Narcissists teach their victims they aren’t allowed to have needs

The narcissists in our lives might tell us how much they love us. When they’re in the right moods, they might tell us that they want to take care of us and they might tell us how important we are to them. My father said those things at times, too. But I knew from his actions that he didn’t care. I knew he didn’t pay attention to my fears or my needs. He just wanted to feel good about himself. His own needs were all he really cared about.

For those of us who have learned to keep our needs to ourselves, it’s hard to change. It’s hard to accept that it’s OK to have needs. But I’m not sure that we can have healthy and loving relationships with others unless we learn to accept our needs and learn to accept help when it’s appropriate.

Narcissists taught us that we’re not supposed to have needs, but we have to learn to accept the truth — that it’s perfectly OK for us to have needs and that if we find the right people to be in our lives, there will be others who care about our needs and fears.

This is the next in a series of videos dealing with issues that come up for me to think about as I write a book about my childhood experience of growing up with a narcissistic father. You can visit that YouTube channel to subscribe to future videos. (Liking and subscribing help me quite a bit in helping others to see the videos.) Or you can watch the most recent video below.