/good guy” syndrome – the compulsive need to be liked, agreeable, or easy
Hyper-responsibility – you feel guilty for other people’s discomfort, even if it has nothing to do with you
Overachieving with emptiness – you succeed, but feel no joy or fulfillment
Relationship confusion – either feeling distant, controlled, or always the emotional caretaker

I worked with a client, “Jason,” who kept ending up in relationships where he felt emotionally starved. He described himself as “reasonable” and “low drama,” but when we slowed things down, what showed up was a core belief:

“If I ask for more, I’m selfish. I should just be grateful.”

That belief didn’t come out of nowhere. Jason grew up with a narcissistic father who weaponized guilt and praise in equal measure. Jason’s job as a child was to be outwardly impressive, but emotionally invisible. Praise was given, but connection wasn’t. So he learned: being wanted isn’t the same as being known.

These Patterns Didn’t Come From Nowhere

Clients often come into therapy convinced something is wrong with them:

Why can’t I relax?
Why do I feel numb all the time?
Why do I know something’s off but still try so hard to make this relationship work?

But when we slow it down and trace the pattern, the picture becomes clearer: these behaviors are not random. They’re responses to early emotional environments.

They’re patterns that started for a reason, usually at a time when a child had no other option.

One client, “Mel,” would panic at the idea of someone being disappointed in her. Even the thought of ignoring an incoming phone call would spin her into days of anxiety. When we followed the trail back, it wasn’t about that one phone call. It was about her father withdrawing emotionally anytime she disappointed him.

Her system was still responding to current situations based on outdated rules.
Not because she’s flawed, but because the old strategy still felt safer than the unknown.

Inside Anxious to Anchored, I focus on helping clients recognize those patterns for what they are: protective. But no longer necessary. That distinction changes everything.

So, Where Do You Start?

There’s no checklist that fixes this. But there are clear shifts I see over and over again in clients who do this work:

Awareness of the pattern – Understanding your “quirks” are actually maladaptive coping strategies
Grief – For the parent you needed but didn’t get, and the parts of yourself you had to abandon
Reconnection – With your real needs, preferences, limits, and identity
Redefining safety – Not as avoidance, but as permission to take up space
Practicing new behavior – Even when it feels unfamiliar, or selfish, or scary

This is uncomfortable work. But it’s the kind of discomfort that comes with stretching muscles that haven’t been used in years. It doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong, it means you’re doing something new.

This Is Exactly What We Do in Anxious to Anchored

If you’ve been living in high-functioning survival mode for most of your life, and you’re ready to stop abandoning yourself just to keep the peace, this is the kind of work we do inside Anxious to Anchored.

It’s not a course about “fixing your anxiety.”
It’s a structured process for unlearning the emotional rules you were taught in childhood and re-learning how to actually live in your own body and mind, without performing for approval 24/7.

Inside, I help you: