Today we are deep diving on what daughters of narcissistic fathers need to know to Heal—Part 2. Why is this important? Because after a narcissistic relationship, it’s crucial to find the source of where it all started.
Why? Because it didn’t start with you.
In other words, you are not the source of your wounding. You didn’t do this to yourself. And by going back to where it all started, examining and acknowledging what happened and what didn’t happen, you can chart your path forward to healing and lasting emotional freedom.
Part 2: The Active & Passive Harm from a Narcissistic Father
In episode 9 we talked about physical violence and its impact on the pysche long after the bruises have healed.
Let’s continue where we left off.
2. Lack of emotional safety and Intentional infliction of emotional harm.
In any environment, you know there is a lack of emotional safety when you feel like you can’t talk to that person or can’t speak in that situation. There is a mixture of tension and fear that accompanies such an environment.
In childhood when you were younger, you had a natural need to bond with your father and in this type of dynamic where there is fear and tension, you were afraid of who he became and how he acted towards you if you didn’t behave the way he wanted you to.
The second aspect is the intentional infliction of emotional harm. By creating fear and instability using silent treatment, rage or threats of punishment and other means of maintaining control, the child is exposed to cruel emotional punishment for things they do not understand.
When I was very young, my father used silent treatment a lot and that left me wondering what I did wrong and sometimes I just didn’t get it. And there was no recourse, I couldn’t ask him what was wrong because he was unapproachable.
And later, he would start speaking to me again like nothing happened. But no conversations were had regarding why he was upset, what it was that I said that made him upset, or what was the shared learning for me…
So, in this kind of environment, you keep problems and issues under the carpet and keep going until next time. No revisiting, no apology, no conversations, no understanding. Nothing.
When this happens, the child stops herself/himself and starts walking on eggshells, performing, obeying.
In the end without knowing and without intending to, you equate love with conditions, anxiety, having your stomach in knots and emotional instability.
Because in your world love was based on loyalty, performance, obedience, and being a good girl. Approval came when you reflected well on him through loyalty, academically, socially or emotionally.
And the hammer of disapproval came quicky when you challenged his authority.
So, what do daughters of narcissistic fathers need to know about this?
What is the long-term impact of the Lack of emotional safety and Intentional infliction of emotional harm from childhood?
1) Feeling a lack of safety and self-trust.
You always carried this invisible wound of not feeling safe. And to add to that you are healing from a pathological partner and discovering that you had a pathological parent that maybe you never recognized in your upbringing. And that takes the lack of safety to another level.
2) You took on a role that wasn’t your choice so that you could survive in the family.
Your entire life has now been marked by survival. Being self-critical, over responsible. Knowing who you are but also getting mixed signals that who you are is not acceptable.
3) You have a broken radar.
You see green lights when other people see yellow and red lights. It’s like walking with a false detector. You attract relationships from this blueprint that was given to you by your father.
You attract all the emotionally unavailable partners and eventually a narcissistic partner breaks the fantasy of “final love or finally being chosen dream” completely.
4) You have difficulty in breaking up toxic dynamics.
If you are not careful, because of the childhood patterns, (especially if you received cruel emotional punishment in your childhood) it may make it difficult to break up a toxic dynamic.
And that is because you associate pain with love. Love through suffering. Not in a logical conscious way, but in your psyche, those two things are bonded together, and it becomes your task to disentangle them.
5) The feeling of “not enough-ness“
Some people have expressed feeling that they are never enough, not enough to find the right partners or the right partners to pick them. Which leaves a deep wound of emotional loneliness.
6) Guilt and shame —the invisble glue that prevents you from breaking free
There is a sense of guilt and shame that prevents people from naming what they went through or even putting the responsibility for the root cause where it belongs.
7) Emotional suppression —a maladaptive coping mechanism
Because of the lack of tools to handle emotional issues at a young age, it’s easier to suppress emotions in order to survive. And that is emotional dysregulation- being cut off from many parts of you.
How to Reclaim Emotional Stability
You also need to know that your emotions are your guidance system just like you use maps from point A to point B. So, if you cut off your emotions and “take them offline”, you are driving blind and hoping to survive driving from point A to point B.
So, you can become very successful in things that don’t require any emotions (intellectual and logical things) and in relationships because they require emotional bonding and vulnerability, you are blind. There is only one way to get your emotional guidance system online and working properly again.
Through emotional expression, healing and feeling again and eventually find your way to emotional freedom where you feel everything and not judge yourself because then your emotions are your friend. And that’s another episode on its own where we can dive deeper.
So, as you continue on your healing journey, one question to ask yourself from time to time, and in every interaction, “do I feel safe with this person?”
“Do I feel safe in this environment?”
“How does this person make me feel?”
And then feel with the body not the logical mind. If you notice that you can’t feel with the body, then you have some work to do. Feel free to reach out and find out how I can help.
To me, you are so precious. And how do we treat someone or something that’s precious, we treat with care, and we protect it. So, I want to throw this in there off the cuff while we are still talking about emotional safety.
If you ever find yourself opening up too quickly with someone, a stranger, someone you don’t know very well, and hence creating a false sense of emotional safety ask yourself, “Who does this person remind me of”?
And if you haven’t done the inner work, the person you open up to too quickly is usually a boundary crosser, a trojan horse that has bypassed your defenses {for example through laughter and jokes that creates quick rapport that calms your defenses}.
Hopefully you catch yourself before you spill all of yourself to this person, and they start using it against you sooner rather than later. I think that’s another episode on its own.
What Do You Need to Know from This Conversation.
There is so much to take away from this conversation so far. And for the sake of time, I want to point out these two:
- It didn’t start with you. It started at home. And most likely it didn’t start with your father either. This has been going on for generations.
- When it comes to emotional safety, there is only one way to get your emotional guidance system online and working properly again—through emotion expression, healing and feeling again and eventually find your way to emotional freedom where you feel everything and not judge yourself because then your emotions are your friend.
This is a good place to stop for now. Part 3 is coming right up. I break these up so that I am not overwhelmed, and you are not overwhelmed when listening.
I’ll see you in the next one, Part 3 of What Daughters of Narcissistic Fathers Need to Know.
In the meantime, I would love to hear from you, what was the biggest takeaway from this conversation?
And remember, you are precious.
Treat yourself with care.
See you in the next one.