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.
Why can beauty hurt so much? Why do I see her face in the sky?
Homeless freeloaders upset those who want to freeload off ‘the rich’
Goodbye, Daddy
Genuine love is always extreme — and it rarely makes any sense
Idiots want people to have health care, but want others to pay for it
I don’t really hate you, honest; I’m just afraid you may hurt me
When I die, what will I remember? Who won an election or who I loved?
Barack Obama’s effort to imitate FDR’s ’36 campaign full of danger
Now that his threat is truly gone, I realize my father hated himself