I couldn’t get the attention and approval that I needed from my narcissistic father. I craved his attention and approval when I was a child — and I kept craving those things from him as an adult. If someone had suggested this to me 15 years ago, I would have denied it. I just wouldn’t have been able to accept that I still needed the approval that I never got when I was young.
When I was growing up, I received a lot of attention and praise from other people. I was a very high achiever as a child. I did receive attention and approval from many other people over the years for the things I did, but I felt like a fraud — as though I didn’t deserve it — all because he would not give me the approval I was seeking.
Every time I got recognition or praise or awards, I had one eye on him — and I was silently asking whether this one would finally be good enough for him.
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 reaching others with the videos.) Or you can watch the most recent video below.

What would I do with my time if the money made no difference?
Every addiction is heart’s effort to fill inner hole that requires love
Without real human connection, we’re just living in a simulation
If you beg someone to make you his priority, you hurt yourself
Suicide ends pain of depression, but scars loved ones left behind
If your own life is all messed up, lecture others about fixing theirs
Illusions we project for others allow us to remain hidden inside
It’s great to visit Memory Lane, but it’s fatal to try to live there
Ghost from my past haunts me, but leaves me without answers